An Elk River resident and his girlfriend claimed to see an unidentified flying object in the area recently.

On Nov. 2 at 2:37 a.m., the couple called police reporting seeing a UFO in the eastern sky from the 11000 block of 200th Avenue NW.

They said it was jellyfish-shaped and displayed alternating blue, green and red lights. It was also moving back and forth and hovering in one spot. According to UFO Evidence, a Web site that contains information about the UFO phenomena, 50 percent of the population believes in UFOs and 5 percent of the population have seen a UFO.

After the call came in, an officer responded to the residence and also observed the object the two were squinting at, which appeared to be an unusually bright star or visible planet.

The officer also took note that neither of the parties was intoxicated or in need of medical attention.

Later, dispatch called the Princeton Airport for a possible radar contact and learned they did not have the capability to do so. But, airport personnel did refer dispatch to the National UFO Reporting Center's hot line, which said a star named Sirius was visible in the eastern sky approximately 30 degrees off the horizon.

The officer advised the complainant of this new information, but the resident was still convinced it was a UFO.

Peter Davenport, the director of the Washington-based National UFO Reporting Center said many calls come in related to sightings when people are looking at the night sky and really just seeing twinkling stars.

It's impossible for him to accurately say what was seen Nov. 2 in Elk River because he wasn't in the area and doesn't know what they were looking at in the Minnesota sky, but it could have been Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.

Also there's a lot of pertinent information missing to determine whether or not it was really a UFO. Davenport said people need to fill out a written report pertaining to the direction in terms of degrees and angle of elevation, or how high up from the horizon the object was. Also, a written description of the object is crucial for investigators to determine what was seen.

One of the biggest problems with trying to investigate UFOs is the lack of written reporting to the center.

Davenport said out of the approximate 10,000 Americans who have seen a UFO, only one will actually report the sighting and go the extra measures of calling emergency departments and military bases to see if anyone else witnessed it.

But, reports of seeing UFOs are not unusual in the Elk River area.

The Star News reported in 1992 for several weeks many reports of UFO sightings.

Even Don Heinzman, who was the editor of the paper at the time, believed the residents making these reports really were seeing something.

The first report was on Sept. 17, 1992, at 4:45 a.m. when a woman got up to use the bathroom, looked out the window and saw three huge lights hovering about 6 feet off the ground in her neighbor's back yard. Within seconds, they disappeared.

After her initial report to police, which ended up turning into a story the paper ran, a rash of sightings followed. By October 1992, a sign was even put at the entrances to Elk River reading "UFO Capital of the Universe."

Davenport said just because it might seem like there was a saturation at the time, doesn't necessarily mean it was true.

A lot of times people will pull pranks, and others really have no idea what they are seeing and assume it's a UFO. He said in every community there are normally three or four people who think they've seen a UFO and tell their friends, who then tell their friends and before long the area seems like a "hotbed" of sightings, and it's really not.

Calls that were really space shuttles, aura borealis, space stations, stars, rocket launches and a variety of other things have been called in as UFOs in the past.

Elk River Police Capt. Bob Kluntz said he remembers the rash of UFO reports in the early 1990s, but can't remember any after that.

"I can't remember the last time we got a call on this," he said. "This is pretty rare."

But the only way to really know is if people report what they see. Davenport encourages anyone who thinks he or she has seen a UFO to fill out a written report at www.ufocenter.com.