KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana |Lake Area Residents Spot UFO

Lake Area Residents Spot UFO

September 2, 2003
Reported by KPLC Staff

You've been hearing a lot about it.. The planet mars is the closest it's been to earth in nearly 60,000 years.

And people all over the globe have been out star gazing to get a glimpse of it.

But late last week, some in Calcasieu say they saw something else in the sky out of the ordinary, and they were able to capture it on home video.

Dwayne Wilks, "My daughter called and said dad come outside there's something really weird in the sky. It was sometime after 9:00 p.m. last Thursday night. Never seen nothing like that before in my life."

Wilks, who lives in Moss Bluff, and other residents nearby saw something very unusual in the sky.

On Paul Bellon Road in north Moss Bluff, some residents say they saw a very strange string of bright lights. They say it happened in a field, just above that tall group of trees.

Wilks says, "I know there was 10 of us and all of us saw the same thing."

Wilks' father Daniel saw it too, "There was definitely lights out there. Now craft I couldn't say yes or no because it was dark and I couldn't see any craft, but i did see the lights."

And the Wilks family weren't the only ones to see it, the Bellon's who live just around the corner saw it too, and the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office says another report of it also came in that night from Iowa.

Nobody wants to speculate because it could be anything, some familiar with aviation suggest the lights are consistent with aircraft landing lights.

Wilks says the people who live here say they've seen lots of aircraft pass through the area, but nothing that resembles this, "I been living here all my life and never seen nothing in that field so it wasn't just some object out there.. It was high enough off the ground. It was something in the air.. You couldn't hear it. It was strange.. Totally strange."

The Lake Charles Regional Airport had no reports of any strange objects that night, and they say the airport radar didn't pick up anything.

One aviation expert says lights on aircraft are used to avoid collisions and also for aircraft recognition.

If it was something out of this world, it at least appeared to be complying with federal aviation regulations.