There are moments when the night sky refuses to be ordinary, when ordinary celestial bodies betray the quiet monotony we expect. On a late June evening in 1988, near Jonesboro, Indiana, I witnessed just such a phenomenon. A glowing red light, reminiscent of a distant star or planet, moved slowly and deliberately from west to north, its journey punctuated by a ten-minute hover that seemed to defy the laws of natural flight.
The light was no casual flare of a passing aircraft; the atmosphere hummed with a peculiar tension, as if something unseen was watching and waiting. From my vantage point, amidst the quiet hush of the night, the object floated with an eerie grace, unperturbed by the nearby aircraft that seemed almost to chase it. This wasn’t merely a light in the sky—it was a presence, an undeniable enigma that held me captive in its slow, pulsing glow.
It moved with purpose yet with a deliberate slowness, as though it was marking time before vanishing abruptly into the northern darkness. The experience left me with a haunting impression of the unknown, a visceral reminder that the night sky still guards its secrets closely and that some lights defy explanation, lingering just beyond the reach of certainty.