UFO-drone sightings in Indian Country began long before East Coast buzz

I don’t believe in UFOs. I believe my own two eyes. In light of the recent mysterious drone sightings on the East Coast, I’ve decided to share stories of what I’ve seen lately in North Dakota and South Dakota. The New Jersey photos look eerily similar to my own.

My first sightings began on July 4, 2023. I was on my front porch at Wolf’s Point, which overlooks Bismarck, North Dakota, facing west. It was dusk and the fireworks were starting to bang, pop and explode over the city. The Mandan Rodeo fireworks show looked like it had proceeded.

At least, that is what I figured. I had grown up watching the rodeo’s fireworks display. The rodeo grounds are about 20 miles away from where I was sitting, but I could see the explosions and light show just above the horizon to the west. It’s not the first time I watched the fireworks from there.

As I was watching the show, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, an image appeared in the sky. At first, it looked like a tracer-based display traveling from west to east straight over and above the fireworks going off below it. If you have ever seen tracers being fired out of a machine gun, you can imagine what it looked like. It was orbs of light but held together by some translucent means surrounding the orbs.

It was shaped like a cigar and arched as it traveled, so I could see the length of it, even though it traveled straight at me, east of the Missouri River. I thought it was a part of the fireworks show. It was new and different from any display I had ever seen before. I sat and stared at it for about 4 or 5 seconds, and then poof, it disappeared. I did not have my phone or a camera to snap pictures. The thought never even crossed my mind. I just sat and stared at it while it was visible.

My first and only thought was, “Holy shit, that was cool, I wonder what it was.” Something told me it was not part of “the show.” I wondered if anyone else saw it in the Bismarck/Mandan area. I wondered if it was a drone or a UFO. I wondered if it was our military, the Chinese, or the Russians. I highly doubted it was from Canada.

I watched the fireworks for a while longer then went in the house, thinking I would never see the anomaly again. I was wrong.

On June 8 this year, I made a trip down to Rapid City, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and I was on my way home. It was pretty late. There were three of us traveling east on the South Dakota side. We took another route home, through Pierre, where we crossed the Missouri River just before we shot north.

We took this way instead of going through Reva, South Dakota as usual. Plus, I like to travel different routes in the Dakotas, just to look at the country. There are still areas in the Dakotas where a person can see for miles across the Plains. It is cool. People still wave when you pass them if you drive by anyone at all.

It had gotten quite late in our travels. Boredom had set in, and apparently, my fellow travelers and I had our fill of music, so we began listening to 550 KFYR on the AM radio dial. One of those paranormal shows was on—the kind where people call up and describe their run-ins with Sasquatch or UFOs.

We were laughing and enjoying the program because some callers were obviously BS’ing, but enjoying their 15 seconds of fame. While listening, we all started to eyeball the skies, looking at the stars.

Like I said earlier, we were east of the Missouri River. We were headed north between Herried, South Dakota and Linton, North Dakota. It was 1:41 am. The night was clear, stars were easily visible in the sky. Then, out of nowhere, bang, there it was, the same cigar-shaped object I had seen during the fireworks show.

We all saw it. Its orbs of light inside a translucent capsule traveling to the north of us. I wasn’t driving, so I immediately grabbed my phone, stuck my head and the camera out the window, and started snapping pictures.

I have an older phone. The images that showed up did not represent the craft’s appearance to the naked eye. In the pictures, it was cigar-shaped all alright, but the picture didn’t show the orbs inside the translucent object. This is one of the images:

I was quite disappointed with the resolution of my camera. The image showed no detail and looked different on camera than the naked eye. I was excited, however, that I caught the image at all.

Similar to the July 4 sighting, this object traveled west to east. Although it looked slow, it covered a lot of ground in a very short time. Just as before, it was visible for mere seconds, then vanished. I surmised it turned slightly northeast, towards Grand Forks Air Force Base, before it quickly disappeared.

After it ghosted, two fighter jets followed the same flight pattern. We could make them out in the skyline at a high speed and low altitude.

We sat silently the rest of the way home, listening to Bigfoot stories on the radio. I could not believe I had seen it twice. The other two passengers and I were very excited. They probably got sick of me saying, “Now do you believe me” about the July 4 sighting? The boredom was gone, and we were awake the rest of the way home. This would not be the last time I saw it – until this fall.

On Oct. 26, my wife, Patti, and I camped in our hayfield in Mandaree, North Dakota. We were getting ready to ride the following day to gather cow-calf pairs to wean, market, and ship later in the week. We were camping in the southwest corner of my field, where I have some working corrals built.

An old Hidatsa encampment called Night Walker is just over the hill. My grandpa’s and grandma’s used to live there. The Sneffles oil pad is on my property just east of where we were. At times, the gas flare roars like a jet engine and the flame illuminates quite a large area.

At 6:57 p.m., it was dark out, and the sky was clear. I was sitting in my chair outside the trailer, drinking coffee, wrapped in a buffalo robe, facing north and imagining being an old Hidatsa from way back. I sat looking at the stars while I listened to the coyotes’ yip and howl in the distance.

It was chilly out. The cold made me think about some of the world’s great inventions since the days of my ancestors, such as indoor plumbing. It is pretty remarkable when you think about it. It sure beats squatting out on the prairie on a sub-zero day.

I walked to the trailer to check in with Patti and grab a chocolate chip cookie. When I turned to get out, I walked over to check the horses in the corral. As I was walking, I looked up, and it was directly overhead. The same cigar-shaped flying object, orbs lighting the sky. It appeared very close.

I did not have my phone on me. It was in the horse trailer. I ran back to the trailer and hollered to Patti to grab her phone. “The UFO is back,” I told her. Patti had just gotten one of those new phones that takes way better pictures than mine. I remembered how horrible my pictures looked in June, so I did not even bother grabbing mine.

I knew from the two prior run-ins that the object would soon disappear at some point, so our time was precious, and we had to act fast. Patti was successful in capturing the image. As before, the image looked different on film as opposed to seeing it with the naked eye. On camera, it illuminated a bluish color.

Here is what we saw:

Here is the video:

I do not know what it is or what to call it. Obviously, the technology is very high level. The only things I keep wondering are, “Are we the only ones seeing this?” and “What the hell is it?” and “What does it mean, if anything?”

Gowitz