A Multiple Witness CE1 in Wright County, MN:  August 1997

Filed with MUFON by Craig R. Lang, MS CHt

 

Type of Report:  Multiple Witness Close Flyby - CE1

MUFON Worldwide UFO Database Entry# 1-962-MN

Date of Report:  04 April, 2002.  [Revised 06 August, 2002]

Investigator:   Craig R. Lang, Field Investigator, MN MUFON

Date/Time of Sighting:  08 August, 1997 – Approximately 9:00 PM CDT

Place of Sighting:  Approximately three miles east of Howard Lake in Wright County, MN

Traveling westbound on US Hwy 12 detour, south of main highway [actual road is uncertain, either 70^th St (1  mile south of US12) or County Hwy 30 (5 miles south of US12)].

Local Evaluation: CE1 Unexplained.

 

Sighting Background

The sighting was by four witnesses: A mother (the primary witness), her two children, and her niece. 

 

I was put in contact with the primary witness through Bob Schultz, of Minnesota MUFON, who is a mutual friend.  I then contacted her and interviewed her and her two children.  The fourth witness (the niece) now lives in Europe.  I have mailed her a sighting form and this report will be updated if/when I obtain the fourth witness report.

 

Witness Description

The witnesses are a mother, her niece and her two daughters.  At the time of the sighting, the mother was age 33, the daughters were ages 6 and 7, and the niece was age 15.  

 

All witnesses describe their health and hearing as excellent.  The mother has minor visual astigmatism and wears glasses, correcting her vision to 20/20.  She was wearing her glasses at the time of the sighting.  The vision of all others is either uncorrected 20/20 or correctable to 20/20.  There do not appear to be any health effects related to the sighting.

 

The mother is very interested in both UFO and metaphysical topics.  The family has indicated no other major UFO-related or anomalous experiences.  However, the mother has indicated one other possible sighting by both her and her husband.

 

Sighting Account

The witnesses were driving to their family cabin in central, Minnesota, and were traveling west bound, in their car at about 9PM CDT, on August 8, 2000.  They were approximately three miles west of the town of Howard Lake, Minnesota, on County Hwy 13 (detour of US Hwy 12).  The mother was driving, her 15 year old niece was in the front passenger seat, and her two daughters were in the back seat.  She noted that the road was busier than usual, and that traffic was moving slowly on this detour route

 

The mother observed what seemed to be lights ahead of them, apparently aiming at them.  She initially felt that they seemed like aircraft, and also observed that there was no noise present, beyond that from the car’s travel.  Curious, she slowed the car and observed them.  As they approached, she noticed that what was previously visible only as lights, now resolved into disks. 

 

She noted that the car in front of theirs had pulled over to the side of the road, and that other cars seemed to have slowed down as well.  She pulled their car off to the side of the road as well, and opened the car windows to watch the objects.  Nobody said anything as they watched the objects approach.  They saw the object(s) come from the west (anti-parallel to their path), then swoop to the south, away from the road, passing behind nearby trees and out of sight.

 

  

Figure 1  Object path as drawn by mother [CL annotation]

As they watched, the mother initially thought that they were some form of experimental craft, and then decided that they had to be unidentified objects.  Once she realized that the objects were UFOs, she describes her reaction as one of amazement.  

 

She estimated that the objects moved at approximately the speed of cars on the highway, somewhat faster than the cars in the oncoming lane [CL Note: 60 +/- 10 MPH?].  She noted that although passing quite close to them, the objects appeared to make no noise.  She notes that there were no other aircraft visible during the time of the sighting.  At closest approach, the objects were on the order of one or so blocks distant from them. 

Once the lights were lost behind the trees, they resumed driving, pulling out onto the road.  At this time, the other cars that had either pulled off or briefly slowed down now began to resume their normal speed.

 

The witnesses arrived at their cabin at the expected time, indicating that no apparent missing time occurred [CL Note: See 8/6/02 followup note at the conclusion of this report].

 

Object Description:

The mother and her niece, both in the front seat observed three objects (Note: The children in the back seat both describe seeing only one object) traveling about 70 feet above the ground.  Their movement appeared to be smooth to swooping, as they shifted their path to the south.  There was no apparent rotation to the objects, with two bright lights on each object always pointing in their direction of travel.  They appeared to be dark metallic with a lighter turquoise color to their central region. 

 

Figure 2: Mother's drawing of objects [CL Annotation]

 

 

The objects moved in a triangular formation, with one object being lower, and the other two being slightly above.  The lower object was about 70 feet above the ground.

Mother’s description of objects’ size:   about 30 - 40 m in diameter.  

Description by Daughters:

Each of the daughters observed only one object.  The six year old daughter was in the left seat (closest to the object), looking out the rear window.  [CL Note: she indicated she was on the right, but this was as looking backwards].  She observed the object to be as follows:

Figure 3  Bottom view of object drawn by youngest daughter [CL Annotation]

She was also apparently able to observe some detail of the top of the object as it receded, drawing it as follows:

Figure 4 Top structure (estimated top view) as seen by youngest daughter [CL Annotation]

The six-year old daughter described the size of the object as about the size of the moon

[CL Note: Moon size is often overestimated, suggesting that these were pretty large objects - CL Est.: Apparent Moon width due to optical illusion is often subjectively given as two fingers’ width at arm’s length]. 

The seven year old daughter was in the right seat, also looking backwards out the rear window.  She observed the object to be as follows:

 

Figure 5 older daughter bottom view of object [CL Annotation]

 

She described the object as being round, gray in color, with red lights on the side and non-blinking green lights in the interior.  There was a rectangular feature in the center which glowed with a light green color. 

 

This witness described the object as being "bigger than an airplane, only round."  

 

CL Note: It is notable that the daughters each observed only one object, while the mother observed three.  They felt that this might have been due to the two upper objects being obscured from the daughters’ view by the car roof.  Both daughters and the mother each drew slightly differing depictions of the object(s), with somewhat different lighting configurations, etc.  However the overall configuration of the object as seen by all was similar in all cases.

Additional Witnesses: 

There were four witnesses in the car, one of whom now lives in Germany and has not been available for an interview.  In addition, there were numerous cars on the highway at that time, some of which apparently pulled off to watch the object.  So the number of additional witnesses is probably quite high.  However, none of these additional witnesses are known at this time.

 

Weather Conditions:

    The primary witness describes the weather at the time of the sighting as being clear and warm. 

    Weather Info  for 8 Aug, 1997 (obtained 10 Jan, 2000) from MN State Climatologist’s Office:

          Temperature: 71 deg F.    Dew Pt: 59 deg F.

          Wind 13 MPH from 170 deg (10 deg East of due south)

          No clouds with unlimited (10 Mi+) visibility

 

Analysis:

The size of the object can be estimated as follows:

Assume a size of three finger-width (or about two inches, estimated from illusory size of moon) at arms’ length (25 inches).  This gives a 2 to 25 width to distance ratio.  If we assume that the object was one block away (500 feet) at its closest approach, this gives a diameter of approximately 40 feet.  This would be a reasonable size for an artificial craft, but roughly a factor of two smaller than the mother’s estimate of at least 30 m (approximately 90 ft)

 

Explanatory Phenomena Check:

No natural phenomenon that I am aware of would explain this event

 

The witness considered the possibility of aircraft, either small commercial, or experimental of some type.  The lack of sound and the apparent low altitude both argue against this explanation.  Also, the witnesses observed the objects in considerable detail.  Their descriptions do not match any known aircraft.

 

An unknown experimental aircraft must be considered.  However this also seems unlikely due to the lack of noise, etc.  The possibility of the objects being a helicopter or other human-made hovering vehicle must also be considered.  However, this is not consistent with the drawings of all three witnesses from whom we have reports.

 

Sighting Evaluation:

CE1, Multiple-Witness, Unexplained

 

CL Followup Note – 06 August, 2002:  During a subsequent conversation with the primary witness, she informed me that she actually did arrive late at her cabin.  Another family member pointed this out to her upon reading this report.  At this time, the duration of the delay and the corresponding implications are not known.