North Carolina UFO Sightings in 1985

Full Report Text:

My sister and I observed a disk for about 5 minutes hovering approximately 120 feet away. My sister and I were watching the Johnny Carson show and when a commercial came, my sister got up to go to the bathroom which is in the kithchen. To get to the kitchen from the den, she had to walk right next to a set of sliding glass doors that ran parallel to the White Oak river.

She yelled for me to come into the kitchen to look at something, she had to call several times because she does the same thing at the site of a cockroach, clearly an overexadurater. This time however, she had spotted something much bigger than a roach. As I turned and looked through the glass and over the river, I caught my first sight of a black disk that must have been 30 feet in diameter and about 10 feet thick in the middle and tapering to about 3 feet thick equilaterally at the circumference.

The craft was hovering about 50 feet above the water and approximately 120 feet from my siter and I. That put our vantage at just slightly above the craft when I noticed the moon reflecting off of a semi-gloss black finish. We were stunned but not afraid.

We slid the large glass door open and walked out onto the first floor deck and the first strange thing I noticed was the complete absence of noise. The craft was literally hovering noiselessly in front of me. That is when the gravity of the situation hit me.

Living between Cherry Point Air Force Base and Camp Lejune Marine Corps base, it was not unusual for aircraft to fly directly over the house. In fact it seemed that the Marine Corps had mapped a low altitude helicopter route directly over the house. Helicopters do however make an unmistakable noise which would have been nearly unbearable at the range I was from the noiseless black disk.

My sister and I walked across the deck and down the stairs onto the concrete driveway which was littered with shattered hickory nuts that had been run over by my mother's Buick. The reason that I mention the hickory nuts is because I was bare footed at the time and the only thing that distracted me from the noiseless black disk was the incessant pricking on the bottoms of my feet. It was for this reason that my sister and I walked off of the driveway onto the grass.

Myself having moved about 90 degrees horizontally, about 20 degrees vertically, and about 30 feet closer, it was fairly clear that the object was taking up 3 dimensional space. From the time that my sister called me to come see the object to the time that we were standing in the grass was a matter of about 2 minutes. We stood in the grass for about 1 minute which also happens to be the amount of time we watched the craft before it left.

During that 1 minute, things went from being strange to being inexplicable. The craft began to move slightly more into the bay and away from us, but it wavered a bit horizontally. After about 30 seconds of that, it moved farther out into the channel.

At this position, it was equidistant from the shore and from the White Oak river bridge (of the two bridges, the bridge on the Swansboro side). It wavered a bit in this direction as well. Finally, as it slowly moved toward the bridge, it gained speed so quickly that its path was traced with a streak of light.

As it left, it moved forward much faster than upward, but it did move upward and to the left. When I say it gained speed quickly, I mean that it was gone in a matter of a tenth of a second. When the last minute of the observation of the craft was over, the first minute of discovering its effect had begun.

Immediately I heard the noise of masses of minnows jumping in the water. My sister and I walked down onto the dock to investigate the seemingly amplified noise. What we discovered was a large area of foam.

In fact the water seemed to be boiling. All around us the minnows were jumping. Normally minnows swim in schools of about 30-60 which might measure 5 square feet in surface area.

While in a school, each minnow acts as one so that when one is scared the entire school is scared. I have been in situations where maybe 5 schools of minnows will jump at the same time because I jumped on the dock, but never before and never since have I seen so many minnows jumping. In retrospect I wish I would have put my toes in the water to see if it was hot, but I didn't.

I've often wondered if the thick foam on top of the water was caused by all of the minnows jumping or if all the minnows were jumping because the water was foamy. At that point, approximately 7 minutes had passed and my mother had come outside. My sister and I told her what had happened and I guess she was too tired to care.

A few months after the experience I drew what I had seen with crayons for a science teacher, and I bet he still has it somewhere. At the time, my sister was 13 years old and I was 8 years old. My sister and I haven't talked about it since just after it happened.

During my education at a state supported University, I realized how contradictory what I have seen is to contemporary physics. The truth is going to be nice.

Full Report Text:

Years ago, my husband's aunt and I witnessed something very strange on the way to work early one morning. It was about 5:30am and we were traveling north from Monroe to Matthews on Old Charlotte Highway. We had just passed the Bakers vacinity and were passing over the railroad tracks when I looked over at her (she was driving) to say something, and saw what I first thought was an enormous reddish-orange moon hovering on the horizon.

I remarked that it was the biggest moon I had ever seen in my life, and she glanced over too and agreed. She was not a person to get excited about ANYTHING, so she just kept driving. I leaned down to get a better look, and instantly realized this was no moon! It was the size of a garbage can lid held at arms' length at that point (enormous!), and it was perfectly round and glowing red/orange like the the color of lava.

Because we were still driving, I couldn't tell if it was moving or just stationary. All this happened very quickly. I knew this was something very strange, and tried to get Aunt B's opinion, but she refused to look at it or comment on it (she was just that way, ignore it and it will go away).

She said, "It's just the moon". I thought it was awful strange that it appeared to be "on fire" and yet, it was not lighting up the entire sky like a glowing red fireball probably would. Instead, it appeared to be just glowing, as if it had an inner light source.

Nothing else looked unusual about the landscape or weather. It was very clear and cold that morning. I looked around to my side of the road, thinking everything should be orange colored, and looked up at the sky and panicked when I saw the real moon way up in the sky, white as snow, and the shape of a tiny fingernail! I begged her to stop the car so I could get a better look, but she silently just kept on traveling.

I again looked out her window, saw the giant sphere glowing in the sky beside us, and suddenly, we passed by a stand of trees that blacked it out for a moment, and when we emerged, it ! was gone ! I tried to find a explanation for it, but nothing worked. It wasn't the upcoming water tower (she and I both agreed on this) as it was yet to be in view, and it was on the wrong side of the road. To this day, she has never discussed it, and gets furious if I bring it up.

I did report this to MUFON by email, and they responded that it was probably a "ball of gases" since there is a fault line in the vacinity. I don't believe that for one second! This was perfectly shaped, brilliantly colored, enormous and didn't appear to light up anything else around! I couldn't hear anything, but then again, we were still going up the road. I have no explanation for it, and am relieved to read on here that others have had a similar experience.

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

Full Report Text:

while walking on beach, two teenagers witnessed football-field-sized triangular craft over water from distance of approx. 50 feet. In August of 1985 while my family vacationed for a week in South Nags Head, NC, a friend of mine and I watched a triangular-shaped craft above us at the beach one night.

Although I do not recall precisely what week we were there, this incident took place on a Friday night. I and my friend, both females aged 14 at the time, customarily strolled along the shoreline in the evenings. I estimate that our "sighting" occurred around 8 p.

m., but that time is not absolute. I recall that night as very dark, both starless and moonless.

However, it is possible that the fear I felt after we encountered the craft skewed my impressions of the environment; to be certain of the moon phase, I'd have to check a calendar from back then. I do remember absolutely that the evening began clear and temperate, with just a few stringy clouds hanging here and there over the ocean. I was looking down, trying to avoid stepping with my bare feet on the sand crabs that come out at night.

So it was my friend who first saw something odd in the sky. "Do you see those lights?" she asked me. I followed her gaze, then, and I saw five lights in a tight triangular formation.

the center light was red, and it was the largest. It was flanked on either side by two smaller white lights. I do not remember any of the lights flashing; they all maintained a kind of focused dull sheen, if that makes sense.

They did not emit beams or illuminate the sky around them. Together, they formed what we later interpreted as the "nose" of the craft, although we did not at first notice any other lights or even an outline of the craft's shape because the night was so very dark. I am guesstimating the craft's distance from us as about 50-100 feet -- very close -- and about the same distance up in the air from the ocean, but the darkness and the lack of earthbound objects (i.

e. trees) by which to judge height/size made it difficult to pinpoint how large or how close this object was. As I looked up, I caught this "nose" emerging seemingly out of nowhere.

In retrospect, I believe that I decided on-the-spot that the craft must have been behind cloud cover because that was the only way I could rationalize its sudden appearance. But as I said above, what few clouds there were that night were unsubstantial and spaced far apart from one another. As farfetched as it seems, I have to consider that the craft may actually have been "cloaked" in some fashion and then it revealed itself.

? I feel ridiculous writing that, but I have no other explanation. It's possible that my friend and I just happened not to see it until it was dead even with where we stood. But the enormity of the craft and its apparent proximity to us makes that possibility seem unlikely to me.

Regardless of how the lights got there, from the moment my friend and I first noticed them, some inexplicable quality they seemed to give off made us both vaguely uneasy. I think that strangeness was why my friend had to ask me whether or not I saw what she saw, and it was why I didn't question her needing my confirmation. I'm not sure how long it took us to realize that a big contribution to this strange "vibe" we were experiencing was the craft's utter silence.

It wasn't merely an absence of engine or other familiar aircraft noise; it was an intense, all-pervasive silence that was eerily powerful precisely because it was so absolute. It was a consuming silence, the likes of which I cannot recall experiencing in any other situation. I have always remembered that silence and have tried to describe it on the few occasions that I have discussed my "sighting" over the years with friends.

But it wasn't until I happened to catch a bit of a cable program the other night that I heard another so-called witness state that she had viewed a completely silent airborne object. That was the first time I had ever heard a UFO-sighting detail that matched my own experience, and it made me snap back to the events of August '85. I researched online and came across this site; now that I've read numerous other reports, I understand that very many people indeed have witnessed silent crafts.

A few have also seen triangular crafts (another detail from my personal encounter that I had never heard elsewhere). Obviously, I have not made a point of keeping up with ufology! Hearing and reading some other people's testimony has encouraged me to share my experience now. Although I have never doubted the nature of what I saw that night, the content of other witnesses' reports lends credence in my mind to my personal memories, legitimizing them somehow.

So I will continue with my report: I and my friend stopped walking to watch these lights for awhile. At some point, we became aware of a sixth light. It was the same color and size as the large dull-red light which marked the center of the "nose" of the ship, and it was straight back from that light.

(Imagine an arrow, designated only by five points outlining the tip of the arrowhead and a single dot at the base of the arrow). Here is where my friend's and my accounts differ; one of us thought that the space between the original five lights and this single sixth light encompassed about one football field's length, but the other thought it was closer to two football fields long. After all this time, I don't recall which of us insisted on which length.

Let me reiterate how hard it was to determine size and distance in that environment. Now that we saw the sixth light (it, too, just quietly asserted itself; it may have been there all along, or it may have appeared after the others), we determined that the entire area in between must be one giant craft. This final light marked the middle of the third leg that formed the base of the triangle.

I know that my friend and I agreed that the ship was triangular and basically flat, but as far as I remember, we couldn't actually see an outline. It was like this ship swallowed the whole night sky above us. I remember just barely discerning the distant horizon break between the dark blue ocean & the deep black sky, and my vision was 20/20 at the time.

So if the night really was as dark as I am remembering, the craft was either pitch black itself or it was utterly transparent. We never questioned that the sixth light belonged to the same craft. All of the lights moved in tandem.

They slid so smoothly and slowly across the sky that their motion was almost imperceptible. They moved in the same direction in which my friend and I had been walking, and then shortly after we stopped to watch them, they stopped, too. After I'm not sure how long, we tried moving forward again, and the craft moved with us.

We stopped again; it stopped again. I think anxiety started seeping in to me about then if it hadn't already. Perhaps the coincided movements were an optical illusion, as when you view a painted portrait from many angles and it seems to always be looking directly at you.

But my friend and I got the very definite impression that the craft was watching us. We reacted by speaking in low murmurs as if it could hear us, and for some reason I got it into my head that we ought not stand looking at it for too long at a stretch or it would overpower us. I kept having to shake off a certain numbness -- not so much a physical numbness as a mental one.

It was very easy to fall into a sort of spellbound state as we watched these lights. Eventually, we decided to head back in the direction we'd come from. I think we were both beginning to feel frightened, but the onset of fear was slow.

We turned and walked back down the beach, and lo & behold -- the craft switched direction, too. It did not turn; it just moved "backwards," so that the sixth light -- the second red light -- now became the "front." I remember feeling a bit scared, but more giddy.

It was like a game we were engaging in with this strange craft. Now we stopped and waited for awhile to see what might happen. My friend felt less anxious than I did, and I took courage from her equanimity at first.

I don't know how long we stood there. It was probably under 10 minutes, maybe even under 5 minutes, but it could have been hours. I had absolutely no grasp of time.

I know that I got that numbness again because I realized at some point that my friend had sunk down to the sand and I hadn't even noticed. She and I had stopped talking. The object mesmerized us, or we allowed ourselves to believe that it did.

It continued to merely hover, stationary. After we had watched it for some time, rain began to fall, lightly at its start. Maybe it was the rain that jolted me back to my senses or maybe I just "came to" again of my own accord, but whatever the reason, I forced my attention away from the lights.

I bent down to look at my friend's face. I had to get close up to her because of the darkness, so when I looked in her eyes, we were only a few inches apart. I remember that what I saw in her eyes sent a chill through me.

She was smiling a strange little smile and her eyes were all glazed over. It wasn't like she was totally unresponsive or anything, but there was an unnatural excitement and faraway attitude that she conveyed. (I should clarify here that we were both very much drug-free).

When she spoke -- something like, "you're in my way, I want to see them" -- her voice quality had changed, too. It was then that I understood that what I'd taken for her equanimity was actually closer to her willingly "zoning out." That really scared me.

The rain started to fall harder. Then, quite suddenly, the whole craft just took off at a speed that made my breath catch in my throat. Again, absolutely no sound unless it was quieter than the rain.

The craft went up the beach about a half-mile at approximately a 30-degree incine, and there it stopped near a short cliff. At first we thought it wasn't doing anything, but then we noticed that the positions of the lights relative to one another seemed to change. That was because, as we soon figured out, the craft was turning around.

It did not bank at all -- the nose did not dip down. The whole craft just turned on a flat plane. Oddly, as it turned, we could see all of the lights all of the time.

It was as if the inside of the craft were invisible -- we could see the "nose" lights through the "tail" light like no craft was in between. Yet we had no doubt that there really was a craft in the shape of a triangle, not just disconnected lights. So I think that the ship must have been very, very flat.

Another few minutes went by, during which we couldn't tell what the craft was doing. But then we understood that, in a slow, steady, direct line, it was returning -- it was approaching our area again. It was moving so deliberately and so directly towards us that at first we hadn't been able to perceive its motion.

Somehow, seeing those lights begin to get larger with the perspective as the craft neared again, my friend and I finally got filled to bursting with a sort of elated terror, and we ran all the way back down the beach where we'd come from and then up a gravel road to our cabin. The rain was furious now and blinding. I am not a sportive person, but I ran fast and hard that night with no regard for my bare feet on the rough gravel.

They got fairly cut up from our run. I remember seeing other people on the beach as we ran back. Being 14, we yelled loudly all the way home, garbled giddy warnings about "the lights! the lights! don't let them take you!" and so on.

People flitted past in a blur as we ran, but I do remember some puzzled looks on people's faces. It occurred to me later to wonder whether they even saw these lights at all. But when I and my friend finally got back to our empty cabin (my parents were out for the evening), we slammed & locked the door and turned on all the lights and pulled down all the blinds -- and as we yanked down the blinds, we kept peering through the windows.

We couldn't see the lights where they should have been. The whole run back had taken maybe 5 minutes and we hadn't checked behind us to see the location of the lights since maybe 2 minutes earlier when the other houses had obscured our view. Now, gazing through a back window, we finally located the lights again.

Maybe the reason we had gotten puzzled/startled looks from people as we ran was because the craft had zoomed off, far past the area where it had made that no-bank turn earlier, and higher up. It must have moved very quickly. The fact that it had flown away again rather than continue to move toward where we had been standing excited us because that "confirmed" that the craft had actually been focusing on me and my friend.

We decided that it had wanted to abduct us and that it nearly had. I'd still like to think that. But who knows.

Full Report Text:

Summary : I think I was about 9yrs old, and my brother 5yrs old. We lived on farming land. We were out playing at the edge of the field one day when we heard a strange humming noise, we looked up and saw a small saucer shaped object with few lights around it approximatley 7 or 8 feet above our heads.

We stood stunned as it only hoovered above us, it seemed as though we stood there for a long time. Finally, I do not know why, but we stated running from it, at least 150, or 200 ft away from it. It chased us, swooping down close to our heads.

It then left. The strange thing is we were stunned and amazed, but we forgot about it, I mean we did not fear or think about it anymore, It was something that came into our minds once every couple of years. I have had one other experience since that time.

I was sleeping on the couch, and was awakened by a bright light flowing through the window, it looked as if the moon had fallen right beside me. I pulled the covers over my head, it still shone through, but it did not really bother me, I went right back to sleep. I will never forget what happened when I was nine though, the older I get, the clearer the memory is.

I did not see aliens, all I saw was this saucer shaped object, and heard the intense humming noise it was making. I guess at first we were not scared, just in shock, for it seemed that we stood there for hours. Then suddenely we were filled with fear and fled.

It followed us, swooping down at us, I have never ran so hard in my life. And I still cannot understand why after this happened it seemed like it was no big deal, why we didn't think about it very much, I mean that should of been enough to make you go crazy, but afterwards, it did not even bother us. We have rarley even discussed it.

Full Report Text:

We were fishing at the spillway at W Kerr Scott Dam in June I can't remember the date 1985. There was a large hill directly in front of us where we were fishing. I can't recall who saw the object first.

It looked like a huge barrel tumbling through the air there was no sound or anything the sighting lasted a little over a minute as it pasted over our head to the hill on the other side of the road. I think it was several minutes before we could talk we were in such unbelief. The next morning I called our radio station to ask if anyone esle had saw anything.

The Radio station said nothing had been reported. The next day which was Sunday morning I pick up a new paper I can't recall if it was the Winston Salem Journal or the Charlotte Observer and noticed someone else had saw something. However I didn't report it till now if.

I really do not know what we saw . Thanks so much for your time. ((NUFORC Note: Date is approximate.

PD)).

Full Report Text:

A large bright light like the moon. But down in the woods. Had a close encounter of the first kind was at age 15 on July 1, 1985.

My family and I were at Wiseman's view near Brown Mountain Lights. All of my family members eccept my dad and I were at the view site. My dad and I went to the parking lot to get a few things and suddening a brilliantly bright light came in sight along with train whistle sounds.

The light was white or sort of yellowish like the moon. The light reach from the top of the trees to the bottom at the ground. The one light came in from the right at the edge of the trees and went through the woods to the edge of the woods on the left side of the parking lot.

After the light disappeared my dad and I ran back to the over look and started asking questions. There were scientists there along with others besides my family. We asked everyone if they had heard any train whistles or seen any unusual lights that were very large, no one had heard or seen anything.

One of the scientists did tell us that the closest train there was had to be 40-50 miles away. In the woods when we walked down as we first got to wiseman's view had no evidence of any train tracks any where. We did see other lights at a distance that night but, not like this one.

((NUFORC Note: One of four, seemingly serious-minded, reports from same witness. Date may be approximate, although the witness does not indicate that fact. PD)).

Full Report Text:

Ultraviolent,High velocity,silent light emitting no vapor trail or atmospheric turbulence related vapor. Pertinent iformaton- Physical: undistinguishable features due to light intensity. Trajectory: Level gradually climbing to vertice.

Velocity: Est.mach 2 or greater. Weather: Clear/No clouds.

Audio: None. Color: White. Direction: ENW.

Trail: None. My mother and I were sitting outsid when we both notices the objest approaching from the east. It traveled to about our mid view then gradually climed as if piloted to vertical continuing streight up into infinty before we lost eye contact.

The absence of clous that day allowed us a continuous view of the object. The light did not decelerate upon achievig vertical but seeed to accelrate oncagain as if piloted. I estimate considering the size and velocity of the object that it was between 12 and 14000 feet.

With this considered I estimate the object to have been fairly small somewhere around 25ft. in diameter. The episode captivated us for quite some time and I emediately began to put the sighting through close scruitiny.

Although I never found an answer of which I was satisfied. I had just seperated from the Air Force having spent five years as an aircraft mechanic. I worked F-4E and F-15E fighter jets and knew how high performance aircraft behaved when in flight.

I knew that even during an FCF ( Functional Check Flight ) post maintenance flight a jet with no external tanks or pylons, in afterburner could not perform such absolute verticle accelerated maneuvers. Afterburners are visible as yellow light until over 33 thousand feet. This objects velocity to height ratio proved it to be near the ground in an atitudinal sense so there should have been at least turbulence related sound accompanied by vapor or if hot,residual particulate smoke.

It was most clearly defined as a mirror reflection being shot against the sky. I had explored the possibilities of it having been a meteor with just the right entry angle to deflect it back out into space. This didn't hold water due to the physical anomolies associated with the sightng.

If it were a meteor there would have been sound and vapor if not a sonic boom. Although gradual the upwrd arc to verticle was, in the grand scale of the atmosphere, quite short and erratic. At this velocity an aircraft would have surely have been destroyed due to overgee.

Clearly this wa! s a uniq ue sighting that challenges the physical world as we know it. Since then I have had a newfound respect for those who believe. I look up much more often.

Full Report Text:

A bright white light that travels 8 ft. off ground changes direction like humming bird was curious as we were of it as it was of us. It was a overcast sat.

morning. My cousin and I left my gand parents house in the country.they live 5 miles down dirt rd in a heavly wooded area.

we had taken the dirt rd. that when out by the pond. we stop the car on the dam of the pond.

we were talking about my grand father that just had pass away few days before. I noticed a bright white light perfecty round bright in center with halow or almost like bubble apearance on outside of the bright light. it was the size of a basketball.

it was flying below tree top level between the pond and trees.the speed was 10 to 15 miles per hour. it crossed in front of our path on the dam going back into the woods.

I started to ask my cousin what is that? before i could get it out the light stopped backed out of the woods. it was like it had the same thought about us.then zoomed up to the front or the car.

it made no sound in its movements, it was about 6 foot in front of us and 5 foot off the ground. I was so scared could! not move it set there for about 5 seconds then it when away at a high rate of speed up flash or blur almost. it seemed to change directions like a humming bird.

My cousin started the car and we got the heck out of there. never said much more about it in that no one would believe us anyway.

Full Report Text:

On a clear, starry winter evening I observed a very unusual object in the night sky, my grandfather also saw the object. (This is an edited version of of a report that I posted on May 24, 1999). At the time of the sighting I was a senior in high school.

I was visiting my grandparent's farm in a valley of the Blue Ridge mountains on a perfectly clear and moonless winter night. I arrived just before 9 pm. As I was going up the steps into the house I noticed a very large and bright object fly over the mountain ridge to the west.

The object was unlike anything that I had ever seen. It was roughly the size of the full moon and nearly as bright. It gave off a steady, brilliant blue-white light (it was white in the center and became blue towards the edges).

The object originally had a fuzzy, or indistinct outline. During the time I observed the object (about 5-6 minutes), it made no sound whatsoever, and it flew in a straight west-to-east line. After observing the object for a couple of minutes it flew "behind" a tall pine tree atop a small hill next to the farmhouse, and it was so bright that you could easily see it shining through the tree branches.

Since it was dark I am not sure of the height of the object, however, it did appear to be at least several hundred feet in the air. I asked my grandfather (who was 75 at the time) to come outside, and after putting on a coat he did so. He watched the object for about a minute and commented that he had never seen anything like it - he didn't know what it was.

The cold air forced him to go back inside the house, but I kept watching. About 4-5 minutes into the sighting the UFO suddenly changed both its' shape and color. In a split second it went from being a very bright, circular-shaped object to a teardrop or cone shape with a dull orange color.

When the object changed its' shape and color it did so from the bottom up - like someone pulling up a windowshade, which I thought was very odd. The object continued on its' straight west-to-east path until it passed behind the mountain ridge to the east and was out of sight. I did not see it again, nor in the years since have I seen anythin! g that r esembles it.

I currently live near a busy airport, and I have seen and heard many airplanes at night, and NONE of them have borne any similarity with this object. Also, at the time of the sighting I practiced astronomy as a hobby, and I had spent many summer evenings in the back of my grandparent's home with a telescope. As a result I did have some familiarity with the night sky, and this object was far brighter and slower than any meteor I had ever seen (and this includes fireballs).

The object was also much larger and brighter than any star, planet, or satellite I had ever observed. In short, I have never seen any other object which has resembled this "peculiar" craft. The next day I told my parents about the sighting but they laughed it off, as a result I have not told anyone until now about this object.

I do remember that a few weeks later our local newspaper ran a story about some "strange lights" which were being seen in nearby communities, but I have never had the chance to investigate and find the article in question. I hold a master's degree and I am currently a teacher at a private high school in North Carolina. ((NUFORC Note: We have replaced the original report with this edited version.

PD)).