Richard Bong
New Member
Hi All,
Looking for a little help understanding or maybe even identifying something that flew directly over my head at night right after dusk in the local park near my home in Evanston, Il. It was late October/first week of November, 2021. Clear dark sky. Trees still had leaves. I was in an open space of small 1 block x 1 block city park surrounded by trees. I was right next to a E-W street with not the brightest old timey street lamps, but, immediately next to a major retirement home complex's parking lot with high intensity sodium lights that generate a lot of light splash.
Walking with my dog, when from behind me I heard the sound of prop plane, loud. I looked up and could see nothing other than two - I mean painfully super bright white strobe lights that were in line and synchronized. They were blinding. Combined with the size of the lights - like apple size or bigger still - and the rushing sound of the engine I thought - holy crap is he/she low, like really dangerously low considering it was dark and a half block away is a commercial smoke stack for the retirement home. This craft was making a fairly tight elipitcal curve from behind me left, right over my head to in front of me right. So coming from the SE turning to a due West course that ran over the street. I saw nothing other than those two lights. No nav lights, no other beacons or strobes. The dual white ventral strobes did not reflect on any surfaces. I saw no reflection of wings or rotors for a chopper. It got to the end of the park 3/4's of block away and was hidden by trees. Thereafter I did not see or hear it again.
I have no idea how big, or how high, but combined with the size of the lights and the sound, I think it was big, like up to a Pilatus PC-12 up to C-130 size or CH47 size. If it was that low its wings would have stretched out on either side and been at risk of hitting trees (yes it was really low - both I and my dog were looking up at it and I was thinking "holy sh*t"). I checked on local medical helos, because there's a medical complex a mile away. If I were to guess, the two lights were 10, 15 maybe 20 feet apart.
It's possible I was blinded by the lights so badly I couldn't see wings or other lights, but, I find that hard to convince myself of. Are there craft that would use that set up or be flying like that in the dark over a metro area. Ah, ya, it was moving at a clip, it was won and done in just a few seconds.
Maybe worth mentioning that, over the years been directly overflown at low altitude by a C-130 (Fat Albert), a CH-47, USCG Dolphin, UH-60 and Loach/little bird. As sure as I can be it wasn't a helo. The C-130's got a whisper/roar so don't think it was that. It happened fast and was low, but, it didn't have a pronounced doppler sound to it either. Just a flat "engine" sound. Be great is someone can clear this up - thank you!
Looking for a little help understanding or maybe even identifying something that flew directly over my head at night right after dusk in the local park near my home in Evanston, Il. It was late October/first week of November, 2021. Clear dark sky. Trees still had leaves. I was in an open space of small 1 block x 1 block city park surrounded by trees. I was right next to a E-W street with not the brightest old timey street lamps, but, immediately next to a major retirement home complex's parking lot with high intensity sodium lights that generate a lot of light splash.
Walking with my dog, when from behind me I heard the sound of prop plane, loud. I looked up and could see nothing other than two - I mean painfully super bright white strobe lights that were in line and synchronized. They were blinding. Combined with the size of the lights - like apple size or bigger still - and the rushing sound of the engine I thought - holy crap is he/she low, like really dangerously low considering it was dark and a half block away is a commercial smoke stack for the retirement home. This craft was making a fairly tight elipitcal curve from behind me left, right over my head to in front of me right. So coming from the SE turning to a due West course that ran over the street. I saw nothing other than those two lights. No nav lights, no other beacons or strobes. The dual white ventral strobes did not reflect on any surfaces. I saw no reflection of wings or rotors for a chopper. It got to the end of the park 3/4's of block away and was hidden by trees. Thereafter I did not see or hear it again.
I have no idea how big, or how high, but combined with the size of the lights and the sound, I think it was big, like up to a Pilatus PC-12 up to C-130 size or CH47 size. If it was that low its wings would have stretched out on either side and been at risk of hitting trees (yes it was really low - both I and my dog were looking up at it and I was thinking "holy sh*t"). I checked on local medical helos, because there's a medical complex a mile away. If I were to guess, the two lights were 10, 15 maybe 20 feet apart.
It's possible I was blinded by the lights so badly I couldn't see wings or other lights, but, I find that hard to convince myself of. Are there craft that would use that set up or be flying like that in the dark over a metro area. Ah, ya, it was moving at a clip, it was won and done in just a few seconds.
Maybe worth mentioning that, over the years been directly overflown at low altitude by a C-130 (Fat Albert), a CH-47, USCG Dolphin, UH-60 and Loach/little bird. As sure as I can be it wasn't a helo. The C-130's got a whisper/roar so don't think it was that. It happened fast and was low, but, it didn't have a pronounced doppler sound to it either. Just a flat "engine" sound. Be great is someone can clear this up - thank you!
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