ARLINGTON HEIGHTS Kathy Firnstahl knows how her story might sound, but she also knows that she saw something.
People are so afraid to reveal what theyve seen that wives might not tell their husbands, and parents might not tell their children, said Firnstahl, who recently saw an unidentified flying object near her home. I hope that, by coming forward, I can give other people who have seen these things the sense that theyre not the odd ones out.
For Firnstahl, her UFO sighting was an unexpectedly exciting conclusion to an otherwise unremarkable New Years Eve. At 6:24 p.m., she noticed the time when she realized that her dog had been barking for nearly 10 minutes. Firnstahl had been distracted by reading the newspaper and watching TV, but when she heard what type of bark her dog was making, she took notice.
Shes a Karelian Bear Dog, Firnstahl said. Theyre used for tracking bears and warn them away. Over the years, Ive learned what each of her barks have meant, and this one said there was a stranger and a vehicle on the property.
This piqued Firnstahls curiosity, since her neck of the woods is so quiet that she not only hears cars on her driveway, but on her neighbors driveways, and yet, she hadnt heard any cars approaching. When she went to the window, she didnt see a car, but she did catch a glimpse of something.
I dont even know if it was a glimmer of light, Firnstahl said. My dog was still standing in the same spot, facing away from the drive and barking.
The back of Firnstahls property faces Cheops Hill, and that was where she saw something that she still cant describe fully. After she peeked out the window of her door, since shed dealt with trespassers before, she stepped outside and spotted a partially shadowed, silvery object hovering near the trees.
It was about 75 feet wide, since it spanned the distance between two of the trees, Firnstahl said. Weve had helicopters fly over and land here. Ive been to air shows, and my dad flew planes. I know what they look like. What I saw literally made me stop breathing for a moment.
Firnstahl was able to distinguish a semicircle of red, green and yellowish-white lights, on an object that appeared to taper inward at its top and bottom, except that she couldnt see the top or bottom of the object. The lights didnt blink or revolve, but remained steady, she said.
I know what helicopters and small planes sound like, Firnstahl said. This wasnt it. It was a steady, not-unpleasant, motorized humming, with an undercurrent of a slightly lower tone. I dont have the words to describe it.
After a couple of minutes, during which she used familiar landmarks to estimated that the object was hovering approximately 50 feet in the air and 400 feet from her house, Firnstahl realized that she was alone, without anyone to confirm what she was witnessing, she called her neighbor, Randy Parsons.
When she called me up, she was out of breath, Parsons said. Whatever shed seen was not normal.
Firnstahl had returned to her house to fetch her cell phone, but once Parsons picked up, she found herself tongue-tied.
I was so overwhelmed, Firnstahl said. I think I opened the window, stuck the phone out and told him, Listen to my dog, since he knows her barks, too. Im not normally a demanding person, but I demanded that he go to his gate and wait for me to pick him up.
Even though the object had disappeared by the time Firnstahl stepped outside again, she was becoming so frightened that she didnt even take the time to scrape the frost off her windshield, and instead simply drove by rolling down the window and sticking her head out.
Time was a factor, Firnstahl laughed.
After Firnstahl picked up Parsons, they drove to the nearby lake, where Firnstahl suspected the object might have gone, but found no sign of it, either then or the next morning, when they searched the spot where she saw it hovering.
She saw something, Parsons said. She started taking notes right away, after it happened.
On the morning that Firnstahl chose to tell her story to The Arlington Times, she read about presidential candidate Dennis Kucinichs UFO sighting in the news, and noticed the similarities of tapered objects with semicircles of red and green lights around their edges. Still, she doesnt claim to know what she saw, and she hopes that admitting she saw something wont cause problems for her loved ones.
In spite of this, her unexplained experience has left her more optimistic.
Its given me a deep sense of hope, Firnstahl said. Theres so much trouble in the world, but I feel so grateful now.