Appearance / Description of Object(s)

#1 Flying wing, much like the old German Go229 or B2. #2 Unable to see clearly, but much faster speed and acceleration (best guess is 0-600kts in 4 sec)

Size of Object(s)

#1Relative 30-35 in, actual guess would be 250-300 ft. #2 Relative 1/2inch, actual size guess 15ft diameter

Distance to Object(s) & Altitude

Somewhere between 800-2000 ft

Description of Area / Surroundings

Urban. Nearest military installation is McGhee Tyson.

Full Description & Details

On the night of Saturday March 21, 2004, I was on my way to see my then girlfriend at her apartment. I remember the date because it was her birthday. I believe I must have been working a 10-6shift that day (jr. year of college) otherwise I would have gotten over to her place sooner. The time must have been between 730 and 8PM local. I know this because it had just gotten dark and the end of civil twilight was 714. I had just gotten off Old Weisgarber and was heading W down a small two lane road towards my girlfriend's apartment complex, the entrance of which was just a couple hundred yards down on the right. I noticed an aircraft above me with three lights on, one "nose", one each wing. Their intensity was only slightly more than a typical aircraft and they were the typical red,green and white. White being in the middle like conventional craft. However there were no strobes! At very first glance I thought it might be a low-flying KC-135 from the nearby McGhee Tyson Reserve base. However, I soon realized this was larger, and moving much more slowly. I surprised myself by slamming on the brakes so as not to lose view through the top of my windshield. This was bothersome because I'd given no thought to wether or not another car was close behind. There were no other cars around. I rolled down the window and looked up listening. No sound. The large craft kept gliding along at perhaps 1,000 ft and 20-30 kts. I could not immediately make out it's shape, there was simply not enough light. I would agree with any skeptic thus far that it was a normal aircraft, relatively far away except that it was directly overhead, moving slowly and was so large that the lights on the wingtips were on either side of the road. My estimate of the wingspan is 250-300 feet. By this time I had let my car start creeping and followed it down the road, passing my turn into the apartments. The road ended in a T and the craft continued on heading slightly south now towards I-40 and started going into a tree line so I lost sight. However before I lost sight, the craft (moving toward a relatively well-lit interstate) was observed to have a flying wing shape akin to the B-2 or Go229. When I lost sight, I made a 180 back to the apartments, got out of my car and ran up the steps to the second story balcony near the door to my girlfriend's apartment. There it was, now gliding over I-40, all three lights clearly visible. It was flat in shape, thickness of the "wing" being minimal. The apartment balcony faced SSE overlooking I-40 and a busy exit (Papermill). The thing was now more or less at eye level as it moved away to a distance of 2-3 miles, the size was no doubt in excess of 250 feet. It got perhaps as far south of I-40 as Sacred Heart Cathedral before moving East and out of sight at a more typical speed you would expect from a jet. No bank was observed as it made the turn. This whole sequence took 10-15 minutes. On seeing it simply go out of sight at maybe 2000 feet my first thought was to call up an Air Force friend and have them get hold of a local radar operator. I took about 5-8 minutes alone on the balcony just thinking, wondering what I saw, who to tell etc. The hair on the back of my neck settled down. While I was still on the balcony a jet approached at high speed from the South, flying fairly low (3000ft?), it made a 360 South of I-40. A second fighter came in from the NE within 90 seconds or so of the first, also low and fast. The first led the second West after the UFO with afterburners lit. The turn to the west must have been pretty high-G for both pilots. They were serious. Though I could only see the afterburners and a single red light on each aircraft, the sound of an F-15 is distinctive to an F-16 and I am >95% certain these were F-15s. I lived one mile away from Langley AFB for a time and know the difference.

After this delay of over 20 minutes, I got a call on my cell from my future fiance' and promptly went inside giving a brief account after the birthday greeting were over. Within two hours both of us were on a walk down a nearby road. Of course I was constantly looking up the whole time. On the way back to her apartment a aircraft came overhead, red, green white, sound. A couple minutes later another craft came by as well. Except this appeared to be the same altitude but slower and as best I could make out spherical. My girlfriend did not have her glasses so she didn't pick up on it like I did. The object shifted from red to green, passing over our road to the east heading north and continued cycling from green to red. I remember getting the prickly sensation again suddenly feeling vulnerable. At no point would I say it came within a mile and a half of us as it passed over the road. There was no noise and the previous aircraft had provided a good reference to contrast this with. It moved NNE and came to a stop at a distance of (best guessis that it was up to 3 miles, 4000 feet). When it came to a stop it stayed red and gained some intensity. By now we were both stopped. My girlfirend did take notice but was relatively unimpressed. After less than 2 min the object moved off to the east at a very good clip, faster than the fighters and without noise. Total time spent observing this second craft was maybe 5 min.

Can sighting be explained as any conventional man-made or natural object?

Unlikely

Witness Background

Occupation: Military Education: Bachelor's in Psche

Views on UFOs, before and after sighting

Before: Fascinated but skeptical. After: Fascinated and fascinated. I know alot more about UFOs now than I did before!

Other Comments

I was 22 at the time. I ended up marrying the girlfriend. The only other person I really discussed that night with was my mother. Since that time I have become a pilot. Currently I have 160hrs and 220 landings.

I did not write out the whole sequence that night as I did not want it to overshadow birthday stuff. I have remembered it and looked up a lot more on UFOs, much of it ridiculous fluff. However I cannot explain what I saw and recently searched for other sightings in the Knoxville area. On this site I found a sighting by "Robert" this past April(http://www.ufoevidence.org/sightings/report.asp?ID=8903) which totolly convinced me to write my account. While he described his sighting as shiny and metallic and I would say my sighting looked more like black plastic, the similarities of size,size and location are something!

Reported Sighting? 

Reported To: 

Age: