Posted: December 31, 2007
Date: August 16, 2004 Time: 7:30 a.m.
I was so elated to see this photo! Finally, after searching everywhere on the Net, I've found something that so closely resembles what I first saw three days after Hurricane Charlie. I don’t think this is just a smudge on the glass. Here's why:
On August 16th, I was heading back to work for the first time since my co-workers and I prepped the place as best we could before heading on to our homes on the afternoon of Aug. 12th. I'm an Administrative Assistant for a well-known engineering firm.
I take the same route into work every day, at the same time of day every day (7:30 am), and this particular morning was no exception. I was facing west at a major intersection, waiting to take the left (south) turn. As I'm sitting at the light waiting to make my turn I looked above the line of cars to the sky and there, very large and very clear, was this sphere, peeking out from the middle of a *****ulus. It seemed as if the *****ulus cloaked it or wrapped "arms" around it somehow. It had five rings that I could see that encircled it, each one graduating in width to accommodate the cir*****ference before the *****ulus blocked the view. It reminded me of the images of Saturn, the way the rings circled it, only they went top to bottom in a stacked formation instead of concentric ones. The whole thing seemed to be made of the same "stuff" as the cloud that enveloped it, which is to say sort of wispy and puffy. I could even make out drifts at the bottoms of the rings, which reminded me of the vapor that can be seen coming from dry ice, yet somehow the whole thing held together and had a sense of solidity. There was no movement that I could discern. It just hung there.
It was enormous, but I have no way of gauging how large it actually was, except to say a jetliner would be dwarfed next to it. From its position in the sky I estimated it to be somewhere over Sanibel and Captiva Islands, the two worst hit areas nearest Ft. Myers. Light seemed to reflect off its surface, as it was catching the rising sun, yet the rings had shadowed places beneath them, suggesting an internal light. It was white in color, but with nuances that would allow it to blend perfectly into the surrounding cover.
I kept an eye on it, never thinking to look around to see if anyone else saw it. Of course I cursed my luck at having taken my camera out of the car only that morning. The traffic light changed all too soon and I was forced to move, but as I headed south I could still see it in my passenger side window and I kept it in view until a buffer wall blocked further observation. I sped up, hoping to catch the next light on green and did so.
Three minutes later I parked at work and got anxiously out, immediately looking to the direction I'd seen it in. There were some clouds, but none looked like the one I'd spent the last five minutes watching.
Well, we'd just had a hurricane a few days earlier and it would be no surprise to see some pretty amazing cloud formations, right? Sure. Except I saw it a second time.
The second sighting was after Hurricane Frances and this time my seven year old daughter was with me.
We were taking her to school, the first day back after being out the whole previous week. There were still trees down everywhere and some folks still didn’t have power reconnected since Charlie's destructive visit. The time was approximately 7:15 a.m. The sun was coming up in a beautiful blaze of corals and oranges, very dramatic.
We were traveling east and I glanced out my window northwards as we approached an intersection. There it was again, only this time I estimated its position to be over Port Charlotte, the worst hit county in our immediate area, some 20 miles north. It took on the beautiful tinge of the sunrise, yet still suggested some type of internal light. The sphere itself seemed so smooth. Once again the *****ulus partially obscured the lower half of it.
I pointed it out to my daughter as we reached the intersection, asking if she saw it. I asked her what it looked like to her and she said a ball with rings going around it. She said it looked pretty, "like that planet".
Just like before we watched it all the way to her school until such time as we had to turn away from it in order to turn into the school. By the time we'd parked and gotten out, yes, it was gone. Again.
She and I sat down later that evening in different rooms and drew what we saw, although neither of us could really do it justice. I have been searching since then, trying to find something that made sense. This picture is the closest I've seen, with the exception of a photo of a cloud formation that is said to form over the Mt. St. Helens area in the spring, but that photo lacked that definition, that solidness, that the thing I saw had.
Have you heard of any other sightings of cloud-like anomalies in the South Florida area? I was ready to dismiss it before as just one of those freak things, but now I'm not so sure.
If you like, I can scan and send the drawings my daughter and I drew of it.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you to the witness for this report.
Brian Vike, Director HBCC UFO Research. email: hbccufo@telus.net Website: http://www.hbccufo.org http://www.brianvike.com, http://www.hbccufo.com, http://www.hbccufo.net HBCC UFO Research International: http://www.hbccufointernational.org/
HBCC UFO Research, Box 1091 Houston, British Columbia, Canada - VOJ 1ZO
