Peoria, Illinois UFO Sightings in 1997

Full Report Text:

Two people see UFO hovering at a distance of 10 feet. I heard Peter Davenport on the 07-29-10 episode of Coast to Coast AM and decided to submit my story. Headline: UFO at a stone's throw This story takes place in 1992 in Illinois.

My friend and I were parked facing north at night in the summer on a small concrete bridge over a small creek in rural Illinois. We were not quite ready to go home and wanted to continue our conversation about "girlfriends." The weather was cloudy and misty.

We could see sheet lighting in the distance. My car windows had droplets of water on them. I sat in the driver's seat, my friend sat in the passenger's seat of my Ford Escort.

The creek bridge had cement guardrails that were almost perfectly level with where the car windows started. I suspect this was a purposeful choice by the architect. The road continued on north to a T-section about 1/4 down the road.

Beyond that intersection was a large hill that spanned for miles in each direction. Approach to the creek bridge was as if going down a slight hill, and the incline continued on for awhile and then began sloping up again toward the T-section. We were of a slightly higher altitude than the cornfields directly to the left and right front of us that bordered the creek.

The border of the creek was a slight hill that blocked view of the field beyond to our right (2 o'clock). Over our right shoulders at about 4 o'clock (direction), was four-story tall mound/hill left over from an old gravel pit that had trees and brush all over it. This mound followed the other creek border for about a half a mile to the east.

So from our perspective, we could not see the field to our right front, nor see beyond over the hill over our right shoulders. The creek was essentially bordered on both sides with land that stretched out as far as the eye could see. It was here that we watched the lighting in the distance.

I could see the lightening from tens of miles away over the top of the distant hills, but there was additional light coming from closer up. At first I just dismissed it as ball lighting, but I could see the light illuminating the mist just above the hill. I could not see into the field where the light seemed to be coming from, just the effects of the light on the trees on the border of the creek.

I stopped my friend from talking and said, "Friend, why is that lightening going on and off with a beat. Nature is not that exact." I began snapping my fingers to the rate of the light from the field going on and off.

On, snap, off, snap. It was a perfect beat (I am a musician). I tol! d my friend to roll down his window and just as the window rolled down, a craft popped out from behind the hill.

It was level with us, and we were approximately at most 10 ft from the craft. I could have easily jumped on top of the craft from the side of the bridge without straining myself. I was speechless.

At the time I was morally opposed to the idea of alien spacecraft. My family were strict Christians who specifically were taught at our denomination that humans on Earth were the only organic life in the universe. I was 100% against the ideas of aliens existing.

Yet, here before me and my friend was this totally silent craft, about the size of a large SUV, hovering, silently. I broke the silence by startling loudly, "THAT IS NOT A UFO!" At the time that I said that, the craft was just a little past us. The craft was almost directly to our right, but a little farther past us at that point.

It abruptly changed course (as if it heard me) and either turned off its lights, put on a cloaking device or did something else because it seemed to just go right into the opposite hill, but more likely it just went "dark." I revved up my engine and drove away very fast. My perspective on everything had just come crashing down in one fell swoop of time no more than 3 minutes long.

I got to my house, where my friend's car was, and he asked me to follow him back home (because he was too freaked out to go over that bridge alone). So I followed him home. By the time I got back to the bridge, my fear had gone down, and I was filled with wonder.

The storm had passed, so I parked on the bridge again alone, turned on a Cure CD and sat Indian style on the roof of my car, searching the landscape and the sky for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. Silence.

Oddly, it was from that moment on that I started to experience the phenomenon known as "synchronicity." As I drove back to my house that night, I though, "what if when I get home my family has been abducted!" I got home and went to my parent's bedroom and listened for breathing. Nothing, so I turned on the light and the bed was empty and made, at like 2 a.

m.! I ran to my sister's rooms and they were all empty too. I was freaked out so I just collapsed in bed, thinking in the morning this will all be resolved.

I awoke to a call from my mother that the family left town unexpectedly that evening to visit relatives. Description of the craft: Closure took over in my perception of the craft, so my brain processed the craft as looking like the time machine in Back to the Future (big fan at the time). It was the only way my brain could process a floating silent vehicle, that and it also did look a lot like that craft.

It had a metallic brushed reflective surface, with an area like a car where the "people" were transported, and then a front and back section much like our engine and trunk section. It as the classic saucer shape, but without the dramatic flaring sides. It had lights in various places on the exterior but it all happened so fast and I was so stunned that I couldn't tell you the exact placement, but my friend who had no such "stunned" effect because he was already a believer, said he saw lights in the back, front, top and bottom of the craft.

For now, any contact, I would prefer it to be done via email. ((NUFORC Note: Date of incident in 1992 is approximate. PD)).