UFO Sightings in Opelousas, Louisiana

Admit it: you've seen things in the sky at night that you couldn't identify, right? If so, congratulations! You've spotted a UFO!

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

UFO sightings are nothing new in this country, with the first one, recorded by the Puritans, taking place in 1639 (History.com), before we were even a country.

That report claims that three men saw a bright light in the sky that kept darting back and forth over a 2-mile distance for better than 2 hours. Their claims were backed up by others in their community who said they witnessed the same thing.

Since then, thousands of reports of UFOs have been recorded and, though we'll never know what they actually were, I am certain that some of them could be explained away without the mention of extra-terrestrials.

I KNOW WHAT I SAW

Some people are still hesitant to admit that they saw something that they could not identify as if there is a stigma surrounding "not knowing". I have learned this: just because I saw something I couldn't identify, that does NOT mean it was a spaceship from another planet. Nor does it mean that it was a ghost. It simply means that I saw something that I couldn't identify.

Now, when you see something that you can't identify AND that something was moving in a fashion that would put a fatal strain on the human body, THAT'S when I begin to question the galaxy from which it originated.

AGAINST OUR LAWS OF PHYSICS

Rapid starts and stops that defy our accepted knowledge of physics, accelerations that would turn a human into a bag of bones, abrupt stops that would put a human through the windshield - those are all characteristics that would make me think about other civilizations. Our aircraft just can't fly like that, especially if there are humans aboard.

IT"S HAPPENED TO ME

I've seen some things in the night sky that I could not explain. Lights that darted across the sky. Three lights in a triangle formation spinning in a circle. A glowing object that appeared to be on fire yet left no smoke trail. Were these things otherworldly? I will never know.

WHO KEEPS TRACK OF THE REPORTS OF UFOS?

The National UFO Reporting Center has reports dating back to 2001, and the earliest report it has of UFOs in the Opelousas area is from 2000.

REPORTS OF UFOS IN OPELOUSAS

There are only 4 reports of sightings in the Opelousas area, but something tells me that more people have seen things and just haven't reported them. Now, let's get to those 4 reported sightings.

CHEVRON - SEPTEMBER 17, 2000

The earliest reported sighting of an unidentified flying object on the National UFO Reporting Center's website from the Opelousas area occurred on September 17, 2000.

Occurred : 9/17/2000 20:55
Location: Opelousas, LA
Shape: Chevron
Duration: 6-10 sec
CHARACTERISTICS: There were lights on the object, There was an aura or haze around the object, There were aircraft in the vicinity or aircraft chasing the object
Wing- shaped, low altitude, very fast, very large, completely silent, no running lights, black-colored.

 

SYNOPSIS: Flying-wing shaped object moving North to south. No running lights. Four or five very faint reddish bands visible fore-to-aft. Very large. Two other aircraft with running lights visible - one before siting and one immediately after. No sound was heard from object but other aircraft were audible. Total viewing arc approx. 90 deg. Size estimated as width of outstretched hand. (About width of a 747 wing at 3000 ft.) Black in color, no reflected light observed. Passed in front of two stars. Overall impression was a very large, dark, wing-shaped object silently moving at a low altitude and a very high speed. Reddish fore-to-aft light bands were very dim but marked the edges of the object quite well. Any guesses? Tell me it was a B-2 and I'll be happy.

A B-2 Bomber? Maybe so. The B-2 Bomber, according to Wikipedia, entered service in 1997. Could a B-2 have been on a maintenance test flight or some other mission, with escorts, from Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport? It's possible. Barksdale doesn't house any B-2s, but they have been known to host them from time to time.

If it wasn't a B-2, what was it? And were the escort aircraft aware of its presence?

CHEVRON - DECEMBER 15, 2010

Another report of a chevron-shaped sighting near Opelousas, Louisiana occurred on December 15, 2010. A witness tells how slow the object was moving at first, and then how it just "disappeared" moments later, and several other witnesses have corroborated the story.

Occurred : 12/15/2010 22:00
Location: Opelousas, LA
Shape: Chevron
Duration: 30 seconds
Characteristics: There were lights on the object, There was an aura or haze around the object
Completely silent enormous V shaped craft

 

SYNOPSIS:

I am 49 years of age, married with 3 children and a practicing attorney. On December 15, 2010 at approximately 9:20pm I was outside enjoying the cool evening and waiting for my oldest son to drive in from school. About ¼ mile from my house is a local high school. The stadium lights were on since there was a soccer match being played. I was looking south in the direction of the school when I noticed a fairly large light to my right about 1 mile away heading from west to east. It was on a track that would take it between my house and the school. At first I thought it was a plane but then I realized it was far too low. Then I thought it may have been a helicopter but as I continued to watch this light I noticed that there was no sound at all coming from the direction of the light. The light continued to move in an easterly direction at an amazingly slow speed. As it neared my location I could tell that it wasn’t just a single light. It was an enormous v shaped ! object with 3 almost blindingly bright lights on the under side of each “wing”. This object passed slowly between my location and the school at an altitude of less than 1000 feet. It continued moving east until it got just passed my location. As I was watching this object it simply vanished. Literally in the blink of an eye it was gone. The next morning as I was dropping my youngest son off at school I was stopped by the religion instructor who is a friend of mine. He excitedly began to tell me about the object he had seen the night before. His sighting lasted considerably longer than mine. He was driving back from a function when he saw this object. When he first saw the object it was moving very slowly in a southerly direction at less than 1000 feet. He watched the object for several minutes until it simply vanished. Within just a couple of seconds it reappeared at a distance my friend estimated to be at least 1 ½ miles away. My friend drove toward the object’s new locati! on and actually got to a point where he was nearly directly un! der this object. He confirmed that it had 3 lights under each wing and that it was an enormous v shaped craft. He also confirmed that it was completely silent. He continued to watch the object moving now in a westerly direction for another 30 seconds until the thing vanished again. That was the last time he saw it. My friend later learned that at least 10 kids who are students at the school also saw this thing.

With so many witnesses, this one gave me chills! I must admit, when I saw what I (think I) saw outside of Youngsville, I asked around and found that no one else I spoke to witnessed it. That makes me want to just shrug it off. But when you have a dozen witnesses, it gives much more credence to the story!

CIRCLE - AUGUST 17, 2016

The next reported sighting occurred on August 17, 2016. There's not a lot of information included on this one.

Occurred : 8/17/2016 22:50
Location: Opelousas, LA
Shape: Circle
Duration: 20 minutes
CHARACTERISTICS: There were lights on the object, The object changed color
Multi-colored flashing lights over Louisiana.

 

SYNOPSIS: There were, what looked like 2 stars that were flashing red, blue, and green at irregular intervals. It looked like the strobe lights on top of police cars, but coming from a small dot in the sky.

No mention of whether the objects were moving. No mention of whether the objects disappeared after the 20 minutes. Again, not much to go on here.

Could the objects have just been stars and the person making the report was witnessing chromatic aberration?

The next time you have a nice evening to see the stars, take note as to whether the stars seem to "twinkle" with different colors.

CYLINDER - OCTOBER 21, 2018

Another report on the NUFORC database from the Opelousas area occurred on October 21, 2018. The entry reads as follows:

Occurred : 10/21/2018 15:15
Location: Opelousas, LA
Shape: Cylinder
Duration: 20 seconds
CHARACTERISTICS: Oblong shape suspended in southern sky to the south and west of Opelousas, Louisiana.

 

SYNOPSIS: I was driving back home from checking on my farm, when I saw an oblong shape suspended ahead in the southern horizon. I estimate this shape was 8-10 miles away from my position.

I pulled off to the side of the road and observed the shape for 10-15 seconds. It did not move. It was perfectly still, and was at a slight angle in the sky.

After that, drove to my home, approximately 1 mile from where I was parked, to retrieve a pair of binoculars. I could not see the shape from my house due to the trees, so I drove back to the spot I was at. I estimate this took me 4 or 5 minutes. By the time I got back to the position I last saw it, it was not in the sky.

I have seen clouds that appear to be perfectly shaped - so much so that it would seem to be man-made. Could it have been a cloud?

As with many sightings, it seems that the binoculars/video camera/still camera aren't where you need them when you need them most!  I wish that there were more clear photos and videos of unidentified objects in the sky that we could share with the world.

If there was a way we could TiVo our vision for replay later, I am confident that many of the sightings could be explained away. There are some, though, that I think would make our collective skin crawl.

MY EXPERIENCES WITH UFOs

My experience with unidentified flying objects is not extensive, but I have had a couple of them.

The first one occurred while I was in the Army. It was in 1989, near Frankfurt, Germany. I saw 3 lights in a triangle formation that were spinning in a circle. One of the lights would dart way out across the sky and then stop just as quickly, and then dart back over to the other two lights and rejoin the formation. Then all 3 would dart over to where the first one had darted to, then they would spin for a few seconds before doing it again. The "objects" did this 3 or 4 times until all three darted off in the same direction over the horizon.

The next one occurred near Youngsville, and I did report it to the National UFO Reporting Center.

Reported: 2/2/2010 7:53:36 PM
Location: Youngsville, LA
Shape: Fireball
Duration: 4 minutes
Synopsys: On February 2, 2010, at approximately 8:05 pm, I was driving south on Louisiana State Highway 89 at Glaser Drive, just south of LA Hwy 182 near Youngsville, Louisiana 70592, when I saw what at first appeared to be a radio tower beacon.

Knowing that there are no towers in the area, I paid closer attention to the object.

This was when I realized that the object was moving, in a SSW direction. The object first appeared to be glowing, but after a closer look, it seemed to be aflame.

It did not appear to be moving quickly, and I did not see it leaving a ‘trail’. I thought that it was an emergency flare, but I think that a flare is more of a ‘glow’ than a ‘flame’, and this looked more like a flame.

The object seemed to be about 60 degrees up from the horizon when I first spotted it, and directly ahead of me when I lost sight of it (or at the point it ‘flamed out’). I hope that I am using the right terminology here.

It seemed to have lost some elevation as it moved away from me, but without knowing the altitude of the object, there is no way to know how much elevation was lost.

The object either ‘flamed out’ or moved behind clouds at approximately 8:09 pm.

After arriving home, I called 911, but they had received no other reports of the object.

 

HOW DO I REPORT A UFO

If you have seen something in the skies of Acadiana that you are certain wasn't an aircraft or some sort of atmospheric phenomenon, you can report it to the National UFO Reporting Center.