Date: December 24, 2011
Time: Between 9:00 p.m. and midnight.
Hi, I'm sorry my report is so late after the date of occurrence, but I feel kind of obligated to corroborate what others saw this last Christmas eve/morning in Edmonton over the Riverbend area.
To be specific, I was in the Terwillegar Towne neighborhood with my ex-girlfriend when we saw it. I see a previous post mentioned 4 orange lights in a row over the same area, heading in the same direction (roughly south to north).
That description fits my own observation except for the formation of the 4 lights, they weren't in a straight line (row) when I saw them. I'll describe it in better detail:
My girlfriend at the time was house-sitting for a family that was on vacation for the holidays. I went to visit her there that night so she wouldn't have to spend Christmas Eve alone. We were watching TV in the basement when the dog (whom she was taking care of as part of the house-sitting duties) started barking.
We thought maybe the dog had to pee again, so we went upstairs and let it outside in the back yard. While waiting on the porch for the dog to finish doing its business, I looked at the sky and noticed an orange light near the south-south-western horizon moving steadily towards us.
It was still quite distant at this point and I immediately assumed it was a plane or helicopter. However, it caught my attention because of its orange color. I had seen that orange in the sky only once before, and that was 5 or 6 years earlier when a big group of my friends and I saw a strange orange sphere flying erratically over Lac La Biche one summer.
That was my only other sighting, but I never reported that one anywhere or took it particularly seriously as we were all University students at the time drinking and celebrating summer.
Anyhow, the orange colour caught my attention because it reminded me of my previous (and only other) sighting. I pointed it out to my girlfriend and said "hey, look at that light".
She looked at it, but didn't think it unordinary or even worthy of comment. And I didn't either. I still assumed it was a plane at that point. But while she watched and waited for the dog I continued to watch the light approach to see if it was a plane or if it was a helicopter.
About 40 seconds later it was now close enough to see that it didn't appear to be either of those things. I thought it might be one of those paper-lantern hot-air balloon things people launch for special occasions.
After all, the object seemed self-illuminated from an internal source, the coloration looked just like a candle behind paper, it had a 'weightlessness' to its movement, and being Christmas eve, it certainly was a special occasion.
I had never seen a flying paper lantern before (though I'd seen videos of them on YouTube) so I once again turned my girlfriend's attention toward the now much closer light, asking her "what is that light anyway?". We both watched it, and as it was much closer and still unidentifiable she was now as captivated by it as me.
It was difficult to judge its speed, size and altitude, but I can say this much, it was flying at a height quite a bit lower than a commercial airplane. I would say somewhere around the height that the police helicopter in our city fly’s at (whatever that may be).
It was relatively low. It was round and I guessed its diameter to be about the length of a car. And I would say its speed was perhaps 60 kilometers per hour. However, with that being said, I should probably report that my girlfriend disagreed and thought it was somewhat bigger than my estimates and that it flew a bit higher (but we both agreed it was much too low for a plane).
Its trajectory was fixed in a linear path from south-south-west to north-north-east, and it passed almost perfectly directly above us. It flew at a smooth fixed velocity at a fixed altitude, and it seemed more like it floated or hovered like a balloon or helicopter more than it seemed propelled like a plane.
As it flew directly over us, we had a much better view of it. It was a solid glowing orange (absolutely no flickering or pulsating), and wasn't just a light so much as the object itself was glowing or self-illuminated. It was perfectly circular from below, and seemed circular during its approach too which leads me to believe it was spherical in shape.
Once I was directly below it, I could faintly make out an 'X' or 'cross'-shaped marking on the bottom, two bars crossed at 90 degrees and meeting at the center of the sphere, perfectly marking the orange circle off into 4 equal parts (like a pie cut horizontally and then vertically).
This marking indicates there was either an X-shaped device hanging from below the orange sphere, or that the orange sphere was actually 4 glowing objects traveling in a very tight grouping so as to almost appear as one object. But to be completely honest my first impression was of something hanging below it, and not 4 objects in a tight circle.
Even less distinct was a spinning motion around the object, but much less faster than a helicopter blade would go. Whatever was spinning around it, was not lit and was as dark and black as the night sky, so I can hardly be sure that I saw something, but I definitely thought there was something spinning around it.
The object was completely silent, and it was an incredibly quiet night to begin with. It made no noise at all (unlike a plane or helicopter). From the moment I saw it to the moment it passed over us and out of sight beyond the other side of the house couldn't have lasted more than 4 or 5 minutes, but may have been as short as a minute or two (I'm afraid I can't remember any better than that).
We had no sense of fear or foreboding upon seeing it, but rather curiosity and later excitement when we both agreed it was a flying object that neither of us had any plausible notion for identifying it with.
I don't think my girlfriend ever believed in UFOs before, and certainly never expected to see one in her life (and I definitely never expected to see a second one in my life!). But after witnessing that object she could not deny that she had seen something rare and unusual.
I wish I could remember the specific time this sighting occurred, but it was likely sometime between 9:00 p.m. and midnight.
Anyway. I'm not the type to believe I saw anything alien, but I also know that what I saw was out of the ordinary. I hope documenting my account can lend credence to others who may have witnessed the same thing we saw, and maybe in some way help determine and solve the exciting mystery that is the identity of that orange object!
Thanks for your time!
