Interesting sighting from 2002 over D.C.

Is anyone familiar with this sighting report? It seems as though it made news on CNN, WTOP, ABC-TV (WJLA in D.C.), and other major news sources.

I'm curious if anyone has any further insight...

It's also interesting that it occured on the 50th anniversary of the famed D.C. sightings of 1952.

Oh.. for those of you who don't mind feeling "dirty", here's a link to the story on Rense.com.

I never have heard about this story.

I can however attest that these Blueish/white balls of light are real , because one flew right up and hovered near my car one night with me and two friends inside.

These type of stories of Fighter Jets giving chase just help to reaffirm my opinion that these are not Government Projects.

And my sighting was in 2002 also.





[edit on 17-11-2005 by lost_shaman]

I too have never heard this one.

I'm going to search for some pictures of this on the net now.

found another report on it, thats about it

www.virtuallystrange.net...

also found this one from the 1952 sightings




[edit on 17-11-2005 by noslenwerd]

Most likely a meteor.
The timing falls right in the middle of the Delta Aquarid and just before the Perseid Meteor showers for 2002.

7/14 eve to 8/19 eve (7/28 peak): Delta Aquarid Meteor Showers.
7/29 eve to 8/17 eve (8/12 peak): Perseid Meteor Showers.

2002 meteor showers

I wondered about that. My thought was that it was a fireball or meteor with a very high metallic content, causing the radar return. Also, given the color and speed reported, it would be consistent with a meteor.

"(The jets) were right on its tail. As the thing would move, a jet was right behind it," Rogers recalls.

That just doesn't jive with the meteor theory.

It does and it doesn't. The jets could have appeared to be on the tail of a meteor, if the meteor was much higher and further from the observer than they realized, making the jets appear to match to speed of the object for a brief period. If the meteor then moved to such a distance that it passed over the horizon at a very high altitude, it would then appear to have moved away very quickly.

I'm not sold on this theory either, but it's a thought. I think it's still somewhat more likely that there was some unidentified aircraft involved.

Unless there's more detail in the eyewitness accounts, however, I can't conclusively rule out a natural phenomena for the cause of the incident. In other words, I'm starting with the assumption that the incident can be explained without the need to resort to some sort of extraterrestrial or secret government craft. A meteor is not out of the question. If it were (and this is why I'm hoping someone on the board knows of information I can't find) then we would have to determine whether any terrestrial craft exist that could explain the sighting.

One thing I note being absent from any reports are the suggestion that the unidentified craft ever changed course, whether in response to the jet interceptors or at all.

Even the media reports described them as UFOs. Obviously not meteors.

[edit on 17-11-2005 by Unplugged]

Sorry for the double post, but something else that strikes me about sightings in the D.C. area is something I've learned from being a news-radio junkie and living here for the last 15 years.... what I've learned is that there are A LOT of military, government, and ex-military people in this area. When there's something strange in the sky, someone with knowledge of the explanation is on the phone to the radio station in a heartbeat and the situation gets explained. Not only that, there is a tremendous number of extremely intelligent people in this area and the area is extremely densely populated.

It's nearly impossible for something to appear in the skies over this area and not be noticed and explained by someone with an intimate knowledge of either science or aircraft (or both). So, when a sighting from only three years ago remains unexplained, it's quite tantalizing. In fact, given that the local news radio station has what seems like an open-line to NORAD, NASA, and enough college professors to corner the world's tweed supply, it's VERY hard to imagine that someone at NORAD didn't tell them straight-away that the object in question was a meteor. I'm not sure, but that in itself is rather compelling evidence that this sighting cannot be attributed to any natural phenomena.

Originally posted by Centrist
It does and it doesn't. The jets could have appeared to be on the tail of a meteor, if the meteor was much higher and further from the observer than they realized, making the jets appear to match to speed of the object for a brief period. If the meteor then moved to such a distance that it passed over the horizon at a very high altitude, it would then appear to have moved away very quickly.

You really think that trained air force pilots are going to mistake a meteor for an actual craft of some sort? I doubt that.

Not trying to sound rude but I just don't see how that could happen.

I'm not saying that the pilots did, nor would I believe that they did. All of the actual reports in the stories, however, are from observers on the ground. All the military said was that the jets were scrambled.

Suppose the jets scrambled, went to the point where the radar return was located, then headed back to base. From the standpoint of the observer, the jets may appear to be chasing the object, but were in reality a great distance from it.

Now... do I actually believe that the object that showed a radar return and caused the jets to scramble was a meteor? No. Uh uh. Nyet. Non. Ixna on the eteorma! I am merely trying to eliminate natural phenomena from the realm of possibilities.

Most likely, however, this cannot be done with 100% assurance, except when I consider that the speed of the object (if it was a meteor) would have caused it to traverse the region in a matter of seconds. In other words, it would have caused a blip on the radar and been gone just as fast. I do not believe that there's any way that the thing could have caused a radar return and still been in the area when the jets arrived to investigate.

However, sometimes stories get skewed. Eyewitness testimony is never completely reliable. So, I'm trying to sort through all of the evidence to determine whether there's any chance that this can be attributed to natural phenomena. After all, Ufologists look awfully stupid when they proclaim that a sighting can only be explained by the the unexplainable, only to have the sighting easily attributed to a natural or other earthly phenomena.



[edit on 18-11-2005 by Centrist]