Florida UFO Sightings in 1978

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round object-big as about 5 hot air-realy big-- ballons-lights-windows-saw people aboard-spectators My mother and I were travelling in the outskirts of Tampa, Fla------one evening-daylight-6:00pm?-summer, clear weather---hot, Tampa summer--------were in orange grove rural area-----mother was a salesman-------I was riding with her on an appointment-----I was late teens---- she was late 30's------------we were in the car-----saw a huge object------dark blue with an orange glow within------the glow was clearly from windows------we could see people, or whatever, inside------it was almost like a tourist thing----that was my impression.-----some of them waved--and seemed to be talking excitedly to each other --and seemed excited to see us------we lost track of the object several times------and tried to follow it with the car--it seemed friendly, the craft, not menacing---it seemed to float like a baloon in a lot of respects--no sound-----it came within about 50 feet of the ground at one point-----it was so huge that it almost seemed to have it's own gravity----or electricity----it floated like a baloon-----but it seemed to zoom up into a diminishing perspective very easily, like floating----it did this several times during the sighting it seemed very much metallic------and not like a plane, more like a baloon------my mother and I didn't really speak of this in any detail while it was happening----except to try to keep it in sight and follow it with the car--------there was a time loss of about three hours-----near the end of the sighting------I recall becoming aware of my surroundings standing by the car---we were in an orange grove-----not sure how the car got there, my mother was walking out of the row of orange trees--------dazed-----I was too-----we just got in the car and went home without talking----once home we decided to write seperate accounts of what we had witnessed----- they were identical------except that she was apparently abducted during the time loss---as far as I know I was not abducted------my mother has no real memory of what happened if she was abducted-------just of being alone in a srtrange place-----before my time loss I remember the craft zoomng straight up into the evening sky to a very pin-point, and then being gone. I am not entirely sure how this may be related to black helicopter sightings that have occured to various members of my family in the Charlotte area since the sighting described.

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This incident is my very first of two in my lifetime I have witnessed and happened when I was 18 which was a little more than 30 years ago, but will stay with me and my 2 brothers forever. Me and my 2 brothers were heading back home from playing tennis in a small town about 12-15 minutes from where we lived. We were heading due west on county road 318 into a small town called Flemington Florida, SW of Gainesville Florida approximately 20 miles.

My 17 year old brother was driving his Impala down a slight hill and I was in the passenger seat and for some odd reason was looking to my left, which is the driver's side and seen a large oval bright white object heading in a south to north direction which would have put it directly in front of my brother's car. I said to both my brother's look look what is it? Nobody knew, so I told my brother to pull over to the shoulder of the road and he did hesitantly. The car was still running and in park, as the object go closer he said I am leaving, and I said no I want to see what this is, I than grabbed the keys out of the ignition put them in my hand, got out of the car and sat on the hood of the car while this object came closer and closer.

It was oval shaped, no lights, but a very bright white glow that did not hurt your eyes. By this time it was moving right over the front of the car at a very slow rate of speed, and was absolutely quiet. I would estimate the object was about 100 feet in diameter and it nearly directly over us and I could hear my brother saying lets get out of here.

My response to him was why if they wanted to do anything to us we couldn't do anything about it anyway. So while I was sitting on the hood looking at this thing I had a really weird feeling that they knew everything about me. It's hard to explain.

So then after a few more minutes as it started going away from the car to the north of us I noticed it higher in the sky and in a blinking of an eye it flew off. It was a clear evening right around twilight when all this happened!. We finally got home about 5 minutes later and I remember the first thing my mother said as my 17 year old brother walked into the house (my god you look like you have seen a ghost).

((NUFORC Note: Source of report indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD)).

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Nightmare of UFO attack preceds actual UFO sightings by 24 hours, coincidence? I recently obtained my first computer and have spent the last couple of months learning how to use it. I have also recently discoverd coasttocoast on am radio and have been listing to it nearly every night. Some of the stories we hear on it have brought back a flood of memories to my wife and I.

I have two stories which occurred about 24 hours apart. I don't know if they are somehow related or just coincidence. I think it's important to relay that I am a G.

I. Brat who was raised on Air Force Bases throughout the US as well as Germany and England. Shortly after high school I joined the Air Force where I was trained as an Air Traffic Controller.

After leaving the service, my girl friend (now my wife of 26 years) and I took a trip from Ohio to Florida. While in route to Florida we stopped to spend the night in my van. During the wee morning hours of Aug 26, 1978, I recall having the scariest most vivid nightmare of my entire life.

I woke up screaming at the top of my lungs, scaring my girlfriend of two weeks to death. For years I could recall in vivid detail the majority of the nightmare. But now, two and a half decades later, I can only remember bits and pieces.

I can recall running and hiding in the ruins of city buildings, dodging ray like beams which were fired from numerous disc shaped craft hovering over the city. I don't remember seeing any movies prior to this dream that might have led to it, but since the dream, I've seen many war of the world type movies that always bring back little flashes of my nightmare. My wife says I screamed for a long time after my dream, and even after I stopped, it took me quite a while to completely wake up and overcome the dream induced fear that took quite a few minutes to shake.

I remained shaken all the next day as we drove the rest of the way to Florida. The first thing we wanted to do was see the beach. So, at about 3 AM on Aug 27, 1978, we were laying on our backs in the sand on St.

Pete Beach. It was a beautiful totally clear night and we noted that the stars never looked so bright in Ohio. A bright star caught my attention as it seemed to get brighter and bigger over a couple of minutes period.

We were trying to decide rather it was actually an airplane or if our eyes were just tricking us for starring so long. It seemed to be at least five times larger than any other star in the sky, then it started. It seemed like a normal size star had emerged from the larger one, then another.

At this point they had our undivided attention. The smaller ones darted back and forth in erratic fashion for several minutes then darted off faster than any aircraft that I have ever seen before or since. We talked about what we had just seen when several more darted out of what we were now calling the mother ship, and in like fashion darted around occasional disappearing as though they had gone back inside, zipping off into the distance etc.

As best we can remember there were between 6 to 8 lights that we watched come and go in no particular combinations. Sometimes only one at a time sometimes groups of mixed numbers. We watched in amazement for twenty minutes or more.

We can't recall rather or not any or all of the little lights had retuned to the big one, because what happend next kind of made what we had been watching insignificant. The largest light hovering over Tampa Bay was obviously getting bigger and bigger and seemed to be comming in our direction. What once looked like the largest star in the sky soon became the size of a dime at arms length, then a quarter.

As it grew larger it turned to a bright reddish orange. By this time we were on our feet and my girlfriend was tugging on my arm trying to get me to leave. It was at about this point that the quarter size light which seemed to be miles out to sea accelerated so quickly that in a matter of a couple of seconds it was directly overhead and appeared larger than the sun in the sky.

The beach lit up as though it was high noon as it soared over us. At this point I had no choice but to run as my girlfriend was already heading for the van. We did'nt have far to run, but by the time we got in the van, the light had disappeared inland over St Pete.

We argued over rather or not to leave for less than a minute, then we could see the reddish orange ball returning in our direction very rapidly. As one of us was now screaming bloody murder and jumping up and down, I thru it into drive and sped away. There is absoluteley no doubt in our minds that we saw an extremeley large space craft which sent out a half dozen or so scout ships to explore the area over Tampa Bay and the city of St Pete Fl.

What we are unsure of is rather or not the nightmare the night before and the actual sightings are somehow connected.

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Late summer night drive in August 1978, heading east across Alligator Alley, sometime after midnight I experienced several unusual telepathic moments leading up to seeing a gorgeous blue silver disk hovering behind my 1973 green 4 door Fiat which was about to breakdown. I was visiting friends near Naples, FL, and due to some relationship problems between the couple I was visiting, I felt it best to leave about 10 hours earlier than planned so they could work out their problems. I quickly packed my things, said good bye, and headed for Alligator Alley - straight shot through south Florida - right over to I-95 outside Ft.

Lauderdale and head back to Brevard County. About forty minutes into my trip across AA, I started thinking about how incredibly dark and peaceful the everglades were - and noisy - no AC in my $1200 car so I heard what I presumed were big bull frogs serenading the crickets and locusts. I thought it might be better to not think about the late night noises and figured some tunes would be good.

Well the only station I could get was WABC in New York. how does that happen in southwest Florida in 1978? Then the next three songs that entered my head were the next songs played by the DJ.hmmmm interesting - then I started thinking about safety again and thought oh I have plenty of gas.

no worries as I simultaneously recalled pulling my wallet on the back of Teri's toilet while I dug my brush out of my purse and left my wallet lay on the toilet when I left. What a bad time to think remember that but not to worry - I always keep mat money for emergencies. Doesn't everyone keep 10-20 bucks under the car mat just in case.

so I was still ok. and then I thought the unthinkable - what if I have car trouble - I am so out of luck. but I decided not to worry about that since I had not seen another vehicle since I got on AA going in either direction and the weather was hot and clear.

And then I grabbed on to the steering wheel for dear life as I felt the Fiat swerve as the left rear tire blew out on Alligator Alley. As I careened forward trying to stay on the road and out of the everglades I noticed for the first time the beautiful blueish silver disk shaped craft hovering behind my car probably! at about 40 feet off the ground. I was very concerned about the animals and nature and decide not to move from the car.

I had my school notebook behind my seat and started to write a note to my sister ((name deleted)) thinking I was probably not going to see her again even though Ted Bundy was back in prison after his last escape.I sat there for 45 -2 hours but I was frozen in time and it was still hovering. It was closer to my car some of the time but I was not turning around as I was trying not to move.

Eventually I saw it glide parallel to the water/road and dart up and glide in a very rigid manner until it was gone. I saw headlights coming from the west and put my emergency lights on and jumped out of the car and flagged down a dude - said he was a dr. or something in Ft.

lauderdale. It turned out that my spare was no good and he kindly took me to an Indian mechanic to get what was needed to change my tire and get me back on the road. He was a saint.

(Thank you if you happen to read this!) ((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD)).

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Summary : My sister and I were takeing the garbage cansup the driveway one summer night. Three white glowing ojects in triangular formation flew overus. Their angular size was slightly larger thanan US quarter held at arm's length.

It should be noted that the date I gave above could be up to 2 months inaccurate since it wasquite a while ago.I am presently a mechanical engineering student.So far I haven't come across anything in my studies which would explain what I saw, except the slight posibility of ball lightening.

I first spotted the objects when they were approximately35 degrees above the southwestern horizon. The flew nearly overhead toward the northeast. They had an angular sizesomewhat larger than a quarter, there was no wayto tell the actual size.

I got the impression that they were distant because I couldn't discern any surface details.Their shape was most likely spherical, since the shape of their profile remained roughly spherical for the duration of the time I saw it.There were three of them, each on the vertex of anequilateral triangle with sides about twice as longas the diameter of the objects.

They glowed almostpure white with just a touch of bluish-purple. Theymade a soft very high pitched sound like anultrasonic cleaner used for cleaning draftingpens. I didn't notice any thermal radiation.

Our horses which were in the front pasture werespooked by them as were my sister and I. (I wasabout 10 or 11 and my sister 4 years younger)I was facinated by them, but frightened to thepoint that I couldn't move for about 20 seconds.When I did move I ran home.

If I had to guess their actual size, I'd saythey were 20 to 50 meters in diameter. Theiris the possibility that they exerted a force onme, but that was most likely my stomach jumpingin excitement.If I have the time and skill, I'll try to emaila drawing of what I saw.

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Formation of orbs daytime chased by fighter jets over beach in New Symrna Florida 1978. On this day at 2:30 pm., a couple of friends of mine were walking to the beach on the board walk north of town to beach.

When from space it seemed a formation of flashing light drop down in front of us and begain flashing. They looked orb like and moved from one side of the horizon to the other then back agian flashing hypnoticly and moving very fast. They were very many people watching as well from the beach.

My friend and I were very shocked to see such a thing and were very elliated. then about 15mn into this light show of flashing orbs we heard a sonic boom,we look to or right to see 2 jet fighters flying at mock speed to intercept these orbs. It was the first time I have seen a jet break the sound barrier! As soon as the jets got close to these orbs they shot strate up into space where we saw three red lights in the form of a delta! The jets continued flying around in circles looking for the orbs.

the strange thing about this was lack of any coverage in the news but people talked about it in town for a while. Have never seen a report to date. ((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate.

PD)).

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Five bright, round, white lights in formation were seen, three together and two together, but then they suddenly disappeared. I was sitting on a boat in the middle of a small lake at night, with the boat light off, and my boyfriend and I noticed five round white lights high up in the nighttime sky. They were in formation---three together, and two together.

They seemed to be stationery, but could have been moving (they were very high). We watched for a few minutes, amazed, then turned the light on in the boat. Suddenly, two disappeared.

then the other three! It seemed as though they had noticed that we were there, watching them, and decided to take off. But they didn't seem to fly off----the round lights just totally disappeared. This account is my best recollection.

I was in my late teens, I believe. We were not under the influence of any alcohol or drugs. I am sorry--I do not know the exact year, or time of night (I only approximated.

) ((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that date of incident is approximate. PD)).

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Personal confirmation that UFOs cloak themselves and could be in our skies at any given time of day or night. Around the age of 14, I was across the street from my house, in a vacant lot. I was picking up rocks and hitting them with a beat-up baseball bat.

I bent over to pick up a rock and I noticed a shadow moving directly between my legs. It was a triangular formation of 6 perfectly round circles moving at about 5 mph. Shocked to see such a shadow, I looked up to see what was in the sky above me.

There was nothing (no birds, no clouds, no planes; the sky was all blue and they weren't sunspots because I was not looking up until that point). I started to follow the shadow, looking back & forth from ground to sky. I followed it for about 20 yards until the end of the property.

This was not my imagination, nor was I under any influence. These objects were casting a perfect shadow on the ground, but were totally invisible to the naked eye. I felt it was important to send you this because I've never heard of anyone reporting such an occurance, although I have heard speculations & reports on UFOs disappearing and then reappearing in a different spot.

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A unidentified erratically flying object spotted at night in the Florida Keys in the late seventies It was late one night, when my mom, dad, childhood friend and I were making one of hundreds of trips up the Florida Keys From Key West back in the late 70s. It was very very dark, little traffic and the sky was clear with lots of stars. My friend and I decided, out of boredom to watch the sky for shooting stars (meteorites).

We saw an occasional plane or airliner with their blinking lights traveling across the sky. At one point I was watching one of these "planes" (no blinking lights) when all of a sudden it took off like a shooting star . So that got my attention.

But it never went out of sight. Instead it stopped "shooting" and continued at a regular speed like a plane. At this point, I called everyone’s attention to it.

Then it shot across the sky again then stopped and did it again. It was moving in irregular patterns one way then another. We were all just amazed and could not take our eyes off of it, just watching it zig zag around at different speeds.

It seemed like it went on for such a long time. My dad was having a hard time keeping his eyes on the road and on the object too but he didn’t stop, he just slowed down. We were all trying to guess what the heck it could be because we knew it was not a shooting star or a plane.

We do have a lot of military Air Force bases down in the Keys but I don’t even think the stealth bomber was in existence or even being tested at that time. I don’t think there was any aircraft at that time that was capable of this kind of movement. We continued to watch it as its movements seemed to take up the whole sky, when suddenly it stopped and just slowly faded out.

It looked as if it went straight out into space at a very very high rate of speed until it was just gone from sight. We still talk about it to this day. ((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the event is approximate.

PD)).

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Pensacola, FL- a space craft of immese size appeared without sound In the spring-summer of 1978, my best friend and I were driving on Interstate 10 in Pensacola. We were heading East to Santa Rosa County. The sun had gone down as we traveled on Interstate 10.

As I was driving, I was close to the water tower that is on the interstate which is just before the bridge going over Escambia Bay. All of a sudden and out of nowhere, a space ship was suspended over the interstate before the bridge. There was no sound eminating from the spacecraft however, it was extremely large; almost covering the width of the interstate.

Also, it was vast in height in comparison to a five or six-story building. Underneath the craft, the structure seemed to be comprised of steel girders with a circular area in the middle of the bottom of the spacecraft. It was lit up so that one could see the structural design of the craft.

The main superstructure was very large with colored panels lighting up at times. I recall a red, blue or green, and yellow panel lit up as if the space craft was tying to communicate something using color and the sequence of when the panels lit up. There was no sound coming from this sighting.

It was just suspended in space. It was so close to my friend and me. Then all of a sudden the lights went out and in total darkness and without sound, the craft moved over the water tower.

It was hovering over the tower when out of the circular area located at the bottom of the craft, a light shown down on the water tower. It was as if the light was searching the tower and nearby land where the tower was built. Again, the lights went out and without and trace of sound, the spacecraft moved a little west and farther into the sky.

Again, it was suspended in the sky and the only lights eminating from it were white lights. If I am not mistaken, the lights seemed to be outlining the perimeter of the spacecraft. It has been several years since my friend and I saw this sighting.

If I am not mistaken, once the craft had allowed us to see the white lights surrounding the perimeter, it fled in an amazing speed towards the southeast. That was an incredible evening for both my friend and me. Once arriving to my home, excitedly, he and I ran into the house sharing this information with my parents.

I called the local newspaper and radio station(s) explaining what we had seen and asked if anyone had seen the same thing to please get in touch with me. However, as was in a lot of cases back in the 70's, the receiver(s) of my inquiries laughed in unbelief. Today, I know this sighting was real.

I don't have to prove anything to anyone to the reality of this matter because I, as well as my friend, know what we saw was truth. I only wish I could have communicated with the intellectuality of the spacecraft to understand more. But yet, maybe another time will take place so that intelligence can share and learn from other sources within the universe.

((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the event is approximate. PD)).

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Group of USAF cadets and an officer saw a saucer at an air force base. This is not an air sighting. I was a member of a group of AFROTC visiting group to Eglin AFB in 1978.

This group consisted of ten cadets (six under contract to the USAF including myself) and a Lt. Col., our advisor.

During our visit we were touring the base in a USAF bus, much like an old school bus painted a blue/gray. We were trans-versing the flightline between many large hangers, mostly closed. We came to a stop at a crossroads stop sign.

I happened to look to our left into an open hanger and saw a saucer-shaped craft approx. 30 feet across with a central dome. The craft stood on three spindly legs that did not look capable of holding up such a large craft.

There were USAF markings on the upper portion, much like fixed-winged aircraft. I called it to the attention of others, five were pretty close friends. Several took snapshot pictures of the craft.

The officer with us definitely saw the craft as well. We observed the craft for at least four minutes, till the bus moved past the stop sign. Within 50 feet, our bus was surrounded by AF Security Police, in full combat gear, in jeeps and trucks.

The officers entered our bus and took everyone's cameras and removed the film on the spot! We were hustled the bus into a nearby hanger serving as offices. We were officially debriefed and sworn to secrecy under threats of prison for revealing anything about what we had observed in the hanger, then released. These people were dead serious.

Most of us continued our careers into the Air Force, myself into the Security Police, and others became pilots and missile men. The officer with us became a Congressman after retiring from the military. I have not revealed this information ever, until now.

What the hell, I'm 60 and dying of ((type of malady deleted)), what can they do to me?.