Sherri Racine is a 36-year-old school bus driver for Killingly in Connecticut. She is a former Air Force security policewoman who lives with her now 12-year-old son in an in-law apartment that is part of the house owned by her parents, George and Starlet Lenth, in the city of Danielson. The entire complex is a 34 acre plot of land that is heavily wooded.
On July 11, her and her son were watching television when she was distracted by a light... it was hovering above the tree line in the forest behind her apartment. The location of the light ruled out most conventional craft, except possibly a helicopter. Being 400 feet from the nearest road, there was no reason for a helicopter to be in the area.
Because of the vast distances between homes, the only lights at night are those that come from the Lenth house. Any type of light at night would be unusual. She began to pay close attention to the glowing light.
The object seemed to hover in one place with twinkling lights of red, blue and white. The best that she could describe it was that it was like two bands with the red and blue lights coming from the corners of the object. The white lights came from the top, middle and bottom of the UFO.
Attempt to Photograph
She took her Sony A350 digital camera and went outside to get a closer, clearer look. She snapped off several photographs using a zoom lens. It was exactly 11:40 PM at the time. The object was hovering over a swamp which was a few hundred yards from Sherri's apartment. The tree branches made a good, clear photograph impossible.
By this time, she had called her father to tell him about the object. At the time, he was a cancer patient, and was mostly confined to his bedroom. The wooded area was filled with large white oaks and white pines, and her father estimated the object was approximately 60-70 ft. altitude. The night was somewhat cloudy, but the light from the object was clearly seen in the night sky.
No stars could be seen, and there was no moon that night. Later, Sherri stated: "I know it wasn't the moon." They watched the unknown object for 30 minutes as it moved only slightly at times.
"It Light up the Woods"
"It lit up the woods, almost like a spotlight," she said. But it wasn't a spotlight. The light was diffuse."
After about 1/2 hour, the UFO began to slowly move closer to the house, now lighting up the woods closest to her apartment. For the first time, her curiosity turned to fear.
"I didn't want to see any little green men walking towards me," she said.
After midnight, she went upstairs to see if her parents were still awake. They were not. Her son Shain was also asleep in her apartment.
Investigating the Woods
The next morning, Sherri told her nephew Corey about what she had seen. He decided to go into the wooded area to see if he could find anything of interest. He was surprised to find a flattened section of very high grass, reminiscent of the Tulley Saucer Nest.
Corey found the flattened area on a hillside leading down to the swamp. The area was about 8 by 10 feet. When told about the find, Sherri's father, who was a life-long hunter and outdoorsman, said that he knew of no animal that lives in the woods that would make a nest that size.
Mr. Lenth also visited the area, and found a number of tree saplings that were bent over. He ruled out any native animal that would bend over small trees, adding to the mystery of the unknown flying object. Sherri later added that although the night of the sighting was very quiet, she heard no noise coming from the object.
