The Carolinas are a hotbed of documented UFO sightings. In fact, the Queen City of Charlotte has been rated among the top 10 large North American cities for UFO sightings. So far, there have been 153 sightings of mysterious lights, discs, and orbs in the sky since 1910.
Last year, we shared the story of a man from Liberty, North Carolina, who caught a UFO on a Facebook Live video. Now, there has been another similar UFO sighting reported in the Charlotte Observer.
This time, an 88-year-old Korean War combat veteran and 45-year pilot came forward with his UFO account. Charles Cobb of Morganton once served on a Navy destroyer during the Korean War. Thus, he’s certainly familiar with aircraft, but at 11:18 a.m. on June 12, 2020, he saw something unlike he’d ever seen before.
“None of my flying friends have any idea as to what it was,” he said.
Zooming Orange Orb UFO with Kite-like Tail
Cobb makes daily visits to Silver Creek Airport in Morganton, where he keeps a 1940 Piper Cub. On Friday, the 12th, he was sitting at the airport and spotted a strange object in the sky.
An orange-tinged orb was moving in the sky. As it shot up and down, it moved in the direction of Table Rock, a popular tourist spot with a panoramic view. For 15 to 20 minutes, he observed it flying.
After all his years around aircraft, he hadn’t seen one that could “zoom up almost out of sight” as it was doing.
Definitely Not a Comet
The longtime pilot described a round, irregular orb shooting thousands of feet into the air. Then, it would plummet back down and soar back up again. Cobb estimated it was some 30,000 to 40,000 feet high with an exhaust plume trailing behind it. At times, it would vanish and then fly paralell to the ground.
As a pilot, he knew how to identify aerial phenomena such as comets, and this was no comet.
“Comets come toward you,” he said. However, this object “always pointed north.”
At first, he thought it appeared to be “a huge kite with a tail.” In the middle of the orb, it appeared to be “opaque.” After watching a while, he took out his iPad and snapped photos of the object, which he later shared with the Observer.
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The Observer confirmed with the nearby Astronomy Club that the object was almost certainly not a comet. Bernard Arghiere, the board director of the Asheville group confirmed:
“There is no reported astronomical object, certainly not a comet, in the sky that would appear that bright on that June 12, 2020, date,” Arghiere said in an email. “There were no comets then that would be that bright, so they would be visible in the daytime sky.
“It really looks to me more like sunlight reflected off a distant jet and its related condensation trail; typically, that would disappear from sight in less than 20 minutes.”
“Good luck getting a definitive answer on this one,” he added.
Veteran Pilot Says It Wasn’t a Plane or Reflection
Notably, Cobb pointed out that he viewed the orb for an extended period and was convinced it was not a plane reflection.
“No reflection off a jet,” he said. “This object, while zooming to incredible heights, and coming back down, was always heading in a northerly direction as the photos show, yet it remained in the general area that I was viewing.
“A plane of any sort passing through my viewing area would have been out of sight in a matter of a few minutes,” he said.
More Sighting Nearby
Going by reports to the National UFO Reporting Center, we can see that similar reports took place around the time of Cobb’s sighting, the morning of June 12.
About ten hours after Cobb saw the orb, Huntersville’s witness reported seeing “bright light flares” turning 90 degrees in the sky.
Then, in nearby Salisbury the following morning, someone reported a “spear or teardrop structure streaming across the sky with a vapor trail and cast off glare from the rising sun.”
In Arden, NC, someone reported a “Glowing orange inverted teardrop silently flying low overhead,” on June 29. Alos, orange orbs were reported in Ocean Isle Beach on the same day and previously on the 25th over North Myrtle Beach.
Indeed, the reports about orange flying orbs are very common. Below, see a couple of the posts we’ve made about these UFOs.
Related story: Thousands of Americans see glowing amber orbs flying silently in formation over states
Related story: Mysterious floating orbs over Kansas City confound everyone, including the National Weather Service
Another Pilot Prompted Cobb to Come Forward
The International Business Times shared the story about Cobb’s UFO sighting. Also, they noted that “UFO sightings in various parts of the globe have increased drastically.” The rise in reports follows the 2017 Pentagon admission that they have secretly been studying unidentified aerial phenomena for years.
Cobb decided to come forward with his account after seeing the video below about an airline pilot who reported a UFO. The object came dangerously close to the plane he was piloting as it traveled from Dallas-Fort Worth to Charlotte in 2003.
See the History Channel video below:
Featured image: Table Rock NC by Omarcheeseboro via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) with simulated ‘orb’ created in Photoshop