SIGHTING: DUNKIRK, NEW YORK (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"Going to work this morning, I turned off Central Avenue in Fredonia, NY onto Vineyard Drive heading east. Twenty-five feet after the turn, just beyond the Rite Aid building that is to my right, I saw a brilliant white light in the far distance in the south--toward Cassadaga and approximately, to my best judgement at the time, coming in above route 60 traveling south to north. Understand that the parking lot surrounding Rite Aid and the Plaza has several street lights, and so the object had to be POWERFULLY bright to draw my eye. It was larger than anything I normally see in the sky, and at first I thought it was some sort of marketing balloon for one of the businesses. Immediately, though, I realized it was moving and at a high speed--By the time I was parallel with the middle of the plaza--Book Nook area--it appeared to be over the WalMart on 60. I pulled to the side at that point and unrolled my windows. I thought it had to be a helicopter much closer than I'd thought or it was a plane in real trouble. There was no sound of any kind. I could now distinguish a series of white lights along the bottom of a pretty long...fusillage?...six or eight lights, stationary, the ones at the back somewhat brighter than those toward the front. At the rear and above the white lights was a single blinking red light. At this point I thought it had to be a plane, though I have not ever seen a plane with several white lights and no wing lights, and I was thinking it would make a turn eat to approach the Dunkirk airport--and at the same time I knew it was traveling way too fast to make the kind of turn necessary to come into the airport. I was getting more and more concerned that this was a plane in trouble, that perhaps it was coming in with no engines and out of control. I started moving again and the object crossed Vineyard in front of me, still moving rapidly, and I still felt that the object was some distance away, still thinking it was close to or over Rt. 60. But when I crossed Main and the railroad tracks, I realized it was to my almost immediate left, north and still heading straight out likely by now over the lake. I was driving very slowly at that point, and it appeared that the object was no longer moving so quickly, as it was not diminishing any longer in size. I realized at that point it must be hovering. I lost sight of it as I came alongside Tractor Farm and Fleet/Peebles/TJ Maxx, obscured by those buildings. I pulled into Tim Horton's and pulled around the drive-thru to try to see it again without buildings in the way, but I could no longer find it in the sky. This event blew. my. mind. When I got to work, I learned that a former coworker had posted seeing a brilliant meteorite while jogging earlier this morning, so my colleagues assumed i saw something similar. This was not a meteor nor was it any kind of plane I am familiar with. "