On the 12th of May 2004, I was working in my office. My wife and her friend were out on the front lawn, enjoying the fiar weather, and awaiting the arrival of our son on his school bus. My son is 17, and a junior at Highlands High School. He is in special education.

Shorly after my son got off the bus, a helicopter flew overhead. This is a common sight here, as there is a company locally which repairs and maintains such aircraft. When the three looked up at the chopper, an unusual object was also seen. This object appeared to be much higher and further away than the helicopter, and did not seem to be in any way connected to, nor interfering with, the 'copter.

When the three noticed the object, my wife called for me to come outside and see it. This I did. When I first saw it, my immediate impression was that the object was most likely one of those silvery mylar helium balloons seen so commonly in stores. Just to be sure, I asked my wife to bring me our camcorder so that I might capture the event on tape. I turned on the camcorder, and aimed in the direction of the object. When I found it in the viewfinder, I zoomed in to 500x, the maximum this camcorder is capable of. The object was bright, and flashing on and off. It was moving in an easterly direction, whilst the wind was brisk and out of the south. As the object proceeded east, it became obvious that it would soon pass behind a tree in a neighbor's yard. The tree limbs offered a point of reference to guage speed and direction with greater accuracy. The stationary tree showed that the object was not only tacking across the wind, but "skipping" side to side, and appearently, up and down as well. I am reminded of Kenneth Arnold's 1947 description of his UFO sighting. He stated that the objects he saw behaved like a "saucer skipping on water". This object behaved in much the same manner, although it never presented any appearance of a saucer shape. Throughout the event, it was a flashing light of varying brightness. In addition, the flashing was uneven.

After approximately two minutes of recording, the object disappeared behind a tree, and did not return to sight. Its' motion, and appearance, proved to me that it was no balloon, airplane, space debris, planet, or satellite. I, and my fellow witnesses, cannot identify it. The witnesses were myself age 51, my wife Janet age 47, her friend Sharon Springs age 45, and my son Max age 17. We are all willing to swear before almighty God that this statement is a true and accurate account of what we observed with our own eyes.

Also see my other sightings...1967 - 2000, 11 Jan. 2002, and 2 July 2002.

GIF © 2004 Jeff Challender

This animated GIF is made from still frames captured from the original 8mm tape. These frames only show the object when it was at it's brightest. It does not illustrate the pattern of strobing, nor does it show how the object "skipped" about. But short of posting the video at some 138mb, this is the best that we can do for the web.

© 2004 Jeff Challender