Archival rendering of the December 26, 2003 Huntington, Indiana sighting, independently observed by three police officers near the city police station.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO SIGHTINGS REPORT
2003: Three Huntington, Indiana Police Officers See Flying Object
The day after Christmas, 2003, an off-duty Huntington, Indiana police officer warming up his car spotted something strange in the sky to the north and radioed for backup. Two fellow officers came out and saw it too: a large, low-flying, tumbling object, roughly the size of a hot air balloon, that shifted shape repeatedly as it moved, from a curved black “parachute” to a set of wing-like forms to a bright orange oblong circle, gliding, rotating, and briefly hovering near a Catholic church steeple before departing north. None of the three could identify it. For a few days, none of them said anything, worried people would think they were crazy.
Date: December 26, 2003
Sighting Time: Approximately 2:30 p.m.
Day/Night: Day
Location: Huntington, Indiana, near the Huntington City Police Station and a nearby Catholic church
Urban or Rural: Rural/small-town
No. of Entity(s): Not Applicable
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: DD — Daylight Disc. A metallic or whitish (and, per this account, variably shaped and colored) object seen at close range in daylight.
Duration: Approximately 30 to 45 seconds, per the two corroborating officers; the original reporting officer estimated up to a minute
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of the Object(s): Described inconsistently across its observed movement: initially resembling a black, curved, steerable parachute with no one aboard; then rolling slowly and turning upside down to resemble a giant set of bird wings; then reshaping into an oblong, orange-colored circle; a second officer’s first impression was of “a tire” in the sky; a third officer described it as completely circular and dome-shaped, gliding, rotating, hovering, then spinning slowly in place before flattening out again over the church steeple; officers believed the orange coloration resulted from sunlight reflecting off the object’s surface, comparing the effect to a twirled compact mirror
Shape of Object(s): Changed shape three or four times during the sighting: parachute-like, wing-like, oblong/circular, and dome-shaped at different points
Size of Object(s): Described as approximately the size of a hot air balloon or a backyard trampoline
Color of Object(s): Black when first seen; turned bright orange at points, attributed by officers to sunlight reflection
Distance to Object(s): Undocumented precisely; described as low enough that one officer believed it would catch on the church steeple
Height & Speed: Flying at approximately treetop level, no higher than the church roofline; moved in a generally straight line while tumbling, alternated between gliding, hovering, and slow rotational spinning, then departed north at increased speed after passing behind the steeple
Number of Witnesses: 3, all Huntington, Indiana police officers, observing from two to three separate vantage points (the second and third officers were positioned 30 to 35 feet apart)
Special Features/Characteristics: Object produced no audible sound throughout the sighting; came from the northwest, approached the steeple of a nearby Catholic church, then departed directly north; despite the object’s size and low altitude over a populated area, no 911, city, county dispatch, or state police calls were received from any other member of the public; the church’s pastor reported seeing nothing unusual that day and had received no other calls about it; the Huntington Municipal Airport and Fort Wayne’s Smith Field both confirmed no unusual takeoffs or landings recorded at the time; witnesses did not report the sighting publicly for several days out of concern about being disbelieved
Case Status: Insufficient Data — while three credentialed professional witnesses observed the object from separate vantage points and could not identify it, the object’s repeatedly changing apparent shape, tumbling motion, and orange coloration attributed to reflected sunlight are also closely consistent with a large wind-blown balloon (particularly a foil/Mylar-type balloon) or similar lightweight debris tumbling and catching light at different angles, a mundane possibility not directly addressed in the original investigation
Source: MUFON of Indiana, investigator Roger Sugden, ASD-North/CI; Original Source; reporting credit to the Huntington Herald Press
Summary/Description: Shortly after 2:30 p.m. on December 26, 2003, an off-duty Huntington, Indiana police officer spotted a large, low-flying, tumbling object north of the city police station and called in two fellow officers to observe it independently. The object, roughly the size of a hot air balloon, changed apparent shape multiple times, from a parachute-like form to wing-like shapes to an orange oblong circle, and moved silently toward a nearby Catholic church steeple before departing north. No member of the public reported seeing it, and local airports confirmed no unusual air traffic. The three officers, initially reluctant to report the sighting for fear of ridicule, came forward days later hoping others had seen it too.
Related Cases: None documented
Full Report
An off-duty Huntington officer was warming up his car when he saw it first. He radioed for an extra set of eyes; he got two. Two fellow officers looked skyward and saw it, too. All three are Huntington law officers, guys who have seen just about everything. But this time, they didn’t know what they were seeing. They’re hoping someone else might have been looking toward the sky shortly after 2:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 26, and can at least compare notes, if not provide an explanation.
The object, seen from just north of the city police station, came out of the northwest to the steeple of a nearby Catholic church, then shot straight back north. It didn’t make any noise, and it remained in their sight for less than a minute. But it was big, described as the size of a hot air balloon or a backyard trampoline, and low enough that one officer thought it was going to get hung up on the steeple of the church.
Normally, such an object passing over the city would have lit up emergency lines. But this one didn’t. No one called 911; no one called city or county dispatch; and no one called the state police. The three officers may have been the only ones to see it. And for a few days, they didn’t say anything about it. “We thought people would think we were crazy,” one said. But now, curiosity has the best of them. Did anyone else see it? And what was it?
The officer making the original sighting had finished his shift at 2:30 p.m. the day after Christmas and was warming up his car, parked across from the police station. He was sitting in the car, facing north. “It came from a long ways off,” he said, describing the sighting a week later. “First it looked like a parachute that you can steer, black and curved, but there was nobody in it. It started rolling, a slow roll, and turned upside down. Then it looked like a giant set of bird wings. It did more rolls, and turned into an oblong circle that was orange. It wasn’t any kind of flying machine that I can think of, and it’s not like a ’50s flying saucer. It was that big, but it didn’t have a hump in the middle.”
The second officer who answered the call said his first impression was that it was “a tire” in the sky, but that made no sense. The first officer said the object changed shape three or four times. It moved in a straight line, tumbling as it moved, and made no noise.
The third officer to verify the sighting had just walked out the station’s back door, heard the radio traffic, and looked up. “It was so big, within no time at all I spotted it,” he said. “When I first saw it, it was going in a flat plane, hovering, moving slowly right toward the church. It would glide, rotate the wide way around, and stay at one level, then it stopped, began moving in a circular motion, and turned bright orange. It went flat again, and hovered over the steeple.”
The officers believe the object turned orange when it reflected the sunlight, like a compact mirror would if you twirled it. It appeared to be moving along at treetop level, no higher than the roof of the church. It disappeared from the first officer’s view after it went behind the church steeple, but the other two officers, who had slightly different vantage points, said it went behind the steeple and moved directly north. The second and third officers were 30 to 35 feet apart. They agreed the sighting lasted 30 to 45 seconds.
Other statements included the object being completely circular, dome-shaped. “I can’t imagine how it could possibly be anything I could relate to. The object would stop and then spin slowly, a maneuver no known aircraft can accomplish. I was never really afraid, just in total amazement.”
The pastor of the Catholic Church said he didn’t see anything unusual that afternoon, and hadn’t received any phone calls from anyone who did. “That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he said Friday.
Managers at the Huntington Municipal Airport and Fort Wayne’s Smith Field said there were no records of any out-of-the-ordinary craft making either a takeoff or landing.
Investigator’s comments, per Roger Sugden: the description of the object’s movement is not unreported in the annals of UFO sightings. It’s fairly common for such a reported object to come over, stop, and hover. This is not the first time a tumbling motion has been reported before the object moves off. The size and movement of the object were said to have eliminated most common possibilities; investigation was noted as still in process.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
Huntington, 2003 — Weighing a Strong Witness Panel Against a Strong Mundane Candidate
- Three independent, professionally credentialed witnesses is a genuine strength. Police officers are trained, routine observers of their environment, and having three of them independently corroborate a sighting from separate vantage points, with details cross-checked against each other, is a meaningfully stronger evidentiary structure than a single civilian account.
- The description closely matches a tumbling balloon or reflective debris, and this deserves direct consideration. A large, lightweight object changing apparent shape repeatedly as it tumbles (parachute-like, then wing-like, then oblong), producing an orange color the witnesses themselves attributed to reflected sunlight “like a twirled compact mirror,” moving silently at low altitude roughly the size of a hot air balloon, is a strong match for the general profile of a large foil or Mylar-type balloon, or similar lightweight wind-blown debris, catching and losing sunlight reflection as it rotates. The original MUFON investigation does not appear to have directly tested or ruled out this specific hypothesis, and it is presented here as a serious candidate rather than omitted.
- The officers’ own professional experience is a real, if not conclusive, counterweight. All three witnesses explicitly stated the object did not resemble any known aircraft or prior sighting they could relate it to, and their trained observational background is worth real weight. It remains possible for experienced professional observers to be genuinely uncertain about an unfamiliar lightweight object’s identity, particularly viewed at a distance and unusual angle, without that uncertainty establishing the object as something extraordinary.
- The complete absence of public reports is a notable, if inconclusive, gap. A large, low-altitude object over a populated area during a Friday afternoon generating zero public calls to any emergency or dispatch line is unusual, whether the object was extraordinary or simply an unremarkable balloon most passersby wouldn’t think to report.
- Institutional checks were made, and came back negative. Both relevant regional airports confirmed no unusual air traffic, and the church pastor, situated close to the reported flight path, saw nothing, a detail worth weighing alongside the officers’ account rather than omitting.
Three police officers, trained to notice the ordinary and identify the extraordinary, watched something tumble silently across the sky over their own station and came away unable to name it, even as its description, shape-shifting, reflective, balloon-sized, and completely silent, reads as closely consistent with a large wind-blown balloon as it does with anything stranger. Both readings deserve to sit side by side here, because neither one has been proven, and the officers themselves, for all their experience, only ever saw it once.
“It wasn’t any kind of flying machine that I can think of, and it’s not like a ’50s flying saucer.”
— Huntington, Indiana police officer, December 26, 2003
