Witness sketch. MUFON database
They first noticed what they thought was a "strange configuration of lights in the sky." The driver saw one object through the windshield. The son saw a second object from the passenger side window. Later in the trip, the son saw a third object when he looked out the back window.
They report that the object had "three lights of different sizes stacked atop the other from what looked as though a straight on view. When seeing it as a side view, the same three stack of lights ran vertical and there was an "arm" of another line of three lights of uniform size as compared to the others which connected horizontally to the top light in the other stack in a "V" configuration."
The following is the unedited witness testimony from the MUFON database.
OH, August 9, 2009 - V-shaped lights observed hovering with two other clusters of lights hovering in the distance. MUFON Case # 18599.
Sighting occurred while traveling in a car from Port Columbus International Airport in Columbus, Ohio, to Logan, Ohio. Our parking ticket was validated when leaving the airport at 5:03, and we traveled on U.S. 270 South toward Wheeling.
Right before we exited onto St. Rt. 33 to travel southeast, I noticed a strange configuration of lights in the sky. I was driving so I tried to keep my eye on it as best I could. My son saw it, too, and then he saw another from the passenger side of the car that was like the other one. We did not have a compass to get a location on these lights, but our best guess was that one was southeast and the other was northwest. Later in the trip, my son saw an additional light out the back window of the car which I was unable to see while driving.
At this time of the day, it was still very dark and remained so all the way to our destination. It was a clear night until we went into dense fog for a few miles near Logan. If I were to have held a ruler up to measure the object I observed from the driver's side of the car, I would estimate it to be (very) roughly 1/8" at the broad side of the shape. This particular object was the closest to us for observation.
At first, I thought it might be a helicopter just hovering. But as we drove on down the road, we would curve right and left and it allowed me to see something like a straight-on view of the object and then a side view of the object.
In comparison to the stars, it looked nothing like that. These were much brighter lights. The object had three lights of different sizes stacked atop the other from what looked as though a straight on view. When seeing it as a side view, the same three stack of lights ran vertical and there was an "arm" of another line of three lights of uniform size as compared to the others which connected horizontally to the top light in the other stack in a "V" configuration.
These horizontal lights were uniformly sized but didn't extend as far in length as the other arm of the "V." At times a halo effect formed a thin line proceeding further from both lines from the "V" as if there were lights glowing above a dark "edge" of the body of the object. The whole set of lights nearly completed a teardrop shape with only the "point of it missing and as if the teardrop were lying on its side with the larger, different-sized lights at the broad side of the teardrop but standing vertically from our observation point. I saw a red flash (a much smaller perfectly round light) momentarily at the apex of the "V." I had my son try to take a picture with my iPhone, but with no success. He was unable to operate the Google Maps app on the iPhone to obtain any kind of coordinate details.
The lights on the broad side which were vertical from my view were oval shaped and not of uniform size which might indicate energy propulsion? I will attempt to draw a picture of this and upload it with this report.
At times, the object on my side of the car appeared to be either higher or lower in the sky, but it hovered in the same general position all the while we drove approx. 60 miles southeast at which point we went into dense fog and it could not be seen. However, when we drove out of the fog, the one on my side of the car was still visible but we couldn't see if the other ones were still there because of the tree line. Dawn was just breaking at our destination, but trees completely obscured our view of the sky there.
This is the strangest thing I have yet seen in the sky. I feel it was not a cluster of stars nor the moon partially concealed by clouds but gave the sense that it was a shaped object. The moon was perfectly visible at our destination.
The object on the left side was close enough that as we went through the curves of the road that we could see something like a straight on view and a side view but how could something hover and remain in the same position from our view like that? At one point, I was mulling over in my mind whether it was keeping up us. If it were an aircraft, it would have left us behind minutes after first sighting it. We could see these objects out of both sides of the car and the back, so I don't think it could be possible to see stars that would be that uniform and clustered in opposite directions or even helicopters remaining stationery for that long so we could see them for 56.3 miles of driving distance.
As far as time is concerned, I don't feel there was any missing time, yet we left the airport at 5:03. I could not see the time on the car clock when we first observed the object due to the fact that my son had the radio playing. I looked at the car clock when we were at Carroll, Ohio, and it was 5:17. Since my thoughts were consumed with observing this object, at this point in the trip, I first was unaware of where we were in the dark but was quite surprised when I realized we were as far along on the road as we were. According to Google maps, the distance was 22 miles from the airport to Carroll which they say would have taken approx. 38 minutes. It just felt as if we got to that point much faster than we ought to have. I was driving 65 on Rt. 270 and 60 on Rt. 33.
I compared the time on my watch to the time on an atomic clock we have in the office and my watch is off five seconds from the atomic clock. Then I went out to the car and compared my watch with the car clock and found the car clock is slow by seven minutes. Therefore at 5:17 on the car clock, the actual time would have been 5:24. Roughly, we gained 17 minutes to that point. The clocks at our destination are not accurate, but we arrived there in the range of 5:50 to 6:10. According to Google Maps, the trip from the airport to our destination was 56.3 miles or 1 hour and 5 minutes. From Carroll to our destination was 29.1 miles or 30 minutes. Our arrival ended up in range of what was expected, but I don't know how we got to Carroll as fast as we did and then arrive at the destination in the expected range. Probably this was just a fluke or an error in calculation. Traffic was extremely light at that time of the day on this Sunday morning and at times, we were the only car visible.
The only other odd thing to report about this trip was that I would have a momentary sticking pain in the right side of my head at the top. This happened from time to time on the way home but it may not be related in any way.
Wright Patterson AFB is within easy flying distance of this area, so perhaps this was something of our own being tested.
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