February 1981 — Harford County, Maryland. A jet-black obsidian diamond with multicolored junction lights hovers above a power tower near Aberdeen Proving Ground. Named witness approached to 150 feet. Surface parallels Rendlesham Forest. Added to Nick Pope investigation record. CE-I. Unexplained.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTING REPORT
1981: Harford County, Maryland — An Obsidian Diamond Hovers Over a Power Line Tower Near Aberdeen Proving Ground
On a Tuesday evening in February 1981, Michael V. Kabik was driving home through the rural hills between Baltimore and Bel Air, Maryland when a brilliant white light — whiter and brighter than anything he had ever seen, as if a star had been plucked from the sky — drew him off the main road and through winding back roads to a plowed cornfield beside a hog farm on Mountain Road, where he walked 150 feet through frozen furrows toward something hovering silently above a small power line tower: a jet-black, elongated diamond-shaped craft about twelve feet wide and five feet tall, its surface polished to an obsidian sheen, with multicolored lights flashing at each junction point in a precise pattern. The object’s resemblance to the craft described by witnesses at Rendlesham Forest — polished stone surface, electric atmosphere, diamond-like geometry — was so striking that Kabik eventually sent his account to British researcher Nick Pope, who added it to the Rendlesham investigation record.
IMPORTANT DATE CORRECTION: The original page dates this sighting to February 6, 2018. This is the date Michael V. Kabik wrote his correspondence to Nick Pope — not the date of the sighting itself. The witness explicitly states the event occurred “on a Tuesday evening in February of 1981.” The sighting date has been corrected to February 1981. Additionally, the original page lists “No. of Object(s): 11” — this is a typographical error. The witness describes one object. The count has been corrected to 1.
Completed Template
Date: February 1981 (exact date uncertain; witness states “a Tuesday evening in February of 1981”)
Sighting Time: Approximately 9:15 p.m.
Day/Night: Night
Location: Harford County, Maryland — intersection of Harford Road and Mountain Road, near a hog farm, between Glen Arm and Bel Air
Urban or Rural: Rural — plowed cornfield adjacent to hog farm with small power line towers
No. of Entity(‘s): None observed
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: CE-I (Close Encounter I) — Observation of an object in close proximity to the witness (within 500 feet)
Duration: 15 to 20 minutes (from first sighting of white light to departure from field)
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of the Object(s): Elongated diamond shape, jet black, with a surface like polished obsidian or glass. Faceted appearance visible in starlight. Multicolored lights (red, green, blue) at each junction point, flashing in a pattern. Bottom detail difficult to discern due to extreme blackness.
Shape of Object(s): Elongated diamond
Size of Object(s): 10-12 feet wide, approximately 4-5 feet tall (about the width of a compact car)
Color of Object(s): Jet black — polished obsidian or glass surface
Distance to Object(s): Approximately 150 feet
Height & Speed: Hovering stationary above a small power line tower; no movement observed during close observation
Number of Witnesses: 1 (primary close observation); corroborating reports of a bright white light over power lines in nearby Edgewood, with associated power outage, reported to the local newspaper the same evening
Special Features/Characteristics: Polished obsidian surface reflecting starlight; faceted stone-like appearance; multicolored junction lights flashing in pattern; low humming sound (possibly from tower); initial brilliant white light “whiter and brighter than any object” witness had ever seen; preceded by brilliant white light following ridge line; nearby Edgewood residents reported bright white light over power lines with local power outage same evening; witness initially tracked bright white light along ridge before locating diamond craft at power tower; proximity to Aberdeen Proving Ground (military R&D facility); witness corresponded with physicist Rick Saucie from Aberdeen Proving Ground; object added to Nick Pope’s Rendlesham investigation record
Case Status: Unexplained
Source: Reported to ThinkAboutIt; Michael V. Kabik (named witness); correspondence to Nick Pope; physicist Rick Saucie (Aberdeen Proving Ground); local newspaper desk confirmed contemporaneous Edgewood report
Summary/Description: A named witness drove through rural Harford County pursuing a brilliant white light and encountered a small, jet-black, diamond-shaped craft with an obsidian surface and multicolored junction lights hovering above a power line tower near Mountain Road. The witness approached to within 150 feet and observed the craft for several minutes before retreating in fear. Contemporaneous reports from nearby Edgewood described a bright white light over power lines with associated power outage. The craft’s physical description closely parallels the Rendlesham Forest object. The witness shared a sketch and account with physicist Rick Saucie from Aberdeen Proving Ground and later with Nick Pope.
Related Cases: 1978 Patapsco State Park Triangle | 1981 Bethesda, Maryland | 2005 Owings Mills Black Triangle (Lockheed Engineer)
Detailed Report
On a Tuesday evening in February 1981, Michael V. Kabik had just dropped his father off at his home in Baltimore after a physical therapy appointment and was driving north through rural Harford County toward his home in Bel Air, Maryland, taking a shortcut through the wooded valleys along Glen Arm Road. It was a cold, clear night with no wind.
As he approached a wider valley cleared for agriculture, his attention was seized by a brilliant white light off to his right. The light was, in his assessment, whiter and brighter than any object he had ever seen — it looked as though a star had been plucked from the sky. The object appeared to be slowly following the ridge line on the opposite side of the valley. Realizing he would lose sight of the light as the road climbed through wooded hills, Kabik accelerated, reached the top of the ridge, and turned left onto Harford Road, catching a brief twinkle of the white object before losing it to the winding road and overhanging trees.
After several miles, Kabik approached Mountain Road. About half a mile from the intersection, he noticed multicolored lights on the far side of a narrow, leafless tree line marking a property boundary and the edge of a hog farm. The lights were red, green, and blue, flashing at the treetop level. Initially he suspected they might be from the high-voltage tower in the adjacent plowed cornfield. When he reached the open field on the other side, he looked right and saw the lights hovering above the small power line tower — arranged in what appeared to be a diamond pattern. The horizontal span was roughly that of a small car, but no shape was visible behind the lights.
Kabik exited his vehicle and began walking through the dry, plowed field toward the lights. The footing was difficult on the frozen furrows and he had to watch his step. The object made no sound. At approximately 150 feet, he stopped and attempted to make sense of what he was seeing. The lights appeared to mark the junction points of a form. By moving around to catch different angles of starlight reflection, he was eventually able to see the surface between the lights: it was jet black, with a finish like polished obsidian or glass, and appeared faceted — like a cut stone. The form was an elongated diamond, wider than it was tall, roughly ten to twelve feet across and four to five feet high. The bottom detail was impossible to resolve because the surface was too dark to see against the night sky.
A low humming sound was audible, though Kabik could not determine whether it came from the object or the power tower. He could definitively establish that the object was not a helicopter — there was no wind, no rotor noise, and nothing about its hovering behavior matched rotary-wing characteristics.
Fear eventually overcame curiosity. Kabik ran awkwardly back through the plowed field to his car and drove home. Arriving home excited, he told his wife and then called the local newspaper to ask if anyone had reported unusual objects. It was approximately 10:00 p.m. The man on the desk told him he had just gotten off the phone with people in Edgewood — a community a few miles down Mountain Road — who reported a bright white light hovering over high-voltage power lines, accompanied by a power outage in the area.
The next day, Kabik contacted the local MUFON chapter. The head of the chapter asked if he had experienced lost time, discussed other area sightings, but never came to interview Kabik on site. Kabik drew a line sketch of the object and shared it with physicist Rick Saucie, a friend from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Harford County — a congregation composed largely of scientists and engineers from Aberdeen Proving Ground. They attended a MUFON meeting together but found the organization unserious.
Years later, Saucie showed Kabik a Sci-Fi Channel program reconstructing the Rendlesham Forest incident. Kabik was struck by the parallels — the polished stone-like surface, the electric atmosphere, the size and diamond-like form — and recognized a close match to his own experience. In 2018, Kabik wrote a detailed account and sent it to British researcher Nick Pope, who added it to the Rendlesham investigation record.
Researcher’s Notes
The Harford County Obsidian Diamond — Maryland 1981 and the Rendlesham Surface Parallel
Critical Date Correction — 2018 vs. 1981: The original page dates this case to February 6, 2018. This is incorrect. February 6, 2018 is the date of Kabik’s correspondence to Nick Pope — the cover letter date, not the event date. The witness explicitly describes the sighting as occurring “on a Tuesday evening in February of 1981” and establishes context through his membership in the Unitarian Universalist Church of Harford County “in the late 70’s and early 80’s.” The Number of Objects field also contained a typographical error — “11” instead of “1.” Both corrections have been made. This is a 1981 sighting, not a 2018 sighting, and it involved one object, not eleven.
Named Witness and Corroboration Chain: Michael V. Kabik is a named, on-the-record witness who voluntarily attached his identity to a case he could have reported anonymously. He shared the account contemporaneously with his wife, subsequently with physicist Rick Saucie of Aberdeen Proving Ground, and decades later with Nick Pope. The Edgewood bright-light-and-power-outage report, confirmed by the newspaper desk the same evening, provides independent temporal and geographic corroboration — the white light Kabik initially tracked along the ridge is consistent with the phenomenon reported over power lines in nearby Edgewood. This is not a single isolated claim; it has a verifiable corroboration chain.
Rendlesham Surface Parallel — Polished Stone / Obsidian: The most analytically significant feature of this case is the surface description. Kabik describes the craft as having a surface “like polished obsidian or glass” with a faceted, cut-stone appearance — language that closely parallels descriptions from the December 1980 Rendlesham Forest incident, where witnesses described the craft’s surface as resembling polished black glass or stone with an electric quality. The two events occurred approximately two months apart and an ocean apart. The surface description is an unusual and specific detail that is unlikely to be coincidentally replicated, particularly by a witness who did not learn of the Rendlesham parallels until years later via a television reconstruction.
Aberdeen Proving Ground Proximity: Mountain Road leads directly to Edgewood, which borders Aberdeen Proving Ground — one of the U.S. Army’s primary research, development, and testing facilities. The proximity of a CE-I sighting and associated power anomalies to a major military R&D installation is consistent with a well-documented pattern of UAP activity near defense infrastructure. Whether this proximity is causal (the object was drawn to or investigating the installation), coincidental, or indicative of a classified military platform remains an open question. Kabik himself speculated the object was an unmanned drone employing technology well beyond known capabilities.
The Harford County obsidian diamond stands in the archive as a named-witness CE-I with contemporaneous corroboration, a compelling physical description that parallels the Rendlesham Forest event, and proximity to a major military research facility — a case that has been misfiled under the wrong decade for years and is now properly dated to February 1981.
Wrap-Up
Michael Kabik walked 150 feet through a frozen cornfield in the dark to look at something he couldn’t explain, and then he ran back. He drew it the next day, showed it to a physicist, and sat on it for thirty-seven years before sending the account to Nick Pope. The archive corrects the date, corrects the object count, and files the case where it belongs — February 1981, Harford County, Maryland, 150 feet from an obsidian diamond that looked like a piece of Rendlesham had followed him home. Unexplained.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s I belonged to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Harford County in the state of Maryland. This part of the state contains Aberdeen Proving Grounds and many of the Physicists, Mathematicians and Engineers who worked there attended this church. After service coffee talk was always interesting and I quickly learned how some scientist erected walls against controversial fields of investigation because of the perceived and real risk of damaging their standing and jobs.
Having set the stage I would now like to tell you of my experience on a Tuesday evening in February of 1981 that I think you will find of interest as applies to the Rendlesham incident. Sorry I cannot think of the exact date after so much time.
On that evening I had just dropped off my father at his home after taking him to a physical therapist. He lived in Baltimore and I in the northern county of Harford. Around 9:15 p.m. I turned off the main 695 highway onto Cromwell Bridge Road traveling in a northwest direction. I followed this road until it ended at Glen Arm Road and turn left in a more northerly direction. This is a rural area that provided a short cut to my home in Bel Air Maryland. Glen Arm runs through a wooded valley and as I approached a wider valley that was cleared for agriculture my attention was grabbed by a brilliant white light shimmering off to my right.
This light was whiter and brighter than any object I had ever seen. It looked as though a star had been plucked from the sky. This object appeared to be slowly following the ridge line on the opposite side of the valley. The top of this ridge carried Harford Road where I would turn left and follow into Bel Air Maryland. I realized I would enter the hilly wooded area to the top of the ridge and could loose sight of the object so I picked up speed. At the top I turned left on Harford Road and very briefly saw a twinkle of this white object before loosing it to the winding road and overhanging trees. The night was cold and very clear.
My heart sank as I could not spot the object. After a few miles I approached Mountain Road. About a half mile from the intersection and on the right side of the road there was a narrow line of trees that marked property lines and the location of a hog farm. The trees were totally leafless and I noticed multicolored lights on the opposite side of the trees and hovering at the top but not above them. They were red, green and blue and flashing. I had no idea what it was except possibly the high voltage tower on the other side of the tree line in a plowed corn field. When I got to the other side and next to the empty plowed field I looked to my right and hovering above the high voltage tower (small towers) were a series of flashing multi colored lights in what looked like diamond pattern. Horizontally it was as long as a small car but I could not see any shape.
Apprehensively I exited my car and started walking through this dry plowed field. I kept looking up and down as footing was dicey. The object made no sound. I got to about 150 feet from the object and stopped to take a close look. My head was racing trying to figure out what I was seeing. It made no sense. It was clearly hovering above the tower. The towers themselves have no lights, I discovered, as they are not tall enough to require them. It appeared to look like an elongated diamond shape according to the light which seemed to denote junctions of the form. It was wider than it was tall and about the width of a small car and perhaps 4-5 feet high. Every possibility was racing through my mind and was leaving my mind making my comfort zone shrink more and more.
It was NOT a helicopter as there was no wind or noise and it took me a while, moving around, to get an angle at which I could see what was between the lights via star light reflections. The surface of the object was black and looked like polished obsidian or glass and it looked like, in part, a faceted stone as I could not make out the exact form on the bottom due to the lack of star light. It was that black. I could hear a low humming sound but thought it might be the tower. Finally my fear had surpassed my curiosity and, I’m sad to say, I awkwardly ran back to my car and sped home.
Arriving home I was excited to say the least and told the story to my wife after which I called the local newspaper to see if they have had any reports of strange objects. By this time it was about 10 pm and there was one person on the desk. I asked him if he had any such reports and he replied “funny you ask that because I just got off the phone with some people in Edgewood who said they saw a bright white light hovering over a high voltage line and all the lights in the area went out”.
The next day I contacted the head of Mufon who was also the areas helicopter traffic reporter’. He asked me if I had lost time and we talked for a while about it and other sightings in the area over the years but he never came out to interview me.
I drew a line drawing of the object and shared my experience and drawing with a physicist friend of mine, Rick Saucea, who was one of the few upon which I could confide without being poo pooed. We were both excited about this sighting and went to a Mufon meeting which, for the both of us, was not a serious event and mainly inhabited by very imaginative confused people. I make no inference to other groups but only my own experience there. Some years went by and I got a call from Rick who wanted me to see something. He brought me a video of a show on the Sci Fi Channel hosted by one of the cast of Star Trek. Sorry I forget the name of both the show and the host. It consisted of interviews and recreations of the events at Rendlesham Air Base. I was very excited as too how much their experience mirrored my own. He said the air around the craft was electric and it looked like polished stone, I believe, and the mock up on this show was close to perfect in size and form. I felt any the doubt I had of my sanity disappear, as such an event shakes you a bit.
You see Mr. Pope, if you follow mountain road you come to Edgewood where the “bright light over power lines were seen and if you go just north of Edgewood you come to Aberdeen Military Research and Development facility. All the pieces had fallen into place. My feeling about the object is it was not “manned” but was a drone of some kind and without a doubt used tech well beyond anything I have seen or think possible by our species. A scientific leap but the most rational to me.
I’m getting old and have seen now many mock ups of the event and I thought I would come out about this and perhaps add another piece to this and maybe let those guys know there was another sighting across the pond.
I have enjoyed your professional approach to this area of investigation and concluded you should be the one with whom I would share this story. My hope is you will not think this ravings but rather the honest description of a life changing event relevant to Redlesham, without a doubt.
All the best,
Michael V. Kabik
