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| Is an 'Osprey' like this one causing UFO reports? |
During the past week, a woman reported that she and her 16-year-old daughter saw a “weird light that blinked red, blue and white” Wednesday of last week and on Sun., Dec. 2, near their home on County Road 15 in the Baggett’s Chapel community.
“Whatever it was moved real fast and went west toward Lenox and Deer Range,” the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said. “And it was real quiet. We hear planes all the time from the airport in Evergreen, but whatever this was, it didn’t make any sound at all.”
The woman and her daughter spotted the unidentified light around 9 p.m. on Wednesday of last week and around 8:45 p.m. on Dec. 2. On both occasions, they were able to see the object for 15 to 20 minutes, she said.
“I thought it was a star at first,” she said. “But then it got bigger and started to move around, and I knew then that it couldn’t be a star.”
Another woman, who also asked not to be named, visited The Courant’s office on Tuesday with video footage of the light that she captured on her cellular phone on the night of Dec. 2.
The woman, who lives on West Front Street near Wolff Motor Co. in Evergreen, said that she first saw the light around 9:30 p.m. as she traveled east on U.S. Highway 84 from Belleville.
“I probably watched it for 10 to 15 minutes,” she said. “From where I was, it was in the sky behind UPS and Evergreen Elementary School.”
The woman said that the light gave her an uneasy feeling and made her feel uncomfortable.
“After a few minutes of filming it, I just went inside,” she said. “I’ve seen too many movies.”
The footage of the strange light shows what many have reported seeing over the past several weeks, that is, an unusual light that flashes different colors and appears to move in a random pattern in the night sky. The woman also said that she’d been unaware of the recent UFO reports in the area until she showed the video footage to her mother, who then told her about the UFO sightings that had been reported in The Courant in recent weeks.
During the past week, a number of readers have contacted the newspaper office to say that the unusual light is being given off by a military aircraft called a V-22 Osprey, which is a large tiltrotor aircraft that can move vertically like a conventional helicopter and fly at high speeds like a twin-propeller airplane.
U.S. Navy and civilian aviation personnel at Middleton Airfield in Evergreen said on Tuesday that they weren’t aware of any Ospreys operating in the Conecuh County area lately and didn’t know of any type of aircraft that could explain the unusual reports being made in the area. One Navy representative said that it could possibly be a weather balloon. He also noted that all Navy training aircraft flown out of Middleton Airfield don’t take off after sunset.
“We shut down training at sunset,” he said. “We don’t have anything in the sky out of Middleton Field after dark.”
Officials at the Monroe County Airport in Monroeville said on Tuesday that they have had Ospreys use their airport in the past, but none recently. They also said that they didn’t know of any aircraft, civilian or military, that could be causing the UFO reports.
Officials at the Bay Minette Municipal Airport told The Courant on Tuesday that a U.S. Marines Corps unit out of North Carolina is currently conducting night training exercises involving Ospreys out of the Bay Minette airport and out of the airfield in Destin, Fla. They’ve been conducting these exercises in southwest Alabama and northwest Florida since October, they said.
Alyssa Blackburn, who works at the airport in Bay Minette, said that an Osprey could be what’s causing the UFO reports.
“They fly in a manner that’s different than a typical airplane,” she said. “And I could see where one of them at night would look very strange to someone on the ground who’s not familiar with them.”
As of yesterday (Wednesday) morning, eight witnesses have contacted The Courant to say that they’ve personally seen the unusual light over Conecuh County and have reported that it’s also been seen by dozens of their family members and friends. The unusual light was first reported in the Nov. 29 edition of The Courant after an anonymous caller said that he, his wife and a number of their friends saw the light northwest of Evergreen on Nov. 20.
Individuals who have seen this strange light or who can explain the unusual light are asked to contact Lee Peacock at The Courant at courantsports@earthlink.net or 578-1492.
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