About 8 pm february 2, 2017, my nine-year-old son and i entered the i-94 freeway from wis. hwy. 25 at menomonie, wisconsin, traveling west to our home following youth basketball practice. we immediately noticed a brilliant white light ahead of us to the west along the south side of the freeway, at about 30 degrees above the horizon and at the 4 o’clock position with the moon being noon on a clock. the light was far more brilliant than venus or even the moon and clearly larger than venus or any other star.
as we traveled west at about 75-80 miles per hour, we were able to keep pace with the object as it moved west along the south side of the freeway. during this time i was quite curious as to what it might be, as it was far more brilliant than jets that flew through the area or any other natural object.
upon arriving home at e1120 700th ave., knapp, wisconsin, about 8:10 pm, the light appear to be stationary due west of us. i went inside to get my camera, a fuji finepix s8650.
standing in my front yard, by changing the focus of my camera lens, i was able to observe the object from my front yard through the viewer. rather than be stationary as the naked eye made out, the object appear to be bobbing up and down and back and forth sideways. i have taken video of this (see video a). i could not hear any sound from the object, though i likely was too far away to hear anything.
during this time, when not looking in the viewer, the brilliant light appeared to slowly descend to about 20 degrees above the horizon. i also observed a bluish-white light that was far less brilliant cross north to south toward the object (see photo b – the orb at the top of the photo is the brilliant light). when coming under the brilliant white light, the bluish-white light disappeared. to the northeast, another orange-red light headed in a west direction and to the southeast a third orange-red object and a blue light also headed west. the trio of these latter objects were about 45-50 degrees above the horizon. i felt a small amount of fear, as confronting something i couldn’t explain.
cold (the temp was about 7 degrees), i went inside to view the video. after downloading and viewing, my elderly mother (who lives with my son and i) and i checked a window to see if the brilliant white object was still in the sky. it was. curiosity got the better of me, so i decided to drive my truck toward to see if i could get a better view.
initially i drove west on 700th avenue, which parallels the freeway north of it and then once across the border with the county line curves under it and parallels the freeway south of it. due to icy conditions, i drove about 40-45 miles per hour. the object appeared to be exactly due west of me when i paralleled the south side of the freeway. i felt a good amount of fear here, wondering what i was getting into and what i would do if the object closed on me. but the desire to know, and as a former journalist, the instinct that this was something potentially very important kicked in, and i decided i would keep observing it for as long as possible.
at the intersection of the country road with wis. hwy. 28, about 9:05 pm, i exited my vehicle to see if i could better view it through my camera. a orange-red light traveled north to south toward the object and once under it disappeared. at that point, the white light diminished in brilliance – though remaining brighter than any star in the sky – and began moving west, paralleling the freeway’s south side. due to the proximity of a heavily lit truck stop to the north and the headlights of my truck, i was unable to take a quality video, and the object began to move before i could turn off my headlights and walk to a stand of trees that would block most of the truck stop’s lights.
i immediately got onto the freeway and followed the object. traveling at about 75-80 miles per hour, i was able to close on it. during this time, the object’s color shifted from white to orange, though it still remained as brilliant as any other light in the sky.
at exit 16 where county road t intersects the freeway, i exited about 9:25 pm and parked at the top of the westbound entrance ramp, one of the higher points in the immediate area. by adjusting my camera focus, i was able to video record what appeared to be a set of three lights that formed a triangle pattern (see video c). the top light was orange and less brilliant than the other two. the bottom left light was yellow and about equal in brilliance to the bottom right light, which was red and blinking in a discernible pattern of blink-blink-blink for a second then a pause for a second. the yellow light sometimes went out but didn’t follow a pattern i could make out. the orange light always remained lit. the three lights remained exactly equidistant from one another, as if they were part of a single object.
i re-entered the freeway but was unable to close on the object, following it to the wis. hwy. 65 exit, where i exited to get gas at the flying j. as leaving the truck stop at about 9:35 pm, i still was able to make out the object to the west, still paralleling the freeway, but dimmer and lower on the horizon, as it were farther way. at that point, i drove home.
along the drive home, i noticed two helicopters , both flying fairly low as paralleling the freeway. their lights blinked in a different pattern than the object, their lights were much dimmer than the object, and their rotors could be clearly heard.
i arrived home about 10 pm, where i downloaded and watched the video taken at the county road t exit and then told the story to my son and mother. i wrote this account the following morning at 8:30-9:15 am.
