Can anyone explain this? UFO sighting and military jet flies over right after..

Okay so, this had me majorly freaked out the other night.. First, I'd like to start off with a background before I tell my story.

The town that I live in is in the foothills of the Berkshires. The area is largely unpopulated, and the skies above are not usually frequented by aircraft. This is, of course, with the exception of a random cessna here and there, as well as the very rare appearance of military jets from the nearby Barnes Airport, which is ~10 miles away. This airport is small, but has an F-15 ANG squadron stationed there.

Now before any of you go and dismiss this sighting as an F-15, I'd like to say that, with my father being in the aeronautical business, I have been around airports and airplanes my whole life. I can tell specific aircraft just by the sound of their engine(s). This includes civilian and military aircraft.

Anyways, on to the story! This happened on March 29, which was last Tuesday. It was about 9:30pm (-5 GMT) and I was alone and on my way home from McDonalds. The area I was driving through is notorious for UFO sightings, a few of which have been written about in the town's newsletter. Whenever I drive through that part at night, I'm always watching the sky for anything unusual. And something unusual is what I happened to see...
I was approaching a valley that goes between two hills, when, above one of the hills, I saw a slightly orange-ish "ball" of light. It moved across the horizon, going from the south to the north. This image (which is from Google Maps) shows the path of the orange light (A -> B) as well as where my car was (a -> b). When I first noticed the light, I was at 'a' and it was at 'A', and when I lost sight of it, I was at 'b' and it was at 'B'. I also threw a compass up in the picture to show the direction of it. Now I would have dismissed this light as a plane, but it was very far away (the orange dot under the orange arrow shows the approximate size of the light as it appeared to me), and it was moving very fast. Fast enough to get from A to B in the time it took me (going ~50mph) to get from a to b. I didn't even think to slow down before I got to the curve and treeline.. that's how fast this all happened.

Now, this may seem like a regular everyday 'UFO but probably an airplane' sighting, except for two facts.
1. Like I said above, I've been around airplanes my entire life. They do not move as fast as what I saw. And they do not look anything like what I saw. I know what a plane looks like at night, and this wasn't a plane.
2. This is where it gets weird - the part that really freaked me out. I got home around 5-6 minutes later, and as I was getting out of my car, heard a really loud jet. From the sound, I quickly identified it as an F-15. When I looked up, I was shocked to see that it was flying incredibly low. Low as in somewhere around 1000 feet and I could make out the vivid shape of it. As I stated earlier, I live in the foothills of the Berkshires, and this is not somewhere you want to be flying low at night. It is very hilly, and there are antennas on top of a lot of the hills. Planes just don't fly that low around here. Now, not only was it flying really low, but it was also flying very slow, and as it was flying over it completely shut all of its lights off. I could just barely make out the outline of it. I've never seen a plane do something like this. The training grounds for the airport are 25-30 miles north of where I am, on the other side of the airport, so it couldn't have been any kind of training.

Could this have been reconnaissance? The airport may have picked up whatever the orange light was and scrambled jets to lay low and just keep an eye on it in case it did anything.
I've been thinking about this for the last week, and that is the only explanation I can think of as to why a fighter would behave so oddly. Does anyone have any other ideas? Or experiences like this? And would 5-6 minutes be sufficient time to scramble an F-15 and travel 10 miles? Oh, and the F-15 was headed in the same direction as this light.

Sorry for the wall of text. tl;dr: I saw a UFO and an F-15 6 minutes later .

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated.

Your name really doesn't give me any merit to your story bud....Sorry

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein


Wow. If I based my opinions of people's threads on their names here, well... lets just say I wouldn't believe most of them.

reply to post by MrFake


While it's still so vividly fresh in your memory (seems at the time you wrote the OP) you should commit more of it to paper, and consider a formal filing with MUFON. It would help to have the available resources of many to look into the military activity that evening, for one thing. AND, to see if your sighting was also reported by any others in the vicinity.

A clearing house like MUFON would pull all those disparate elements together, maybe better than a single investigation on your own.

Same type of thing happened to me over a year ago. saw a ufo, then lights started coming towards us, flashed out car headlights, and a military jet changed its course to fly directly over us lower than Ive ever seen a jet fly.

and I live in Canada... we don't have many jets to spare lol.

I saw two orange orbs low on the horizon outside my north-facing picture window which were very low (maybe 1000 feet?) and oriented where they'd have been above the river. I watched them just hovering for while, called for another pair of eyes to look at it, which also saw it.

The two orbs moved slowly toward and away from one another - then one flew off to the west, and then the other. No noise that I could hear - and I live under a major flight path near a "hub" airport.

I did report it to the UFO Reporting website. It occurred around new year's day.

Also - check out www.nationalufocenter.com... Filer's Files - he's a retired Major in the AF who has devoted his time to creating a digest of info on this sort of phenomenon.

I believe you, man, your user name notwithstanding.

reply to post by MrFake


What part of the Berkshires? I used to live in North Adams/Adams, MA - beautiful out there!

Ok, now on to the post...my friend grew up in this area and has told me some stories of weird things that he has seen or observed there...No alien stuff, so I will not get into it...but yeah, there is some weird stuff out that way

MMS

reply to post by MrFake


I understand that but you are telling a story based on nothing and your name is Mr Fake?? What does that say to someone?? No pics, nothing to support your claim and yet.....Never mind moving on

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
reply to post by MrFake

 

I understand that but you are telling a story based on nothing and your name is Mr Fake?? What does that say to someone?? No pics, nothing to support your claim and yet.....Never mind moving on

give the guy a break theres people on this site with names like "disinfoagent"

Originally posted by OUNjahhryn

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
reply to post by MrFake

 

I understand that but you are telling a story based on nothing and your name is Mr Fake?? What does that say to someone?? No pics, nothing to support your claim and yet.....Never mind moving on

give the guy a break theres people on this site with names like "disinfoagent"

Yeah you got a point. But man it just is burnt into my mind while reading you know Not like it means anything I know but that tells you a little about character of the person. I mean no offense OP or anyone for that matter.

Originally posted by wildtimes
I saw two orange orbs low on the horizon outside my north-facing picture window which were very low (maybe 1000 feet?) and oriented where they'd have been above the river. I watched them just hovering for while, called for another pair of eyes to look at it, which also saw it.

The two orbs moved slowly toward and away from one another - then one flew off to the west, and then the other. No noise that I could hear - and I live under a major flight path near a "hub" airport.

I did report it to the UFO Reporting website. It occurred around new year's day.

Also - check out www.nationalufocenter.com... Filer's Files - he's a retired Major in the AF who has devoted his time to creating a digest of info on this sort of phenomenon.

I believe you, man, your user name notwithstanding.

Did they move in a sort of zig zag pattern? I saw two red orbs. Very strange to say the least.

Originally posted by MrFake
Okay so, this had me majorly freaked out the other night.. First, I'd like to start off with a background before I tell my story.

The town that I live in is in the foothills of the Berkshires. The area is largely unpopulated, and the skies above are not usually frequented by aircraft. This is, of course, with the exception of a random cessna here and there, as well as the very rare appearance of military jets from the nearby Barnes Airport, which is ~10 miles away. This airport is small, but has an F-15 ANG squadron stationed there.

Now before any of you go and dismiss this sighting as an F-15, I'd like to say that, with my father being in the aeronautical business, I have been around airports and airplanes my whole life. I can tell specific aircraft just by the sound of their engine(s). This includes civilian and military aircraft.

Anyways, on to the story! This happened on March 29, which was last Tuesday. It was about 9:30pm (-5 GMT) and I was alone and on my way home from McDonalds. The area I was driving through is notorious for UFO sightings, a few of which have been written about in the town's newsletter. Whenever I drive through that part at night, I'm always watching the sky for anything unusual. And something unusual is what I happened to see...
I was approaching a valley that goes between two hills, when, above one of the hills, I saw a slightly orange-ish "ball" of light. It moved across the horizon, going from the south to the north. This image (which is from Google Maps) shows the path of the orange light (A -> B) as well as where my car was (a -> b). When I first noticed the light, I was at 'a' and it was at 'A', and when I lost sight of it, I was at 'b' and it was at 'B'. I also threw a compass up in the picture to show the direction of it. Now I would have dismissed this light as a plane, but it was very far away (the orange dot under the orange arrow shows the approximate size of the light as it appeared to me), and it was moving very fast. Fast enough to get from A to B in the time it took me (going ~50mph) to get from a to b. I didn't even think to slow down before I got to the curve and treeline.. that's how fast this all happened.

Now, this may seem like a regular everyday 'UFO but probably an airplane' sighting, except for two facts.
1. Like I said above, I've been around airplanes my entire life. They do not move as fast as what I saw. And they do not look anything like what I saw. I know what a plane looks like at night, and this wasn't a plane.
2. This is where it gets weird - the part that really freaked me out. I got home around 5-6 minutes later, and as I was getting out of my car, heard a really loud jet. From the sound, I quickly identified it as an F-15. When I looked up, I was shocked to see that it was flying incredibly low. Low as in somewhere around 1000 feet and I could make out the vivid shape of it. As I stated earlier, I live in the foothills of the Berkshires, and this is not somewhere you want to be flying low at night. It is very hilly, and there are antennas on top of a lot of the hills. Planes just don't fly that low around here. Now, not only was it flying really low, but it was also flying very slow, and as it was flying over it completely shut all of its lights off. I could just barely make out the outline of it. I've never seen a plane do something like this. The training grounds for the airport are 25-30 miles north of where I am, on the other side of the airport, so it couldn't have been any kind of training.

Could this have been reconnaissance? The airport may have picked up whatever the orange light was and scrambled jets to lay low and just keep an eye on it in case it did anything.
I've been thinking about this for the last week, and that is the only explanation I can think of as to why a fighter would behave so oddly. Does anyone have any other ideas? Or experiences like this? And would 5-6 minutes be sufficient time to scramble an F-15 and travel 10 miles? Oh, and the F-15 was headed in the same direction as this light.

Sorry for the wall of text. tl;dr: I saw a UFO and an F-15 6 minutes later

.

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated.

Sure it was an F-15? Yes this was most likely military surveillance of the objects. This also means that they somehow have an advanced detection system these days for such craft. I guess our radar capabilities are a lot sharper today. It still begs the question though. If we have been dealing with these craft for easily seven decades now why do we still scramble jets when we know interception is in most cases extremely futile.

reply to post by MarshMallow_Snake


Southwick, MA is the town I saw this in. There are a few videos on youtube of UFOs in Southwick, though I'm not 100% sure they're legitimate.

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
reply to post by MrFake

 

I understand that but you are telling a story based on nothing and your name is Mr Fake?? What does that say to someone?? No pics, nothing to support your claim and yet.....Never mind moving on

Yes, please, keep on moving. Unless you can give me a way to prove my credibility to you (and the rest of ATS for that matter). As a new poster and old-time reader, I figured there'd be at least a few people who wouldn't believe me. Also, how 'bout you tell me how I can take a picture or anything else while I'm driving, and have nothing on hand but my iPhone (which would not pick up the orange light if I tried). The only evidence I have is my story - either trust it or don't. I have nothing to proof this is true, and you have nothing to prove this is false.

Originally posted by d00d557
Sure it was an F-15? Yes this was most likely military surveillance of the objects. This also means that they somehow have an advanced detection system these days for such craft. I guess our radar capabilities are a lot sharper today. It still begs the question though. If we have been dealing with these craft for easily seven decades now why do we still scramble jets when we know interception is in most cases extremely futile.

I'm 100% sure. The sound is very distinct to me. Even more so than other military jets because these are constantly flying over the college I attend, which is near the airport. Also, the shape of it that I saw before it shut its lights off confirmed that it was an F-15.