SIGHTING: MBOUR, THIES (SENEGAL)

Witness Testimony

"In Mbour, Senegal, ( 14deg.,25 min. N , 17 deg. W ) at about midnight, looking at the sky out over the Atlantic Ocean ( i.e. on the West coast of Africa looking to the west). I was alone outside the hotel, just killing time waiting for my girlfriend to get ready. I observed what I "knew" to be a satellite, which of course appears as a point of light, moving slowly and steadily from generally North to South almost overhead but a little to my west.After about 30 seconds of this, it suddenly STOPPED for about 1 second, moved quickly and erratically in a small area near where it had stopped, and then took off at a notably higher rate of speed to the southwest. Eventually it disappeared due to distance.Immediately the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I felt a cold chill throughout my body. I was mortified by what I saw. My first rational thought was " SOB! so it's been true all along - they really do exist".Seeing conditions were clear with very little cloud cover and essentially NO light pollution. As for the observer, I am a casual amateur astronomer who has spent many hundreds of hours observing through a telescope, binoculars, and w/ the naked eye. I'm familiar with astronomical, aeronautical and atmospheric phenomena, NONE of which can explain this sighting. Oh, and one more thing - until it happened, I didn't believe in UFO's.(Note-I reported this to NUFORC in 2005.)"