MUFON witness report - 4/30/2010: During my daily exercise walk, I spotted a mysterious cylindrical (cigar-shaped) UFO hovering low over a suburban section of Richmond, Virginia. I noticed the craft during beautiful weather and clear skies at approximately 6:30 p.m. while walking east down Riverside Drive on the south bank of the James River. I was casually scanning the scenery and wildlife along the river, gazing northeast toward the north bank of the river and greater Richmond.
The cigar-shaped craft, perhaps the length of a football field, appeared to be a dull metallic fuselage with light and dark sections fore, aft, and amidships. There was no writing on the craft or standard markings, no advertisements like you would expect on a blimp, and it did not appear to be a conventional blimp, dirigible, or zeppelin of which I am familiar.
I did not see any fins, stabilizers, rudders, or conventional propulsion systems. It was not a balloon, plane, or helicopter. I did not hear any noise coming from the craft. There were no lights of any kind (at first), no FAA port/starboard (red & green) navigation (running) lights, no headlight and no tail light, even though most conventional aircraft would be required to have such lights turned on during dusk hours, especially while operating at extra-low altitude for safety reasons.
The cylindrical UFO was hovering low, at perhaps 1,500-2,000 feet, over what I believe was an affluent section of Richmond. I used a tall bell tower(spire) at Richmond's Dogwood Dell Carrilon (Maymont Park) as a point of reference. From my location during the sighting, the tower is a few miles downriver on the northside of the James River, and the cigar-shaped UFO was hovering perhaps .25-.5 mile inland from the river maybe 1-3 miles west of the Carrilon bell tower, perhaps over historic Agecroft Hall.
When I saw the craft, I stopped in my tracks and scrutinized it for a couple of minutes, trying to determine whether it was an unusual blimp or cylindrical UFO of possible extraterrestrial origin. Having relatives at NASA, NSA, a late uncle who once was president of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilot's association in Washington, D.C., and having myself seen Apollo 16 (Saturn 5B) liftoff from Cape Canaveral, a U.S. Air Force Atlas Centaur rocket launch, and having been on naval ships and attended the largest airshow in the U.S. three times, this large cylindrical object hovering low near the James River caught my eye.
After watching the UFO hover silently for about one minute and not seeing any lights, a bright clear-white strobe light of intense magnitude suddenly flashed one time. The duration was very brief, a couple of seconds. Then no lights for maybe 10-15 seconds. Then another intensely-bright strobe flashed for a couple of seconds except this time the color was red. These were the only lights seen during my approximate 10-minute viewing. The two strobe lights flashed from the underside of the UFO at amidships.
Maybe a minute after the strobe lights flashed, the craft suddenly turned slowly on its axis at maybe a 45-degree angle of rotation and then remained motionless in its new position for the remainder of my viewing. It was as though the occupants of the craft knew (perhaps telepathically) that people on the ground were observing and thus shifted the position of the UFO in order to say "Hi."
At this point, I pulled out my cell-phone, activated camera mode, and centered the viewing screen on where I knew the UFO was, but I could not see the UFO on the camera screen because of the long distance, and my phone cam does not zoom, and having photojournalism training, I decided to not take a picture believing that the distance was too far for the camera's capabilities. The UFO was a couple of miles away on the other side of a wide river during evening hours, etc. Too bad the ETs didn't zoom in (across the river) and give me a better photo-op.
At this point, I continued my walk east down Riverside Drive while keeping the UFO in view when it was not obstructed by foliage on the river bank. A couple of minutes later, I came to a parking area on the banks of the river near the Pony Pasture River Park. I saw a solitary man (white or Hispanic) in his 20s or 30s sitting Indian-style on a large granite boulder in the river a few feet from the bank. The man seemed to be gazing intently across the river, up into the air, in the directon of the cigar-shaped UFO.
I figured the man was watching what I had been watching, and he was facing away from me and did not know that I was there, so I kept quiet and did not disturb his moment of mystification. I watched the man eying the UFO and the cylindrical craft itself for perhaps one minute, and neither man nor mysterious machine moved a muscle or flinched an inch. Finally, I continued my walk toward home, leaving the man solid as the giant rock that he used as a stool in a pool.
In addition, be advised that some dark unmarked Black-Hawk helicopters were flying around my area the same day and evening (4-30-10) which has happened during and after previous UFO sightings in my area. There also was at least one military fighter plane that made a noisy pass at low altitude and high speed which is very unusual, so maybe the government was monitoring and/or chasing the UFO which seems to be par for the course in the United States and Canada.
Later that night, Friday, April 30, 2010, I was prompted to visit MUFON's website and was surprised to see a supporting UFO report from a man named Jim in Rustburg, Virginia which lies 11 miles south of Lynchburg and 111 miles southwest of Richmond. Jim reported a cylindrical (cigar-shaped) UFO of identical description.
Jim was much closer to the craft than me, however, and was able to see detail that was harder for me to discern because of the distance during my sighting. Jim's sighting occurred at 6:47 a.m. and my sighting was farther east at about 6:30 p.m.
Better still, Jim was a professional witness and said in his MUFON report, Case # 23052, that he was an ex-Army and Navy career man with a naval-intelligence background and "studied all types of conventional and unconventional aircraft."
"I'm in the Army National Guard and have seen UAV aircraft in Iraq, this was different," Jim said.
"This object had no fins or wings visible of any type and no engines visible. It was simply a straight cigar or cylinder shape with some object below it or attached to it. It had no rotors or wings and made no noise. It moved slowly and straight. This was absolutely baffling," Jim added.
After seeing Jim's report and telling my friend, Josh, who, with his wife, saw a green sphere/tear-drop UFO descend over South Richmond (Chesterfield County) in November 2009, I decided to file my own MUFON report to perhaps lend more credence to the report from Jim in Rustburg, VA.
Furthermore, other reputable witnesses, including scientists and government employees, have seen and reported cylindrical and disc-shaped UFOs downriver from Richmond near the Surry Nuclear-Power Plant and also near the North Anna Nuclear Power Plant on Lake Anna in central Virginia.
My wife and I, and tens of thousands of others, also saw numerous green-sphere UFOs descend along the East Coast in March 2009. Richmond's daily newspaper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, ran a cover story which mentioned the lights and accompanying sonic booms but did not investigate adequately and failed to connect this to simultaneous UFO reports aired on TV stations in Tidewater Virginia.
There are numerous MUFON reports on file about these sightings. Bottom line: more and more UFOs and ETs are being seen everyday and everywhere, and each individual must draw their own personal conclusions as to why.
Attached are two photos of cylindrical UFOs that look similar to the UFO that I saw over Richmond, VA on Friday, 4-30-2010. The first photo synchronicity features a UFO that was farther east over the ocean off Virginia Beach, VA on August 9, 2009. The second photo was taken by members of C-SETI (Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence) a little farther south off the coast of North Carolina's Outer Banks in April 2009, one year earlier than mine and Jim's sightings in central and southwestern Virginia. The C-SETI members say they "contacted" the extraterrestrials aboard the cylindrical UFO.
I cropped and enlarged the image of the cigar-shaped UFO over VA Beach which made the craft more visible but also resulted in pixel distortion around the object because of the extreme magnification, but this distortion is to be expected.
NOTE: Very concise report. I recently received an email from a reader near Richmond who witnessed a similar object. It may be military but I doubt it. The I-95 corridor between Richmond and Fredericksburg, VA has been very active with UFO sightings since the 1960's...Lon
