Flying Creature Witness in Wilmington Reports UFO Activity in Same Area

UFO activity alluded to in a sighting report of a strange flying creature submitted to Lon Strickler at Phantoms and Monsters has been described in further detail in a separate report filed by the witness.  The location of all anomalous activity reported by the witness was Wilmington, Illinois, a small town about 60 miles southwest of downtown Chicago.

The date of my first Wilmington UFO encounter is hard to pinpoint exactly due to my shock, but the few people I had told right away brushed me off, so I just let it go and locked it in my mind. I do know that it ranged between December 10-Dec. 15 2017. Time of sighting I do recall, it was about 9:30pm and I froze locked on this object until it was gone without a trace. The UFO was here for a solid 7-10 minutes actually, so there was no denying what I believe to have seen first hand. Sadly I was home by myself so I had nobody to force outside to see for themselves.

Now this one is interesting because like I mentioned in my reply email I am surrounded by heavy wooded area. Lighting in my town is extremely sparse so the sky on clear nights is incredible, and usually carries an extremely eerie vibe to it because to the east and west of my home lie 2 massive power plants, and a semi-secret helipad and private (I think its private at least) airport are hidden within a few openings in the wooded area unseen from the main road, known only based off of seeing them ascend from strange areas seeming to be right smack in the middle of the trees.

Before I move on to the UFO details I wanted to make you aware of what I believe may be an important detail about this secretive helipad. My husband worked nights and didn’t come home until 11:00 pm usually so I felt sort of helpless and even began wondering if I was being irrational of my fear and discomfort I would endure every single night from April through the end of September 2017. Each night around 9:30-10:00 pm (varied by the day) I would hear a helicopter flying too low for comfort above my neighborhood in particular. It would fly this low in what sounded to be circles until about 11:00 pm and then seriously come back out at around 1:00 am and stay out low flying circling around until 2:30-3:00 am! No exaggeration here. I finally chose to go out and see this copter and sure enough it is all black and appears to be some type of military copter. I have seen it flying low in fields during the day in my previous town in the exact area of my very 1st UFO sighting in Channahon, IL 6 years ago; so I found that very strange. Spotlight was on and always seemed to be searching intently for something, and of course that’s unnerving. I think it’s connected to the encounters around here to an extent.

So back to the actual UFO. I happened to be looking in the general area of the arsenal location (US Army Ammunition Plant in Wilmington, IL) and in the distance a little further away you can see the orange light from the plant. I was just scanning as usual and suddenly I saw a VERY large triangular craft that was seemingly out of nowhere just hovering over the area. I know for sure it was far enough to be near this arsenal if not directly over it, but I couldn’t physically see what it was for sure hovering over. I saw a total of 3 lights on it, one light on each corner of the triangle. The lights looked to transition from red, blue and green smoothly. I believe I saw a white beam of light underneath the craft from my position on my steps and it wasn’t your text book abduction beam where its light is moving down to the ground, but I do know I caught a glimpse of white light in that area and it was bright enough to give me a feeling like it was scanning the premises for something or maybe even just taking a look around at my strange town? Either way it sat there in silence (I feel like I was 1-2 Miles away at the most as a reminder so I couldn’t see as much as I would’ve liked to, but I think I should’ve heard noise for how large it was!) it then started moving very slowly westbound for about 2 minutes maybe three, it hovered for 4 or 5 easily. It crept and then just flew out of the area in a split second like it just teleported to another dimension. I was on Cloud 9, and didn’t really feel any fear or anything this time. I was a little anxious but more frozen with excitement and shock. I attempted numerous pictures zoom on, off, filters for more light and I could NOT capture this craft with my phone cam at all, not even a glimpse which I found very creepy. I also want to add that the weather was very obviously cold, but there was not even a tad bit of breeze, and it was uncomfortably quiet that night as if a storm were about to hit us or something along those lines. Nothing was strange that night from what I recall with the lights in the sky upon the UFO arriving.

This next sighting happened on December 18th, 2017 and it was again to the east of my home, but it was much closer more visible and it was more southeast rather than northeast. It actually appeared right by the water tower I can see very clearly from my step even sitting down.

The time was 10:15 pm approx. I was actually on the phone with my husband during this one. I was just looking over in that vicinity for no particular reason at all while telling him a story I was excited about, when I started to notice what at first appeared to be those slow moving Christmas light laser things that people project on their house. I thought it was the house a block over but for some reason couldn't stop looking at the green lights moving around. I started to lose my excitement in my voice while talking because I was feeling weird, almost uncertain I suppose is the best way to describe it. My husband got really concerned because I fell completely silent a few moments later and I literally could not speak and actually started tearing up and to this day I don't know why I would cry. I don't just tear up in that way. But as I'm frozen I'm seeing a craft that looks pretty identical to the previous one but this time it was rising up like it had been on the ground prior to this moment.

Again very large, like there's no mistaking this for an airplane, and if neighbors were out I know they would've saw this all happen as well. It rose up at a fairly quick rate, not speed of light type but just a smooth unnaturally advanced rate no doubt. It just kept rising and by this time about 30 maybe 40 seconds have passed and I finally was able to let out an 'OH MY GOD'... and then I felt fear yet excitement and ran in the house and locked my door. I don't know why. I wanted to watch it go, but something was telling me to get inside and I can't figure out why. Probably wise I suppose, but still! As for it seeming to be near the house a block away it definitely was much farther than that once I realized what it was, but still much closer than the previous encounter. This was a quick one. After this happened I decided to check out MUFON and research sightings out here and I did find one maybe 2 in April of 2017 of almost the same description UFO! 

STRANGE LIGHTS:

I've only noticed the lights for about 2 weeks maybe 3 tops. I feel like it's closer to 2 weeks. I've been describing to my family what look at first to be a "new star" but they're just way too large and they glimmer very beautifully to be honest. They glimmer white in the middle always but outlining the white it sparkles bright purple very bright green and to me it looks like a small sparkle of red but red isn't the dominant outlining color at all. I've discovered about 4 or 5 of these all more southeast from my sky view, and 3 of them I know for sure appear in a large triangle and look like a constellation. The problem is I love space and constellations and I own many books on these, but this particular triangle is something I've ever ever seen in the sky until very recently. I'll say January 21st was when I noticed first and they appear clearer and more vibrant the later it gets - 1 am through 4 am they're incredible! Very unnatural in my opinion and sometimes appear to be slowly moving or bouncing. Hardly noticeable.

The lights seems to be moving much more this morning but with my flying humanoid sighting I firmly believe my vision was distorted moments before the creature appeared so I don't want to confirm wholeheartedly that they were in fact moving at a pretty noticeable pace for sure.

"The witness' descriptions are very similar to other sightings throughout the area (reported to MUFON, NUFORC and other forums)," said Strickler of the anomalous activity.

The nearest airport to Wilmington is the Joliet Regional Airport, approximately 17 miles north of the town.  It does feature a helipad used by private charter companies who offer helicopter flights in the area for both business and leisure.  There is also an Army Training Area that houses the 470th Transportation Battalion about eight miles north of Wilmington.

Nestled within the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie between Wilmington and Joliet is the decommissioned Joliet Army Ammunition Plant, which manufactured TNT until the late 1970s.  The 23,500 acres of land used by the site was later redeveloped into two industrial parks, a landfill, cemetery, and the aforementioned prairie preserve.  The land abuts the Joliet Army Training Area, and together with the training area accounts for 32,000 acres.  The army maintained a hunting program in the area for Defense Department workers, which was opened to members of the general public in the early 1990s.  Portions of the property were on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Superfund National Priorities List as recently as 2008, when cleanup activities concluded.

A similar TNT area featured prominently in the Point Pleasant, West Virginia, Mothman sightings from 1966 to 1967.