Cigar and dirigible type craft share many of the same characteristics. So it is difficult to separate the two types, however in general the cigar is the larger of the two.
Generally the colours have been reported by witnesses as highly polished silver, brown or metallic coloured. The size range is tremendous. Well upwards of a thousand feet in length for the giant cylindrical craft to hundreds of feet and possibly much larger for the dirigible.
Smaller craft have been seen to be discharged from the cigar and dirigible UFOs in large numbers. The big cigar objects are sometimes surrounded by great white clouds.
This phenomenon is less frequent with other configurations. Both cigar and dirigible craft carry plume-like wakes when accelerating rapidly or moving at high speeds, gray to straw-coloured in daylight, flame-coloured at night.
They can move slowly (100 mph) without generating the plume. An interesting feature of these two craft is that they are generally totally silent while in a stationary position or while maneuvering.
A scientist who personally witnessed a large dirigible object 1000 feet above Chesapeake Bay noted that when it accelerated it changed from a level path to an upward slanting path making an angle of about 5 degrees and disappeared within 4 to 5 seconds. He later calculated the speed of the craft at 8,900 mph.
It is believed that both the cigar and dirigible are capable of interstellar travel.
Report 1.Two Craft Witnessed by four Scientists over several days.
1956: Two UFOs Appear Over Antarctica
On January 8, 1956, at the height of the Antarctic summer, four scientists from Chile were camped out on the icecap of the Weddell Sea, performing weather experiments as part of the International Geophysical Year.
The weather was clear, with a blue sky and the sun low on the horizon. One man stepped outside and noticed ‘two metallic cigar-shaped objects in a vertical position, perfectly still and silent and flashing vividly the reflected rays of the sun’. ‘One of the objects was almost at the mid-heaven, and the other at a distance of some 30 degrees from the first…the things looked utterly solid, with smooth, polished seemingly metallic surfaces’.
He called a second man to come look at the ‘spindles’.Then they moved to another vantage point about 100 yards away to see if some sort of atmospheric optical effect could be causing them; they did not change appearance.Upon returning to their tent area, two more men also saw the objects.
The two objects remained motionless until 2100 hours (9 p.m.) when the uppermost object tilted into horizontal position and started to brighten and emit several colors. Then it began to move and executed a number of maneuvers (90 degree turns, zigzag flight, instantaneous starts and stops, etc.) Then it came to a stop and hovered again. The second object then began to fly around for three minutes like the first object had just finished doing, and then it too stopped and hovered.
The two objects remained motionless throughout that day and through the twilight that was to be their nighttime. The four men were afraid, yet nothing happened. Then, late in the afternoon of the second day (i.e. January 9, 1956 — J.T.) Clouds approached, the altitude of which were known approximately. And using a theodolite, the altitude of the objects was determined to be about 24,000 feet (7,275 meters) with each cigar about 450 feet long and 75 feet in diameter.” “One of the men aimed a polarized spotlight at one of the objects which unexpectedly flashed a bright light in return and descended in altitude.” “After a ‘long pause,’ it rose again to its original position and stopped. Then it conducted ‘another fantastic sky dance.’ Its velocity was measured at 40,000 kilometers per hour (24,000 miles per hour) starting from a dead stop. The objects eventually disappeared from view because of the clouds that came in.” (See Flying Saucer Review, volume 14, number 3, March-April 1968 issue, article by Gordon Creighton, page 20. See also Project Delta: A Study of Multiple UFO by Richard F. Haines, L.D.A. Press, Los Altos, California, 1994, pages 96 and 97.)
Report 2
This data is taken from an independent account of one of the passengers and extracts from the ship’s log.
On the night of June 30, the coastal steamer Landovery Castle was passing the Straights of Madagascar, off Kenya, en route from Mombassa to Cape Town, South Africa. The sighting occurred about 11.00PM on a moonless, star-studded night. Mrs. A. M. King, who made the independent report, was in the bow with a lady companion when her attention was attracted to something approaching the ship very rapidly.
A passenger strolling at the stern also became aware of an unusual blackness, blotting out many stars, that seemed to be getting larger, or approaching. He pointed this out to the deck officer, who agreed and called a superior to the deck.
Altogether, the events was witnessed by 9 passengers and 3 ship’s officers.
By the time the object was alongside, it had slowed to the speed of the ship and followed alongside, but standing off. As it arrived it beamed a powerful searchlight down on the water, and the object could quite clearly be seen in the light reflected from the water. Mrs. King described it as a gigantic cigar-shaped vehicle made of steel, about four times as long as the Landovery Castle and four times as high, about 50 yards to one side of the vessel and maintaining a height of 20 feet above the surface of the water.
The ship’s officers reported in the log that it was a gigantic dirigible-shaped craft about twice the size of the Landovery Castle, pacing them at a half mile of the starboard side. The latter put the length at roughly 1000 feet. The log said that it was made of such a polished, reflecting material that not only reflected the light from the water, but also the stars. It stayed alongside several minutes, making no discernible sound. Mrs. King’s account furnished the following additional valuable information.
Just before the object left, it cut off the searchlight. Fierce flames issued from the rear, shooting out at a distance of half it’s length as it gained speed, soundlessly disappearing in seconds.
It seemed to Mrs. King that there must be something like a huge furnace inside, but she thought it strange she could not hear the flames.
Report 3
Mr. Buzz Montague and his partner were on a hunting trip in the Sellway wilderness of Idaho.
They were camped on the bluff of a hill overlooking a mine dump half a mile away.
When they awakened at six one morning, their attention was attracted to something shiny on the dump. Looking through the scopes of their hunting rifles, they could see that the shiny object was a domed lenticular saucer having four hoses stuck into the mine tailings. There were four such vehicles in all, each hovering over the dump with their hoses inserted.
A thousand feet above hovered a cigar-shaped vehicle having four depressions on the underside corresponding to the four saucers. One by one the saucers elevated to the parent vehicle and on entering a depression, neither the depression or the vehicle was visible. Each soon returned to the mine dump, presumably for another load of tailings, and the witness estimated that each made a total of four trips in roughly the space of an hour, Then, with the saucers in place, the large vehicle climbed away to the northwest.
Report 4
First name: Jeremy Clark Surname: Packer Age: 32 Occupation: Engineer Day: Monday Month: December Year: 1997 Time: 8:00 am Country: USA, Nearest town: Corpus Christi
Information of surrounding area: Oil platform- 30 miles from shore of Gulf of Mexico. No land masses…no clouds…heavy wind…several liners. 500 manned oil rig. Event took place for [30 ] minutes.
Information of the sighting:
I had just woken up for our daily routine on the rig. Our sleeping quarters were below sea level, so we all had to trudge up to the main core housing to start work. It was about 7:58 to 8:00. My watch stopped ticking at 7:58 but I don’t know if my time was right. Everyone else’s watch stopped ticking as well with various times. As I and about 20 other men neared our stations to perform the daily greasing and releasing routine, we stopped cold in our tracks. The bore that drills the hole into the ocean floor was bent like a toothpick into a V-Shape. We looked at the underwater cameras to recheck what our eyes saw and we could not believe it. First off..this bore is 140.65 Feet thick made of solid steel. Nothing can bend it…let alone something on the ocean floor…and it wasn’t even on the ocean floor! It was just right below the surface of the water about 200 feet…the amount of pressure it would take would be equal to the sun’s force. We were dumbfounded… then we got scared! Everyone started hearing a rumbling noise and we knew it wasn’t the engines running the platform bore…everything shuts off when something goes wrong.
Out of the west we saw what looked to be about 25-30 helicopters on manoeuvres…not uncommon a sight. What was uncommon was that the rig commander came up and told us he had no alerts to any military manoeuvres from the coast guard that day. They usually alert us whenever they do these things in our vicinity. Another peculiar thing was that the helicopters made no sounds..none ZIPP! Then we all ran to the west side of the platform…about 250 of us in all…the others were below sleeping…they have the night shift. Then we saw something that totally changed us!
All of the helicopters stopped in midair and something LARGE..very LARGE surfaced beneath them. It was a HUGE metal object about the size of our platform! It just came straight out of the water and straight into the air! it hovered over the helicopters for about 2 minutes. Enough for us to use the telescopes to check it out! It was as large as about two football fields, concave underneath with 4 large bulbous domes in the concave part of the bottom of it.
It turned on its side and we saw that it looked like a huge flying CIGAR which was tapered at both ends. On the top of the thing was another concave indent that had lights circling within it. Every colour you could possibly imagine! It was BEAUTIFUL! We heard the soft rumbling all throughout the sighting. Then something amazing happened as we stood there in disbelief. Like someone turning off a light switch…it was gone. One second we were all looking through binoculars, telescopes and through just our eyes…hell it was close enough you didn’t need the devices! Then it was gone. I would say as fast as you could blink or a light switch would turn on and off a light…it was gone.
The helicopters headed our way and passed us overhead, again never making a sound. We could see that they had absolutely no markings.We are familiar with the stuff the military does around here,and we knew they were not military craft. Some looked like they were stainless steel, almost invisible, some were jet black. I counted 22…my best friend counted 28. Everyone had a different amount.
We all also noticed that our watches were about 30 minutes later than what the time actually was when we got back to the mainland. We were sent on temporary leave by our bosses for what we reported so that they could fix/repair/replace the bore on the rig. I’m back at work now but I still look out at the ocean every chance I get! The UFO ,manoeuvred, changed colour, hovered and rotated Estimated height of craft from ground: 280 – 300 feet above sea
Information of noises around at the time:
Rumbling Sound for most of the sighting. Our watches stopped working!
Were there any witnesses: Yes, Co-workers
Did your body experience any effects during or after the sighting: Yes…all our watches showed 30 minutes late/about the time the sighting took place.
Was there any photographic evidence: Yes, camera
(Weather and conditions) – Windy, Day light,cold.
Addition to above report:
The above report was submitted by Ben Field to www.ufomind.com
Ben Field was asked for additional information as to authenticity:
On inquiry, Field responded: “Unfortunately I have no contact information of the person who sent the report, I am going to add a little statement at the top of his report asking him to get in touch with me again, I myself, would like to get more information on the sighting as well as the photos.”
A name search on several servers identified no “Jeremy Clark Packer.” There were seven Jeremy Packers located in north-central states and one in a northeastern state. There were five “Jeremy Clarks” located in Texas, none near Corpus Christi.
No reports resembling such an incident were found in Corpus Christi area newspapers or from familiar UFO sources. Initially, a number of suspicious irregularities were questioned, including occupation title “engineer” versus grammatical and technical errors in the report–especially “bore is 140.65 feet thick,” and the entire series of comments about the damage to the rig.
A highly qualified friend who has worked in the oil industry thirty years advises, “Traditionally shifts offshore are 6am to 6pm, it is suspect that a shift would be rising at or near 8am. Another suspicious fact is the large number of the crew, totaling 500 as described in the report. This is way too large for any drilling vessel whether it be a drill ship, semi-submersible or any other type operating in the Gulf.
Additionally, the areas of active exploration 30 miles from Corpus Christi are way too shallow for either one of these types of vessels and would typically be drilled by a ‘jack-up’ rig. His reference to the size of the ‘bore’, which is definitely not a US oil exploration term, of 145-plus feet ‘thick’, is not a measurement that I or anyone in the business would know.
Further, the mention of the fact that it could not be bent and if it were it would require the force of the sun (I don’t have the copy here so I’m paraphrasing) is very suspect as coming from a less than accurate source.
The reference to the ‘vessel commander’ is not a term used in the industry.” He also strongly endorses the comments of the individual at NASA/Marshall which follows. An individual at NASA/Marshall submitted the following comments (see Jan 15 message, “Re: Sighting at Sea – 12-97” on UFO Updates Mailing List). “This just can’t have happened. For one thing, I have no idea what the guy is talking about when he mentions a ‘bore’ ‘140.65 feet thick’ that ‘drills the hole into the ocean floor.’ Oil drill stems aren’t within two orders of magnitude of that diameter.
Next, if something disabled a drill rig 30 miles off Corpus it would be international headline news that very night — we’re talking many thousands to millions of dollars of damage to a private company.
If no one else, at least their insurance company would be mounting a huge investigation as to how the damage was done. And 30 miles off shore is about twice the distance to the horizon, so a huge craft lifting off would become visible in Corpus itself after rising only a few tens of feet from the surface.
Again, think of it. Kilobucks of damage, maybe more, and 250 witnesses, and this DOESN’T make the news except on a UFO website? It ain’t reasonable!” My friend, above, works for the largest communications provider in the Gulf and they haven’t even picked up any rumors, much less electronic abnormalities, which would tend to substantiate the report; so, I think we can safely dump this one — as interesting as it originally sounded.