A Navy Chief Petty Officer claims to have witnessed something unknown in the skies near Greenwood, Indiana.
On Wednesday night, October 1, 1997, between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m., C.S.T. a "senior enlisted man" working at the Naval Reserve Station in Indianapolis, Indiana, saw what he believed to be a UFO. He is a Vietnam and Gulf War veteran, and was twice interviewed on October 4 and 5 regarding the sighting.
It was from his vantage point on the outskirts of Indianapolis (city of Greenwood, Johnson County), that the man (who has requested anonymity) witnessed the aerial anomaly that he could not identify. He was looking to the south-east and a brightly-lit object 75 to 80-degrees in the sky caught his attention.
The object looked like a star at first but continued to grow in intensity, until it reached an extremely intense "pure white" state which lasted about 15 seconds.
"After that, the object grew dimmer as it appeared to move up and away from my view until it finally was lost from my sight," he said.
The Petty Officer drew the comparison to a construction-site light, the high-intensity lights that road construction crews use to light their work areas with at night.
He added that there is a small airpark near there, and planes were conducting "touch and go" maneuvers at the time, but categorically discounted any possibility that this air traffic would have caused the spectacle reported. The air park was located to the northeast of the viewing area and the type of planes located there could not possibly have attained the attitude acquired by what was viewed.
When asked if the object could have been a missile, he said that he witnessed the object in the sky, and did not see the object near ground or any indications of a launch, so he could not speculate on any missile possibilities. There was no visible trail or audible jet noise. He could not determine how near to his position the object could have been.
When asked of his familiarity with flares utilized by the military, he replied that he is very knowledgeable on the current inventory of military flares and has viewed many during his career.
At the time of his sighting, the sky was dark and visibility was clear, with no moon.
When asked if he had previous sightings, he said that in May of 1985 in Kansas, he had seen a meteor flash through the sky that impressed him.
On Friday, October 3, he placed a phone call to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on his own initiative, seeking to report the sighting.
NOTE: On October 1, Space Shuttle Atlantis was docked with the Mir Space Station and was exceptionally bright and visible over the west coast of the United States at approximately 8:25 pm Pacific time, headed on a northeasterly path. However, it does not appear likely that the Shuttle/Mir spacecraft would account for the Petty Officer's sighting.
Original file name: CNI - Indiana UFO.TASK.final
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