Black and silver cylindrical object at very close rangeI was a recent college graduate, on my way to a teaching interview. On about Monday, July 26, 1976, I was traveling southbound on US 287 between Kit Carson and Hugo in Colorado. I don't know if I was in Elbert or Lincoln County, at that point on the highway. The road is very lightly traveled, so no other traffic was observed. The time of day was approximately 12-1 PM. The weather was calm, clear and sunny. The area was ranch land. I don’t think there were any buildings in sight. As I drove along, at about a speed of 60 miles per hour, I saw a black cylindrical object in the distance, in the air, on my left, no more than 30 yards off the highway, with its length parallel to it. It seemed to float at about the height of a telephone pole above the ground. The landscape on that side (East) of the road is fairly flat prairie, with dry prairie grass.As I slowed down and approached, the object appeared to be stationary above the ground with no visible support. When I reached a point perhaps 30 yards before reaching the point perpendicular to the leading end of the object, I pulled over to the right shoulder, got out and leaned against the front fender of my car and ate a sandwich. Now I could detect that the object was indeed moving, almost imperceptibly, from my right to my left, staying parallel to the highway. It did not seem at all effected by gravity, which I thought very odd, given that I knew of no “antigravity” technology which could prevent an object moving so very slowly from falling to the ground. Its altitude appeared constant as it moved. The motion and course appeared to be steady. If anyone was inside of it, I could not tell if they noticed me by any change in the movement of the object.The object, which I could see very clearly, I estimated to myself to be approximately 8-12 feet in diameter, about the length of a residential housing lot width, ~60 feet long and uniformly cylindrical. The color was flat black, with about 8 feet of non-reflective silver covering each end. The surface of the object was not perfectly smooth, but I could not recognize anything that resembled construction, such as riveting that one might see on a man-made craft; having no doors or windows on the side exposed to my view. There was absolutely no humanly detectable sound coming from it. It seemed spooky, but I felt no unusual fear, other than of the unknown. Its progress seemed like a train slowly passing on a track.I watched it for about 5 minutes, until it was quartering off the rear fender of my car. I had moved approximately twice its length in five minutes. I suspect I could have watched it indefinitely, but I couldn’t risk being late for my interview. Of course, I had no camera with me. :( After taking the job, in extreme SE Colorado, I told my neighbor, a rancher, about my observations. He said he’d heard that area was a secret testing area for the US military. I asked if he just heard that as a rumor among other area ranchers or if his AF service had given him reason to think that. He hedged. I don’t know. This was before cruise missiles and stealth aircraft became public knowledge. But the craft style and behavior is very odd outside of other UFO sightings, even today (2015). I suspect that the object was a prototype testing craft for highly classified technologies, but if so, then why so close to a highway and possible public observation? The similarity to other sightings people have reported intrigues me.((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD))