Tawas City, Michigan UFO Sightings in 1991

Full Report Text:

Close encounter on Monument Rd., Tawas City. Near Corsair.

Craft nearly filled the sky between the pines. Very large, very close. I was driving on Monument Rd.

towards East Tawas, around the Corsair cross country skiing area around 1:30am. While driving, above the tall pines I could see a spotlight shining above the trees, crossing the roadway ahead. My first thought was the typical helicopters, which my dad always said it was the DNR, that we would see with spotlights at night in the Tawas City area.

As I drove closer, the light was larger and brighter than a normal spotlight I've seen before from a helicopter. I began to slow down and stare through my windshield as I was coming upon it and was almost underneath. I could tell it was coming from the right to the left as the beam of light was getting brighter.

When the front end of craft appeared in the opening of the roadway (above the trees by approximately 100-200yds), I realized this wasn't a helicopter. I pushed my clutch in and pulled over to the side of the road. The entire front end of the craft was the spotlight.

The best analogy I can give is it looked similar to the battlestar galactica in the first star wars movie. It was very large and I was almost directly underneath it. I pulled over, rolled down my window and looked almost directly up at it.

It was moving gracefully and slowly across the opening of the roadway. The sound was a sound of a light to medium hum. Almost like the sound of it going through the air.

There wasn't a rumble of an engine sound. It sounded like when your furnace kicks on and you can hear the air blowing through the vent, except louder. I remember thinking that this thing was huge.

The thoughts going through my mind where - this isn't a helicopter. What kind of plane is this? When I realized the entire front end, which was flattened, was the spotlight, I then looked for wings and there weren't any. It was moving slowly as well.

I've been in plenty of planes and currently live near an airport, and I know a plane moving that slow isn't possible. At any rate, when I realized it wasn't a plane, around 1/3-1/2 ! of it wa s above me with the rear still hidden by the tree tops on the right hand side. I then said to myself, scan this out and I started scanning all over it with my eyes.

The middle had a slowly pulsating red light. There were many smaller white lights around the perimeter that were spaced, I'd guess, at around 20-30yds each. There were roughly 4-5 lights around the longer sides of the oval, with the spotlight out front.

After looking at the lights, I started to look at what was on the body of the craft. There was stuff? Again, like the battlestar galactica. Whereas there were tons of protruding parts all over the place.

At this time, I realized I was out in the middle of no where, by myself. I remember looking to my left out the window into the woods. When I thought that I was alone out in the middle of the woods, and when I noticed the darkness of the woods, I got extremely scared, like a monster was about to come out of the woods and get me.

The scared/terrified feeling is like you get as a kid and almost become unable to move. I remember locking my door and reaching to roll up the window and begin shifting into 1st gear. As I was rolling up the window, I continued to watch it.

The front end was almost now out of sight and the rear end just broke out from above the trees on the right side. I started to release the clutch and roll the car when the craft changed its speed. It originally had to be going no faster than around 25-35mph (taking into consideration the distance).

When it sped up, it doubled/tripled its speed. I looked forward and shifted into 2nd gear just as I saw car lights coming around the bend (just as I was pulling off of the shoulder of the road). I figured they had to see this.

I began to slow down and they flew by going normal speeds. I hit my brake lights to see if they would hit their's and no go. I drove home, told my dad about it, he laughed and said it was probably a DNR helicopter.

I know what I saw. I had time to evaluate it, it moved very slowly, it was dir! ectly ab ove me, and extremely close. It did not have wings, it was not a helicopter unless there is one that is of this size, and it did not have an engine sound.

When I stretch my arms out, I can measure that the width of this was approximately the distance of my hands being apart of around 1.5 feet. Extend that angle out to the length of those pines, then add around 100yds+ above that, and that's the width.

The length was the length of the entire view of the sky that can be seen across the roadway, then minus about 20yds or so. When the front was about 20yds from being hidden from the trees on the left hand side, only then did I recognize the rear come out from the tree tops on the right hand side of the road. It continued at its slow pace until it was around almost 1/2 out of view (I could still see the red light in the middle) then it sped up.

Total time from viewing the front of the craft until it was gone, approximately 1min. I just closed my eyes and replayed the event and it was probably close to 30secs. Very scary feelings.

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