Old_Shoe
Devoted Cultist
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2013
- Messages
- 144
It was the late 90's or early 2000's that this happened. My parents lived in Port Charlotte, Florida, then. I was visiting them and we did an overnight trip on their 30' sailboat on Charlotte Harbor (or, Harbour, for our Brit friends ).
We sailed down to the opening between Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico and in the evening we anchored in a little cove of Punta Blanca Island at Cayo Costa State Park. We cooked up some supper and watched the sun set. Later that evening my dad and I sat relaxing in the cockpit sipping some Scotch. My mom went below and hit the rack early.
It was a beautiful starry night and we were just quietly talking when my dad suddenly said, "Hey, look at that"! I looked where he was pointing and we both watched two very bright orange lights hovering in the sky over Port Boca Grande. They looked like they were about 2000' altitude and as we watched they did a sort of very slow dance around each other. This went on for about 10 minutes or so, and as we watched them we could see farther out over the gulf and from farther away an airplane approaching the area from the north. The airplane went past our little area and arced around for a landing at the RSW airport. The orange lights just stayed in one spot while that happened, but they eventually began fading and disappeared, and suddenly red strobe lights appeared and they began moving southeast towards where we were anchored. We kept an eye on them and they flew almost directly over us. We estimated altitude at a couple thousand feet and airspeed maybe about 80 to 100 mph. We strained our ears listening and couldn't hear any sound from them at all. They tracked off in a southeasterly direction and eventually disappeared in the distance.
Well that was a pretty unusual thing to see and naturally we sat in the cockpit trying to figure out what it was we might've seen. The best we could come up with was that they were helicopters, but we'd never heard of silent helicopters. Maybe a half hour after that happened we suddenly noticed ANOTHER bright orange light hovering over Port Boca Grande. It did pretty much the same thing that we watched before in that it hovered there about 10 minutes. During the time it was hovering we noticed an aircraft's nav lights high in the sky heading westward. We could clearly hear the engine noise from that airplane. We heard no sound from the direction of the orange light. Then the orange light began fading and it, too, sprouted red strobe lights and began moving. This one got over Charlotte Harbor and snapped on a brilliant white search light aimed straight down at the water and left it on for a minute or so, then turned it off. It did the same thing the first two did and tracked almost straight over us and kept traveling in a southeasterly direction until we could no longer see it.
We were feeling pretty baffled by this and were still trying to think of SOMETHING that we could identify with what we were looking at. But it happened a third time a little while later. An orange light suddenly appeared over Port Boca Grande and hovered there, same spot in the sky. As we watched it hovering there we suddenly saw it jumping around in the sky in a kind of scribbling motion. Something we'd never guess a helicopter could do. And then after about 10 minutes in that spot it also dimmed and sprouted red strobes and began moving towards us. It passed over us without a sound and tracked off to the southeast until it was gone.
We had no idea WHAT kind of craft we were looking at. We had the impression it was nothing supernatural or "alien" but we also figured whatever it was we'd never see one parked on the ramp at RSW, either. I have noticed over the ensuing years that there have been UFO sightings reported over Charlotte Harbor and that they consisted of "orange lights".
I also, since then, have read about the Comanche helicopter. It was developed for the Army by Boeing and Sikorsky as a stealth helicopter. Nearly silent and with a very low radar profile. They supposedly did flight testing of one or two prototypes of this thing over southern Florida around the time period in question. That might explain what we saw. In fact, it seems the likeliest explanation in my mind. That funny "scribbling" motion on that last one kinda bothers me though. The G forces acting on an aircraft moving like that would surely destroy it. I just can't picture a helicopter doing that! Maybe they just wanted it to LOOK like it was doing that...?
I've seen other stranger things in the sky. Things that were most certainly NOT helicopters. I believe there are definitely things up there that defy conventional explanation! I'll post more as time permits.
We sailed down to the opening between Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico and in the evening we anchored in a little cove of Punta Blanca Island at Cayo Costa State Park. We cooked up some supper and watched the sun set. Later that evening my dad and I sat relaxing in the cockpit sipping some Scotch. My mom went below and hit the rack early.
It was a beautiful starry night and we were just quietly talking when my dad suddenly said, "Hey, look at that"! I looked where he was pointing and we both watched two very bright orange lights hovering in the sky over Port Boca Grande. They looked like they were about 2000' altitude and as we watched they did a sort of very slow dance around each other. This went on for about 10 minutes or so, and as we watched them we could see farther out over the gulf and from farther away an airplane approaching the area from the north. The airplane went past our little area and arced around for a landing at the RSW airport. The orange lights just stayed in one spot while that happened, but they eventually began fading and disappeared, and suddenly red strobe lights appeared and they began moving southeast towards where we were anchored. We kept an eye on them and they flew almost directly over us. We estimated altitude at a couple thousand feet and airspeed maybe about 80 to 100 mph. We strained our ears listening and couldn't hear any sound from them at all. They tracked off in a southeasterly direction and eventually disappeared in the distance.
Well that was a pretty unusual thing to see and naturally we sat in the cockpit trying to figure out what it was we might've seen. The best we could come up with was that they were helicopters, but we'd never heard of silent helicopters. Maybe a half hour after that happened we suddenly noticed ANOTHER bright orange light hovering over Port Boca Grande. It did pretty much the same thing that we watched before in that it hovered there about 10 minutes. During the time it was hovering we noticed an aircraft's nav lights high in the sky heading westward. We could clearly hear the engine noise from that airplane. We heard no sound from the direction of the orange light. Then the orange light began fading and it, too, sprouted red strobe lights and began moving. This one got over Charlotte Harbor and snapped on a brilliant white search light aimed straight down at the water and left it on for a minute or so, then turned it off. It did the same thing the first two did and tracked almost straight over us and kept traveling in a southeasterly direction until we could no longer see it.
We were feeling pretty baffled by this and were still trying to think of SOMETHING that we could identify with what we were looking at. But it happened a third time a little while later. An orange light suddenly appeared over Port Boca Grande and hovered there, same spot in the sky. As we watched it hovering there we suddenly saw it jumping around in the sky in a kind of scribbling motion. Something we'd never guess a helicopter could do. And then after about 10 minutes in that spot it also dimmed and sprouted red strobes and began moving towards us. It passed over us without a sound and tracked off to the southeast until it was gone.
We had no idea WHAT kind of craft we were looking at. We had the impression it was nothing supernatural or "alien" but we also figured whatever it was we'd never see one parked on the ramp at RSW, either. I have noticed over the ensuing years that there have been UFO sightings reported over Charlotte Harbor and that they consisted of "orange lights".
I also, since then, have read about the Comanche helicopter. It was developed for the Army by Boeing and Sikorsky as a stealth helicopter. Nearly silent and with a very low radar profile. They supposedly did flight testing of one or two prototypes of this thing over southern Florida around the time period in question. That might explain what we saw. In fact, it seems the likeliest explanation in my mind. That funny "scribbling" motion on that last one kinda bothers me though. The G forces acting on an aircraft moving like that would surely destroy it. I just can't picture a helicopter doing that! Maybe they just wanted it to LOOK like it was doing that...?
I've seen other stranger things in the sky. Things that were most certainly NOT helicopters. I believe there are definitely things up there that defy conventional explanation! I'll post more as time permits.