Center of a UFO Storm - Event Date 10/4/2011

Less than a year ago, in May 2011, Missouri started to see their UFO activity pick up some steam with an increase in sightings of small globes of light moving in erratic manners. They began competing with such states as California and Texas for reports at the Mutual UFO Network or MUFON. By October of that year they were leading all the states in the number of reports from any one state. That is quite a feat for a state who's population density is 87 people per square mile (or at the U.S. state average) while states like California are almost three times more dense (242 people per square mile). For them to become the leader meant that something extraordinary happened during that month. And so it did. Nearly half of the reports from Missouri that month were due to a flap of high strangeness sightings in the Kansis City to Lee's Summit area on October 3 and 4. More than half of the sightings reported to MUFON on those days came from Missouri.

On those days, some people saw the more usual small globes of light maneuvering about. There were also reports of UFOs with a circle of about five lights with a red light in the middle of the bottom. However, most of the sightings described a very peculiar and complex UFO. From the bottom, as shown at the top of this article, it looked triangular but without sharp edges. There were lights mostly in blue and white and the colors and luminescence were described as most pleasing or awe inspiring rather than painful to look at (even though they were bright). People who only saw it from the side had more trouble figuring out its shape but it appeared to have a curved bottom and a diamond shaped or pyramidal top.

It was impressive not just in its shape and brilliance, but in size (as big as a football field), its effortless maneuverability (from hovering to fast acceleration and sharp turns), and its silence (although one witness described a slight hum). One feature described by several independent witnesses was that the lights seemed to separate, in some cases this could have been due to the vehicle turning sideways to expose its triangular bottom (shifting the lights from elongated to triangular) or, if the witness already saw a triangle of lights, due to it expanding and then contracting in size (as described by one witness who was in close proximity under the object). Yet, there is another description from a witness that seems to leave no doubt that the lights definitely went in different directions and there are other reports of three or more lights maneuvering separately. Shyness was not one of its qualities either; coming to within 500 feet of many witnesses and quite likely abducting at least one woman in the neighborhood of Independence (who submitted the drawing above). It also produced a thick mist, fog, or smoke, especially when it accelerated.

Of the 39 sightings on those two nights in Missouri, 24 were in the area of focus as follows:
Lee's Summit = 12 reports (5 of them on 10/3)
Kansas City = 5 reports (3 of them on 10/3)
Raytown= 5 reports (all on 10/4)
Independence= 2 reports (both on 10/4)

As can be seen above, half of the reports were in Lee's Summit and, of the two days of activity, those on 10/3 were half as numerous as those on 10/4. Also, on 10/3 the sightings occurred only in Lee's Summit and Kansas City, but then doubled in those spots the next day and expanded outward to new areas as well.
The sightings began on both days as early as 7:30pm (sunset on those days was 40 minutes earlier in those areas) and continued up until 12:30am on the evening/morning of 10/3-10/4 and till about 10pm on the evening of 10/4, but most of the activity was from 7:50pm till 8:30pm (13 of 16 reports on 10/4 and 5 of 8 on 10/3 or 75% of the reports were in this time period). Interestingly, to me at least, is the fact that these sightings occurred about six hours before the estimate of a peak in my 'UFO Day Cycle A' (click for details from an earlier hub) that also peaked during the July 4, 2010 storm in eastern Nebraska. Since many other occurrences have coincided hours before my estimate, I am now updating my previous estimate to coincide with these sightings.

Shown in the above map are the 24 reports that I used for this study. They are numbered in order of their occurrence, with #s 1-8 happening the evening of 10/3 and 9-24 occurring the evening of 10/4. Of the 24 reports, 19 sightings occurred while the witness was driving or a passenger in a vehicle on the road. The UFOs seemed to be following the highways. They could have been attracted to the lights. There were a few reports of lights maneuvering over the Kansas City Chief's & Royal's stadium that happened to have its lights on that night even though no event was planned there that evening. One interesting facet of these sightings is that, similar to the UFO storm of 7/4/2010 (click for my UFO storm hub for that date), these occurred in or close to a major metropolitan area in the midwest and adjoining a border between two states (this one in western Missouri and that one in eastern Nebraska). The four states involved are divided in two by a dissecting north-south border that UFOs in both cases seemed attracted to. Did the Missouri river that runs to and from the two locations of these storms play a part? They were also exactly 15 months apart; a length of time that Jacques Vallee (in his early writings) pinpointed as a possible cycle when UFO flaps repeat.

Many of the witnesses to these sightings had never believed in true UFOs (or unexplained aerial objects) before and were profoundly effected by the event after failing to explain it to themselves as something conventional. Many kept it to themselves and were relieved, and finally reported their experience, after learning that many other people had seen something similar.

Here are six reports from this UFO storm:

As reported to the Missouri Assistant State Director by phone:
submitted: 2011-10-30, 1451 UTC; occurred: 2011-10-03, 11:45pm, LT; MUFON case #32965
Small spheres of white light danced around trees in our back yard and into the woods
Lee's Summit, MO http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=32965&rnd=

A total of five balls of light "..moved around randomly, up and down, side to side, sometimes fast and sometimes slow..." in the woods behind witnesses house. One ventured into his back yard and came within 25 feet of him and 6 feet off the ground. Sighting lasted as much as 45 minutes. His dog was spooked too.


submitted: 2011-10-05, 1644 UTC; occurred: 2011-10-04, 8:10pm, LT; MUFON case #32376
Kansas City/Raytown/Independence MO UFO Sighting
http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=32376&rnd=

Woman driving from Kansas City to Independence, MO, saw odd lights in shape of V shape low in the sky (as she approached Raytown). Has seen many Air Force planes before and this didn't look familiar. It was very large and if conventional was flying too low unless it was making an emergency landing. When she arrived home in Independence her fiancé revealed that he had seen the same thing much closer and about half an hour before she did. He said that it moved too slow and circled around too much to be conventional. It then "...went vertical and hovered then broke into three parts."



submitted: 2011-10-05, 0012 UTC; occurred: 2011-10-04, 8:30pm,LT; MUFON case #32353
The UFO hovered over Raytown water tower then flew away.
http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=32353&rnd=

Witness was waiting for a stop light to turn green when he noticed a woman in a nearby car hanging out of her vehicle with a video camera pointed up at something. He looked up at a nearby water tower to see a UFO hovering above it. "It hovered for five seconds..rose up ten feet flipped over and slowly flew down Raytown Road." He took off after it but it then emitted black smoke, accelerated, and disappeared.



UFO#21 submitted: 2011-10-06 occurred: 2011-10-04, 8:30pm, LT; MUFON case #32398
UFO Observed Over Blue Springs, Lee's Summit
http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=32398&rnd=

Two men were on the road near Lee's Summit Airport where they witnessed a "massive" UFO hovering a few hundred feet off the ground. It then sped up very quickly and flew over them silently. The lights on the triangular shaped vehicle were described as "very odd and blinked and pulsated at random intervals". They said it had white and blue lights on top and, when it banked, red lights could be seen on its underside. The lights went out at one point and then came back at first with a green color before returning to the previous display. At one point it appeared as if a small plane might collide with it.



As reported to the Assistant State Director by phone:
(The witness wishes to remain anonymous)
submitted: 2011-10-30, 1234 UTC; occurred: 2011-10-04, 9:50pm, LT; MUFON case #32960
Huge diamond shaped craft with blue and white lights over 435 Hwy
http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=32960&rnd=

While driving east of Overland Park, MO and heading north to Kansas City, a married couple witnessed a large diamond shaped UFO a 1000 feet from the highway and 500 feet off the ground. Its white and blue lights were bright yet soft and pleasing to the eye. The car radio was off yet made a crackling noise for a few seconds then gave out a burst of sound that startled both of them. The wife tried to get her phone ready to take a picture when the battery, that was nearly fully charged, died unexpectedly. Most of the time the craft moved very slowly but, at the end of their sighting it sped off to the west at what was thought to be a rate of 750 mph or more. The acceleration was not gradual but happened in an instant. It was gone in less than five seconds.


What follows is a MUFON report (the drawing at the top of this hub accompanied the report) by a witness who had first given an account to NUFORC. She gave the local time of occurrence as 8pm in that report and 7:30pm at the time she filed her account with MUFON. Missing time was also part of her experience and the half hour may represent how much time was unaccounted for (this would appear to have been a likely abduction).

submitted: 2011-10-10, 1851 UTC; occurred: 2011-10-04, 7:30, LT; MUFON case #32514
Obvious Spacecraft visits Independence, MO neighborhood on October 4, 2011
http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=32514&rnd=
The NUFORC report, submitted 31 hours after her sighting, can be found at this link:
http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/084/S84358.html

A 56 year old woman, returning to her neighborhood after doing errands in her daughter's car was startled to see a "big mass of lights" hovering in the sky nearby. She backed up the car and went down the street towards the triangular object which was 500 feet above the local clubhouse. When she was underneath it she could see that it had many multi-colored lights that seemed to blend seamlessly with its surface which was a dark gray color. It then moved quickly towards her house and hovered there as if waiting for her there. She drove to her house and as she got closer she encountered a group of people excitedly running and shouting to her about seeing the UFO. One of them asked had she seen it and she answered "yes". At that point she said the reality of the situation was finally sinking in. She said that she wasn't afraid of the situation, but she was definitely excited. Her heart was pounding as she drove into her driveway and honking her horn for her daughter to come out of the house to witness the UFO. She ran out of the car leaving her purse behind and the door open. Being entranced by her experience she didn't notice till after the UFO sped quickly almost straight up in the sky in a second as she reached her front gate. Realizing her mistake she returned to the car to remedy the situation and then noticed that all the excited people on the street had vanished.