Philadelphia Weirdness

Fire in the Sky

Last week Phillyist was abducted by aliens...well, actually, gremlins invaded the system. So this week we bring you an extraterrestrial installment of weirdness from Hillcrest Avenue, Northwest Philadelphia.

Although brief, what a witness named William observed may haunt him forever. It was 6:10 am on Tuesday, February 23rd, 1999 and the man was travelling to work in Philadelphia. Suddenly, he saw in the morning sky a large aircraft, or at least what he thought was an aircraft, heading in his direction. All that was evident was a white glow, which William took to be its landing lights.

William, convinced it was a large airliner, still kept an eye on it, and noticed that it had eight points of light, making it resemble a star-like object, and then, to his surprise, a bluish-white light suddenly darted from the object at a forty-five degree angle. The shaft of light seemed to blast the ground, yet there was no sound at all from the craft, merely the hum of William's own engine.

William stated, "The object was about thirty degrees above the horizon. No effect on my car was observed. I estimate that the object was over the King of Prussia area of Montgomery County about twenty miles away and its size was twenty percent of the full moon."

By this point William ruled out any atmospheric conditions or astronomical objects, but within thirty seconds the mystery object was gone. Surely other people must have viewed the craft from miles around. And what was the purpose of the shooting beam?

Keep an eye on the skies...

Image Credit: Flickr user timsnell