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From: Chris Pttman <Soccorro64@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2000 02:55:21 -0400 (EDT)
Fwd Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2000 21:22:57 -0400
Subject: UpDate: UFOs Photographed in South Carolina 3/9/00


UFO Sighting Report
March 9, 2000 South Carolina
copyright 2000 Christopher W. Pittman


Near the beginning of March, 2000, my friend Sam Hussein told me
that while traveling on Interstate 26 in South Carolina,
returning from a trip to New Orleans, he and 3 friends had seen
and photographed a series of triangular UFOs. I was intrigued by
the story and it was agreed that I would investigate the
sighting report.

I next saw Sam on April 1, 2000. At that time I was able to
interview him along with his girlfriend, Alison Reeves, who was
also a witness. I was also shown a photograph taken by one of
the other two witnesses that appeared to show a triangular
craft. I had decided that interviewing Sam and Alison together
would not be problematic because they had already had ample time
to discuss the events and they were both very honest when their
recollections differed. I interviewed the other two witnesses
separately.

The event took place on March 9, 2000 between 8:15 and 8:45 PM.
Sam was driving on I-26 near the exit sign for an Air Force base
(Alison believes it was called Shaw AFB). There were three other
people in the car: Alison, Sam's college roommate Peter, and
their friend Cass Hunter. The first person to see anything
unusual was Sam. While heading northwest, he spotted a large
object slowly moving from right to left across his field of
vision, apparently crossing over the highway. The "cross-shaped"
aircraft appeared to stop and hover in midair when it had
crossed over the road. Sam pointed the lighted UFO out to Peter,
who said he thought the lights were attached to a tower. To
settle the issue, after they had driven past the object, Sam
turned the car around and they drove back down the interstate
going southeast. When they came to the place where the lights
had been seen, they were gone.

Five minutes later, either the same or an identical object was
seen further away.

The car was still traveling south at this point. The UFO
appeared to move parallel to the highway, and it was moving very
slowly. The group lost sight of the object below the tree line.

Sam and Alison had definite ideas about the shape of this
"cross-shaped" object. I had them both sketch the craft for me.
Though there were differences in the two drawings, both
witnesses emphasized that the wings and fuselage appeared oval
in cross-section. Sam compared the object's appearance to that
of two crossed bananas.

Sam drove off the highway and turned the car around. He got back
on I-26 going North. Then he saw a triangular object emerge from
below the tree line. The trees were about 100 yards away, and
the craft was far beyond the trees. At first it moved very
slowly, but then it accelerated very quickly and swooped across
the highway behind the car. It was soon lost to view in the
distance.

Excited, the group pulled over. There were trees about 50 feet
away, and the witnesses could not see through the trees. They
got out of the car and watched as a UFO became visible over the
tree line in the area where the last object was last seen. It
came very close to the witnesses at an estimated altitude of
only 2000 feet. Sam felt that it was a triangular craft but
Alison described it as cross-shaped. The craft rapidly
approached the witnesses, then slowed down and crossed over the
highway very slowly. Alison did not feel that she was able to
get a very good look at the object. The location of the
witnesses was near mile marker 205, very close to the site of
the first sighting Sam had.

At this time, the witnesses started taking photographs. Sam and
Alison were unsure exactly how this object was lost from view.
While the object was close, they could barely hear a quiet
engine- like humming sound.

Further up the highway, relatively far away, the UFO was again
seen above the trees. This UFO was definitely triangular. When
first spotted, it was moving perpendicular to the highway, but
it then turned and began moving towards the witnesses. Sam was
certain that the craft banked as it turned. It passed the group
on the other side of the highway traveling very slowly. Sam
roughly estimated that the UFO was 1-2 miles distant. After
passing the witnesses, the UFO turned without banking, crossed
back over the highway, and sped up. It began moving faster than
a conventional airplane at the same altitude and was soon lost
to view. Sam noticed something interesting about the way the
triangle turned. The first time it changed direction, the body
of the craft turned so that the "point" was always in front (the
way a conventional aircraft turns.). However, the second time,
the craft remained facing the same direction, but the direction
of movement changed. When the UFO crossed back over the highway,
one of the triangle's sides was in front.

After that triangular object was no longer in view, another
object appeared on the right, coming from the same area where
the previous object was first spotted. This UFO crossed the
highway almost directly over the witnesses' position. It was
moving so slowly that Alison was able to easily catch up with
the UFO by running and she got directly beneath it. The craft
was at an incredibly low altitude. It was huge. At the time of
the sighting, Sam guessed that the altitude was only 300 or 400
feet above the ground, but on reconsidering it later, decided it
was probably closer too 1000 feet. Sam thought that this craft
was probably triangular, but Alison believed that it was
cross-shaped, with a compact body and round (cylindrical) wings.
The underside looked gray. Sam stated that the UFO's apparent
size was as big as his hand held at arm's length, but Alison
felt it was much bigger, perhaps as big as a piece of poster
board. Sam said that the object made a "quiet hum- no loud
engine sound." The sound was more similar to a car motor than to
a jet engine. As they watched, the object actually appeared to
descend and lose altitude, and it disappeared behind the trees.
Then, no objects were seen for 5 minutes.

At this point a police cruiser came. The officer told them that
they had to leave. They got going, with Sam driving. Alison does
not remember the following incidents very clearly, so Sam
related the details of the following incidents. Off to the
right, Sam saw a light that flew across the highway in front of
the car. Then, an object, described as a large, low-flying
triangular craft, was seen coming towards the car. It then
crossed immediately over the highway. Sam noticed some details
on the underside of the triangle. It was a silhouette, but he
could barely make out lines that seemed to define cylindrical
"fuselages" on the undersurfaces of the wings. Sam felt that
this craft did not look extraterrestrial. The underside had a
texture- it was not smooth.

Immediately after that UFO was lost to view, Sam spotted another
one. It was triangular, similar to the others, but this one had
a small tail in the back, like an airplane. It flew across the
highway. That was the last sighting, and the end of the event.

During the incident, Sam took about 5 photos, which are still
undeveloped. Cass Hunter had taken photographs with 2 cameras,
and I was able to speak with her briefly after my interview with
Sam and Alison. She had developed one of the UFO films, and it
had a single UFO photo. She gave me the print and the negative
and agreed to an interview at a future date. The photo is
somewhat ambiguous, but it appears to show a dark triangle with
a bright white light in front.

I was able to interview Sam' roommate Peter and Cass Hunter on
April 4, 2000. I spoke with them separately in Cass' dormitory
room at Boston University, where all the witnesses go to school.
I talked to Cass first, and I had her fill out a MUFON Form 1.
This is her account.

Cass was sleeping in the car as they drove away from Charleston,
where they had picked up Alison. Suddenly, she awoke to hear Sam
excitedly yelling about what he was seeing. At this time she saw
a bright light in the sky. They turned the car around to have
another look at the craft. At first, Cass thought it was an
airplane, but then she realized how slowly it was moving- she
estimated the speed at only 5 miles per hour. There was a very
bright light visible on the front of the object visible at this
point. There also appeared to be two other white lights and one
yellow light. It was over the trees on the horizon, moving
parallel to the car.

Cass did not remember the sequence of events as clearly as Sam
had. She remembered that the UFO had passed overhead 3 or 4
times but it was hard for her to remember how the object looked
each time. The first time she saw it, she said, it looked like
an airplane. The next time, it looked round, like a "saucer."
The members of the group were arguing about the craft's shape,
as it was difficult to see a silhouette. Every time Cass saw the
object, she became more confused as to its actual shape. She
could see that it was a dark color- possibly dark gray. Cass
remembered pulling over and taking pictures. She was unsure
precisely when the photo she had given me was taken, and she was
not even sure that she was the one using the camera when the
picture was taken. She told me that she had taken other pictures
using her Pentax auto-focus camera, and she gave me an exposed
roll of Kodak Gold 200 film, which she said had UFO pictures on
it.

Cass stated that the UFO appeared to be moving in wavy lines, as
if it had a "drunken pilot." It was "really, really big" and she
was especially impressed by how quickly the object was able to
accelerate. She estimated that while flying quickly, the UFO
took only 5 seconds to go from being enormous to just a dot in
the sky. Cass stated that once or twice, she got the impression
that there were actually two separate objects. They were
"triangular or boomerang" in shape, without wings or a tail. The
apparent size of the UFO, she said, was an enormous two feet at
arm's length! The object appeared to be flat, and she felt that
she had seen it "flip." Strangely, when I asked her if the craft
had made any sound, Cass told me that the first time she saw the
UFO after they had stopped on the highway, she heard absolute
silence- "I didn't even hear the highway for a little while."
This appears to be an example of the so-called "Oz Factor".
Afterwards, the UFO did seem to emit a "whoosh" sound, but "not
very loud." Cass did recall seeing the UFO twice after they had
been asked to leave.

I asked Cass to draw the UFO for me. She drew a delta
wing-shaped aeroform with a long central fuselage and two
shorter fuselage-like forms under the wing areas. I also had
Cass fill out the MUFON Form 1. Some of her written responses
differed slightly from what she had told me. Cass indicated that
at its closest approach, the UFO was two miles away and at an
altitude of 300 feet. This distance estimate is different from
that given by the other witnesses, who remembered the UFO as
being virtually overhead. She estimated that the UFO flew as
slow as 20 and as fast as 200 miles per hour, which was
different from the speed she indicated when I interviewed her.
She also estimated that the apparent size of the thing was about
6 times the size of a full moon, which is much smaller than her
earlier estimate of 2 feet (I believe that the more conservative
guess is likely closer to the truth). The form reflects Cass'
belief that there were actually two objects, and that the UFO
was able to change shape.

I also interviewed the fourth witness, Peter, that same day.
Peter told me that they were driving northwest from Charleston
on I-26 when the sighting began. They had gotten about 20 miles
away from the city, and there was still a fair amount of light
pollution, when Sam first saw the UFO. Of this particular
object, Peter said, "All I saw were whitish lights that moved
very slowly." He was struck by the UFO's "really slow speed" and
stated that the craft's altitude was "definitely less than 1,000
feet." It was moving parallel to the highway in the direction of
the city. The group then lost sight of the object. They turned
around and saw the UFO again. Peter said that at times the UFO
would lose altitude and descend below 100 feet.

Interested, they turned the car around again and stopped. They
saw the lights again, to the southeast, on the east side of the
road. Peter found it difficult to recall the exact sequence of
events after this point. He believed that there had been at
least two objects, and the presence of more than one UFO
confused his memory of the events. He described the objects as
"boomerang-shaped", or like a Stealth airplane, black in color,
with 3 white "landing lights." He was unsure if there had been
any other lights on the UFO. The craft made a "very faint
jet-engine type sound." And it had "really great
maneuverability- like a fighter plane." Peter described the
object's maneuvers at length. He narrated how it banked when it
turned, and "you could see the banking because of the lights."
Sometimes, the craft appeared to hover, and it could lose
altitude quickly without covering much ground. The object's
speed was "very slow for a plane"- about 50 miles per hour, down
to zero when turning. Even when the craft was seen to move
rapidly, Peter said that it was moving slowly, up to about 100
miles per hour. The craft appeared "thin", with a length to
height ratio comparable to that of a hand. While they were
stopped, Peter remembered taking at lease ten pictures. He gave
me a disposable camera, a Jazz model DZ50 with 27 exposures of
400 speed film.

Peter got his best view of the UFO after the encounter with the
police. He saw the craft low in the southeastern sky and watched
as it flew overhead, no more than 200 feet over the road's
surface. The apparent size of the thing was about that of a hand
at arm's length. He drew this object as an acute boomerang with
3 white lights on the corners.

Peter believed that he had seen some kind of secret military
aircraft. He emphatically stated, "It definitely was an
airplane, but like no other airplane I have seen in person or on
television."

Cass and Peter had given me 3 films, the two UFO films as well
as a third roll of vacation photos I pledged to develop. I was
disappointed on May 4 when I had the negatives developed to find
no UFO photos at all! Both rolls that were supposed to have UFO
photos ended before the leg of the trip when the sightings took
place. Cass' photos ended in New Orleans, and the disposable
camera ended near the start of the trip. There are four possible
reasons for this. Firstly, the witnesses made a mistake and
somehow lost the UFO films. Secondly, the witnesses may have
been taking pictures with no film in the camera, or the film may
already have been used up. Thirdly, the light entering the
camera may have been insufficient to make any image at all on
the negative. The final possibility is that some weird
paranormal UFO-related phenomena caused both cameras to
mysteriously malfunction. I personally feel that the second and
third possibilities are most likely.

On May 22, I finally developed Sam's roll of film. Five UFO
photos were apparent on the negatives. The camera was a Minolta
Maxxum with a Power Zoom 35-80 lens, and the film used was Kodak
400 speed. The photos are all ambiguous, showing mostly streaks
of light. The images appear very distorted due to motion either
of the UFO or the camera while the shutter was open. I plan on
having the photos looked at by a MUFON analyst to see what if
any value they might have.

All four witnesses are highly credible college students with no
motive for hoaxing. I have known Sam Hussein for about seven
years and I know him to be very reliable and intelligent. The
phenomena reported and photographed cannot be ascribed to any
known aircraft. My honest evaluation is that this sighting
cannot be explained.

Christopher W. Pittman