Monday December 15 1997 15:21, Mark Towne wrote to Paul Andinach:
 -=> PA>> So, you ever seen a UFO?
 -=> MT>> Yup...once.
 -=>> Was there anything particularly interesting about the
 -=>> experience?
 -=>> All the UFOs I've seen have just been little twinkly
 -=>> lights.
It was 1972, 73, or 74 (can't remember now).  I was in college.  While at 
home studying, I took a break to stretch out the kinks as it were,..and 
walked over to my picture window that looked out over Denver.  My view was to 
the northeast.  Downtown was about 4 miles away, and the Valley Highway 
(I-25) laid about halfway between my house and downtown.  I-25 runs north and 
south.
At around 9:15 - 9:45 that evening, I noticed a set of three red lights which 
formed a triangle, moving from the south to the north, over I-25.  The thing 
that I can best discribe the lights looking like, were large road-flares.
The altitude, I would estimate at around 2 hundred feet.  The lights moved 
northbound at this height at around 400-500 mph.  It disappeared over the 
north horizon in about 10-15 seconds.
Being a pilot myself, my first thought was that it was an aircraft.  Yet, if 
it was an aircraft, what kind would it have been?  It is illegal to fly at 
that altitiude,...and particularly at at that speed.  (Max speed 250kts)  
Still if it were an aircraft, why wasn't any light from the exhaust visible?  
(At those kinds of speeds/altitudes, a large amount of thrust is required, 
and I would think the exaust signature from the tailpipe would certainly be 
visible. (even if I discount the type and position of red lights, as well as 
speed and altitude. Further, as the road bent around, I should have been able 
to view the starboard (right side) of this object.  I did not see any green 
nav lights which are required on the right side of aircraft, nor did I 
observe any white strobe lights for that matter, or any other light.)
The color of the lights was not the same intensity of the "port-side" 
Navigation lights required on aircraft.  Like I said they shone like 
road-flares.  And why were there three, and not just one?
If I had to assume that all three lights were on the perimeter of this thing 
(whatever it was),...I would estimate that it was about 100-150 feet in 
diameter.  If there were three individual objects, then I have absolutely no 
idea as to size.
Anyway it progressed northbound, staying exactly over I-25,..and turning 
where the highway turned, disappearing to the north.
On the 10 pm news, it was said that Adams county (the county to the north of 
Denver) had recieved numerous reports of a UFO.  (Why not Denver??  Surely, I 
was not the only one who saw this phenomenon.)
Oh well,  Whatever it was, I have no idea.  Little green men?  Naw,...in all 
likelihood not.  Aircraft?  No,...not anything that I was familiar with then, 
or am remotely familiar with now.
What was it?  I honestly do not know.  I guess I would have to call it a UFO 
in the classic sense.  Something that was "Unidentified",...certainly 
"Flying", and most definately an "Object" of some kind.
What was it?  Search me!  But, I'll never forget it.
Mark
--- GEcho 1.11+
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