Homewood man reports incident similar to motorist's
sighting near Ottawa
By CLEON RICKEL, Herald Senior Writer
An Ottawa pilot thinks he has an explanation
for a hovering disk seen near Ottawa north of I-35 Sunday
afternoon. However, an 18-year-old Homewood man said he also
saw exactly the same disk in the same location -- but a year
before.
The Overland Park man was driving south on
I-35 about five to 10 miles northeast of Ottawa early Sunday
afternoon when he saw an white-silver spherical object, which
he described as a quarter at arm's length.
The quarter-like object tilted until it was on
edge and then vanished, he said.
The Ottawa pilot has suggested one explanation
for the sighting. Three pilots who use Ottawa Municipal
Airport have older or home-built small airplanes with
unpainted aluminum fuselages and who often fly on nice
weekends, he said.
Such highly-reflective airplanes could been
seen as a bright light in the sky that suddenly vanishes,
depending on the sunlight, a viewer's perspective and the type
of turn an airplane makes, he said.
However, the Homewood man said he doubts the
airplane theory. The man, who like the Overland Park man asked
to remain unidentified but said his name and phone number
could be provided to investigators, said he plans to join the
U.S. Air Force and enjoys watching the sky. He said he is
familiar with airplanes.
"This wasn't an airplane," he said.
The Homewood man said he saw an silvery object
in July 2006 while he was southbound along I-35, in almost the
same spot. The details of the two sightings are similar but
the Homewood man described the object as more oval and it
vanished almost immediately after he spotted it. He told a
passenger in his car but she didn't see it because it vanished
so quickly.
He said he didn't mention it until he saw a
newspaper account of the sighting this weekend by the Overland
Park man.
Franklin County Sheriff Craig Davis said it's
rare for his department to receive individual unidentified
flying object reports and when his office receives such
reports, they come in clusters and can be explained by
meteors, the northern lights or other prosaic phenomena.
A Kansas investigator for MUFON, the Mutual
UFO Network, a national group that collects and investigates
UFO sightings and activities, said it's rare for his group to
receive reports about UFOs seen during daylight hours.
The Homewood man also said he's had another
experience earlier this month. Shortly after 2 a.m. July 5 at
his home, he was in his backyard looking at the stars with a
family member and the family dog.
He said he was watching a pinpoint of light
slowly crossing the sky high overhead. He said he was sure the
object was a satellite.
However, the spot of light stopped, stayed
stationary and then suddenly ripped across the sky in another
direction at what appeared to be a high rate of speed, he
said.
About a week later in his backyard, he said
saw a pinpoint of light behaving in the same manner.
