South Dakota UFO Sightings in 2002

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Have seen numerous objects over sky north of Sioux Falls in past few months. First off let me say that I live near Sioux Falls but would like to remain anonymous. Still can't believe I'm telling this but here goes.

Around 12/07/02, at approximately 2330 hours, I observed a very bright, tear drop shaped object, travel from north to south across the eastern sky in relation to my position. The odd thing was that it appeared to travel in an upwards direction and then blinked out of sight. Duration was approx.

1.5 seconds. It was bright white in color and the light tailed behind it or at least appeared to.

It is difficult to say since it was travelling so fast. I first chalked it up to something skipping off our atmosphere. Which perhaps is true.

The thing is, I saw the same thing this past weekend, around 01/16/03, at approximately 0230 hours. This one was in the same general area of the sky as before. Except it appeared to travel upwards from south to north, ie: opposite direction.

I am not sure what I have been seeing, but these two are not the only strange objects I've seen in the sky recently. I work outside at night so I occasionally see objects. These have all caught my eyes as I have been driving.

So at least to me they are very noticeable. They have all lasted long enough to get a reasonable look at them. At last eye exam I tested around 20/10, plus I have a stygmatism on top of that, so I'm correctable to even better.

Since I spend most of my time in the hours of darkness, perhaps my eyes are more sensitive to movement and light in the sky, and I'm just seeing more of the junk that's hitting the atmosphere than most others can see. Who knows. I am a college educated professional.

I have doubted this stuff, but man, when you see weird stuff you can't explain, it bothers you and you really can't tell anyone about it. Especially with what I do for a living, supposed to be the unflappable one. Some who read this will understand what I'm saying with that last statement and wanting to remain anonymous.

Anyhow, I see this stuff probably at least once a week over the skies north of Sioux Falls, SD. I see meteorites almost nightly, so I generally notice when somethings a little different. Well there you have it, hope this helps some people tell what they have seen.

Reading the others on here helped me to do it. All I know is that there have to be more people like me, seeing this stuff and just not saying anything. ((NUFORC Note: Date is approximate.

PD)).

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12/7/02 - Tear shaped white light that shot straight up out of sight. Clear sky, starry night. The object was pointed on the top side and rounded on the bottom.

Pure white light with a white tail. Went from true north from a lower altitude (30 degrees) and shot straight up overhead (90 degrees above the horizon) and disappeared within 1 and one half seconds. When it disappeared the light did not fade it simply vanised as if it went into a black tunnel.

The background was trees. We live about nine miles south of Sioux Falls, SD.

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I saw a cigar shaped, glowing blue object travelling at a high rate of speed. I was outside on my back porch and saw an object at cloud level in the southwest sky travelling at a high rate of speed toward the southeast. It disappeared from sight into the horizon after transversing the entire sky.

It was cigar shaped and appeared massive in size. It glowed the entire time. The color of the specific cigar shape was like a bright blue gas flame.

There was a long white trail behind it that was sparkling. My husband got to the porch in time to see the tail dissappear. The entire event took about a minute.

It went behind the clouds at times and lit them up from behind. There was absolutely no sound at all. It was amazing but also frightening.

The cigar shape was defined but glowed around the edges. There were no blinking lights and it appeared to be at least 20 times the size of a B1 Bomber both in length and width. I was the only witness at my home except for the trail of white light which my husband saw.

I did learn later that a child in Rapid City ( 45 miles SE) saw it too. In addition a young man and his mother saw it in Chadron, Nebraska which is south of Rapid City around the same time. ((NUFORC Note: We have requested additional reports of the sighting from the other witnesses.

PD)).

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Intelligent white light floating above us. Took off when it knew we seen it. Last summer my younger brother (age 18) and I age (34) were outside my trailer house shooting off fireworks into a soybean field and then playing around with a spotlight shining it in the fields looking for coyotes, when I happened to look up as something caught my attention.

The night was clear, dark and warm with a slight breeze and a lot of stars. There was no moon. Directly overhead of me (At a high altitude, or so it seemed.

) was a bright white light, with a haze around it, about the size of a 50 cent piece held at arms length away. At first I thought it was the moon because it was bright, shining down on us. I told my brother to look up which he did and said "What is that?" Exactly when my brother looked up the light shrank to the size of a pea held at arms length away.

It seemed like it knew we had seen it. What creeped me out the most was that I wondered how long it was above us shining down on us before I (we) noticed it. The light sat still for about 5 seconds then moved South of us at a slow speed, and then blinked off.

I am familiar with aircraft and satellites and stars and planets and I'm 99.9% sure it wasn't any these objects. I would compare the sighting to a helicopter shining a dim spotlight on us from a great distance above.

But the light emitted no noise and was totally silent. The light seemed to know we had seen it and took off! ((NUFORC Note: Date is approximate. PD)).

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A single point of light, similar to a satellite, was seen moving erratically across the night sky over the Black Hills of SD. I was enjoying a late evening soak in the hot tub on my deck outdoors with 4 friends. We recalled that it was getting close to time for the Perseids.

We saw a few meteors, and continued to look for others. The observers were an adult couple, their teenaged daughter, and two adult females, ranging in age from 14 - 53. All adults are college educated, but not scientists.

No alcohol or any other potentially conscious-altering substances had been consumed by any of us, the entire day. We pointed out to each other several moving points of light, at different times, that appeared to be satellites (we see quite a few of those out here). Then one of us spotted what he thought was another satellite.

We all looked, and at first it appeared similar to the previous satellites we had seen, ie. a small point of light moving at a constant rate of speed, similar to that of a satellite. But then it began to move erratically instead of following a smooth, straight orb.

It zigzaged and curved back on its path, and seemed to slow down and speed up, following the type of non-pattern you might walk if you were looking for something you had dropped in the grass, if you weren't sure where you had dropped it exactly. We discussed it, trying to think of anything that might produce such movement. After meandering about in this fashion for several minutes, the point of light just winked out.

Not a gradual trailing off into the distance, but *poof* it was gone, completely. We all saw it. and none of us have never seen anything like it.

I would guess the time to have been sometime between 9:45 - 10:15 pm, on July 28, 2002. I would estimate that the temperature was in the mid-to-upper 60s and it was a clear night, with little or no wind, at about 4,000' altitude, outside of Rapid City in a rural area near Spring Canyon, in the Black Hills. ((NUFORC Note: The International Space Station passed over Rapid City, SD, on two occasions on July 28.

Please see the entries at the URL shown below. http://www.heavens-above.

com/passsummary.asp?lat=44.081&lng=-103.

231&alt=993&loc=Rapid+City&TZ=MST&satid=25544&Date=37457.75&Mag= PD)).

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spooky light that shines at you but tries to act like a star in a constellation afterwards. me and my younger sister stepped outside one night and i was showing her constellations as well as i knew them and all of a sudden in the big dipper a light that ithought was a star grew more intense and shifted a baseballs width held at arms length to my left (i was facing west). then the light looked similar to someone with a flashlight moving the flashlight in erratic patterns for a few seconds.

then the light that moved dimmed again and stayed there for the remainder of the night. we were scared after this incident so we ran inside but we stayed to witness enough to know that it was not normal. after we gained enough courage to go back out again it felt to us as though we were being watched by the light.

but we are okay now. thanx. ((NUFORC Note: We suspect that the objects may have been celestial bodies, but we have no explanation for why they would move as much as the witness reports.

PD)).

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Red and blue lights, turning real bright. We were in a rural community, which I would rather not disclose due to the cultural grounds close to the sighting. But my brother, his wife, her little brother, and myself were all sitting in a broken down car while every one else was in an inipi (sweat ceremony).

My brother, his wife, and myself were smoking a cigarrette, and her little brother was staring at the horizon in a northwest direction. And he spotted 1 dim light off in the distance that seemed real low. It begin to move and disappear behind hills as if it were traveling over the prairie close to the ground.

As it came closer I say still around 3 miles away it split into 2 dim lights, and they both seemed as if they were slowly zigzaging back and forth. We got out of the car by then and stood at the top of the dirt road leading to the sweat ceremony. The lights got 1/4 miles away and came down into the valley we were in, and approached the island which is accross the creek from where we were.

! The island itself is about 1/2 mile in diameter. Both lights then turned into 2 separate colors-one Red, one blue. The blue light came to the closer end of the island by us.

By then that would be about 300 yards away. They both intensified the color by getting VERY bright, so bright it lit up the valley as if it were day. I remember focusing on the blue light, but it was so bright, and we all became scared and turned and ran.

We never went back to see what it had done. But thats the story. Also there was no sound….

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Grouping of rectangular or triangular objects, hovering, dancing around each other, absolutely silent, then rapid accleration. About 1 am I was outside with my dog, sitting watching the stars and I noted an airplane take off from the Sioux Falls airport. I was scanning the sky looking for falling stars etc.

, when my attention was drawn to a group of objects directly overhead. I can't say how high up they were, can't estimate size, but they were triangular to rectangular, a dull oranginsh brown color, and seemed to be reflecting the city lights or had a dull glow of their own. My initial thought was a small flock of geese, but as I watched I noted they seemed to be dancing around each other, changing positions but maintaining a close formation.

As I watched, one of the objects swung out, moved to the front of the grouping, then began to accelerate to the northwest, with the others falling in behind; then the grouping accelerated out of view. What was so striking was these objects were absolutely silent, even as they accelerated. There's a fairly large air-guard base at the airport which is a couple miles north of my residence.

I've kept silent on this mainly because there have been no other reports of similar sightings in this area, and nothing about unusual phenomena reported from the air guard or airport radars.