Who knows what the night sky holds

It was interesting that the week marking the anniversary of the Roswell, N.M., crash that I got a call about a UFO sighting. Now, before any of you start hooting or laughing, just remember the U stands for “unidentified”; it’s an unidentified flying object.

A lot of folks hear UFO and immediately think flying saucer, and start looking askance at anyone who says they saw something they can’t explain (Again, it’s just something flying that’s not readily identifiable). I’m not one of those folks, even though I may tend to be skeptical sometimes. We see lots of things we can’t explain or don’t understand, like the Kardashians, Justin Beiber and Honey BooBoo. Occasionally those things are in the sky.

And I’m not having fun at the expense of the gentleman who called, who sincerely wasn’t sure what it was he’d seen and wondered if anyone else may have seen it. Here’s what the man, named George, told me.

He was sitting on his back porch last Saturday night (that’d be July 6) between 10 and 10:30 p.m. when there was an orange glow in the sky that came over his house, which is east of Mountain Home past Walmart. There was something within the glow —he called it huge —but it wasn’t on fire and didn’t appear to be lights. It was a steady glow, not blinking. George said it was high in the sky, silent and moving toward Missouri, which means it was moving north.

After it was out of sight, his wife came home from work. He said she didn’t seem too impressed. While she was inside the house, he said, another object glowing orange passed overhead, following the path of the first one at about the same height and without sound. George said he went to get his wife, but by the time they got back outside it was gone, and I got the impression from him that his wife was even less impressed.

A few minutes later, said George, a third, smaller object was in the sky, but he said it sounded like a small plane and was on a different path. I think that one might have been a plane.

I shared George’s story on my Facebook page, and on The Bulletin‘s Facebook page, and we got some responses. Sure, there were a couple of “wink wink, nudge nudge” responses, but there were some good, useful ones, too. Most consistent were folks saying the objects may have been Chinese lanterns, or floating lanterns. Through the Independence Day weekend, several people were releasing the floating lanterns, and those responding said they would be bright, could reach a decent height, would be silent and, depending on air currents, could move somewhat quickly. That’s very plausible.

I also got responses from folks that similar glowing orange objects had been seen in the area on other occasions, including one that had been seen earlier last week in the same area east of Walmart. There also was a post that glowing orange objects recently had been seen over the Buffalo River. Another sent a link to a post that a Springfield, Mo., TV reporter had made saying he’d seen six “planes” with single orange glowing lights, not blinking, in staggered formation. He speculated they might have been some sort of stealth aircraft headed for Whiteman AFB.

There also was a response from Cameron Cardow, a former cartoonist whose work we use to run in The Bulletin. He said orange lights had been reported in different areas of the U.S. for weeks, and provided a link about “the mysterious orange orb phenomena.” I followed that to others, and there have been reports of glowing orange objects in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, the United States and elsewhere, some reports going back for years.

I hope this helps George, and that he realizes he’s not the only person to see the orange glowing object, which may —or may not —have been floating lanterns. As for me, I’m still open —to a degree —to hearing if anyone else has seen something like this locally. Who knows, maybe the answer is out there.