SIGHTING: CHARLOTTE, NC

Witness Testimony

"Bright planet like light that hovered for a minute and then sped away at a tremendous speed.On the morning of 2-9-02, at 5:55AM, I glanced out of my upstairs window and noticed a very bright light just above the treeline. It looked like a star/planet except it was about 3 times the brightness of jupiter and it was facing north. I immediatley knew this was not a star.>From my upstairs window i have a great view of the sky over Charlotte facing north towards downtown. I can see about half of the sky including the buildings downtown. The light hovered just above the trees for about a minute. It appeared to be about 2 miles away from me. After about a minute the light started to drift a little to the right and then a little to the left. I lined my eyes up with the crosshairs in the window to make sure i wasn't seeing things. I wasn't. After drifting further to the left the light abruptly turned and sped off towards downtown. It passed behind the Bank of America (BOA) building a flew off out of sight. As it was moving away from me I noticed a small red light behind the light.I was astonished at how fast this light moved across the city. I spend a lot of time watching planes and helicopters fly around the city and I have never seen anything cover that much distance in so short of time. I have spent the last 2 weeks trying to convince myself that I saw a helicopter that was hovering with a spotlight on and then speed away very quickly. The only problem is the math. It took the light approx. 5-10 seconds to go from the spot where it was hovering to behind the BOA building. Taking the angle that i saw the light from my window and drawing a line out across the city, the closest point from that line to the BOA builind is 1.75 miles (this is best case scenario. i think the distance was more like 3.5 but i am taking the closest possible distance). 1.75 miles in 10 seconds is 630 miles per hour. That is again using the best case scenario (at 3.5 miles the speed is 1260). I am not aware of any helicopter that can go 630 miles per hour from a dead stop. Also the helicopters i have seen flying around have 2 blueish/white lights on the back not a small red light. I also did not hear a sound from the light. I can usually hear planes and helicopters all the way to downtown.I have no idea what i saw but it's not anything i can explain using rational logic. I can't believe in a city the size of charlotte, nobody else saw this light."