Lights Spotted By Police

File: UFO267

08-22-89 TRUSSVILLE, Ala. Police in Trussville and Dadeville, 60 miles apart, reported seeing unusual lights in the sky within minutes of each other, but no one's rolling out the red carpet for UFOs just yet.

"I'm not trying to start anything. I just answered a call with another officer and we saw what we saw," Trussville police Sgt. Nelson Byess said. "I'm not going to run out and print up T-shirts and bumper stickers." Byess was referring to the hoopla generated earlier this year in Fyffe, where people reported seeing silent, triangular UFOs with lights in the night sky. The numerous sightings never were explained.

Byess said he could not see any shape connected to the lights, which he spotted after several residents called police about 5 a.m. Monday. "It hovered for a while, we watched it about 20 or 30 minutes, and then moved off or faded out as the sun came up," he said. "I never heard any sound."

A little earlier, before 5 a.m., Dadeville Police Chief Terry Wright had just given a speeding ticket when he saw something in the sky. "I looked to my left and saw what I thought was the moon behind a cloud, then I realized the moon was on my right," Wright said. "It was round and bright to start with, kind of hazy, then it looked like a bright gas and moved out of sight after about 15 or 20 minutes. There were no colored lights, just white." Wright thought the bright shape was so odd he told everyone at City Hall and his wife about it. "I didn't want everyone thinking I was on drugs, but I never saw anything like it before," Wright said. "Later in the day, someone said they saw on the TV that Trussville reported seeing something, too." Information on both siftings will be recorded by Mutual UFO Network Inc., as the Fyffe sightings were, said section director Jeff Ballard.