UFO Sightings
8 and 9 August, 1996


Liberal Translation of Write-up by Karin Wallén
in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., 2001)
by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011

I wanted it known in advance that one of my characteristics is to continually carry my head up, my gaze directed towards the sky. Anyway, that was the case when I was a little girl, for my mother pressed my head often with the flat of her hand and said: Hold your head just so and look forward. Still today I hold my head up that way, when I am contented. For me, the clear blue of the sky is always more interesting and fascinating than the gray asphalt. For this reason, already in younger years I've been able to observe much before I understood what it was I actually saw. My first conscious memory of an extraordinary sight in the sky goes back to the beginning of the 1980s. Since then I have been able to observe many impressive optical phenomena.

After I had established contact with FIGU, I told my mother quite a few things about the Pleiadians/Plejarens and the Pleiades. As a result, this recounting reminded her that my deceased father had always reveled in that small star cluster and had always sought its sight in the night sky. Perhaps my fascination for the sky above was inherited from my father.

On August 8th, 1996, at 10:30 in the evening, I stood outside at the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center and smoked my last evening cigarette. As usual I was gazing at the bright night sky above, immersed in my thoughts. Suddenly a bright light appeared above the southwest horizon, about twice as bright as the brightest visible star, and moved towards me. This movement broke into my thoughts and now demanded my complete attention. The light maintained its steady flight path and came ever closer to me, apparently; in any case I had a lengthy view of it without my shifting about. After about a half minute I had to lift my head in order to continue to follow the very bright, yellowish radiant object. Then it was directly above me, as my head already lay back entirely on my neck. Gradually I turned myself around in order to still be able to observe it further, until it finally disappeared after about 90 seconds behind a tree on the northwestern horizon. I looked quickly at my watch; it was 10:44 pm when I lost sight of the object. My feeling was that it flew across the sky at a height of only about 700 meters, silently and producing no noise. The spectacle of a silent and unchanging radiant object passing overhead awakened in me the impression of a beautiful familiarity. Somehow, during my observation, I felt safe, calm and very peaceful.

On the next morning at breakfast I told about my observation, and I never dared to hope that this day fortune would smile on me once again.

In the evening, at 11 pm, I spoke with another passive member (Christian Krukowski) at the bench at the Biotope [an ecologically preserved pond, see map, No. 2]. By chance during our conversation I was looking towards the southwest when I suddenly noticed a very bright movement between the trees. From the same direction in which I had seen the bright radiant object the foregoing night, the same object, apparently, again moved across the sky. It was as if I were to see an old friend again, and within me there arose a feeling which said, "Ah, beautiful that we meet again, just this morning I spoke about you."

This time also the light again had the same color and the same brilliance. It moved just as slowly and in the same direction across the sky, in my opinion, as in the previous night. Because our location this time was significantly more unfavorable and allowed us less open visibility, we could only observe the bright traveling star with substantially greater difficulty, so that we could only follow a quarter of its flight path. Therefore the bright object soon disappeared already behind the trees of the opposite northwestern horizon. As I remarked about the light to my conversation partner, around 11:18 pm, he had already noticed it, and also was astounded and very delighted over the size and brightness of the object. Together we enjoyed the spectacle, which permitted us to see the unknown. It was moreover special that in the northwesterly direction there was a cloud bank in the night sky, and throughout the sighting the moving object was clearly visible under the clouds, thus again at a relatively low height.

The whole thing seemed unusual to me, that on two consecutive nights, with a time difference of little more than a half hour, I could observe the same radiant light. The size and brightness of the light did not especially astonish me, since already in Sweden I had had a spectacular sighting. In my country the land is flat and the sky domed very high above it -- wonderfully suitable for observations.