A UFO spotted 20 years ago in southwest Michigan remains a mystery to this day. On March 8, 1994, several Ottawa County residents reported seeing a bizarre object with red, white, blue and green lights dangling over Lake Michigan that would occasionally display erratic and unusual movements.

“I glanced out to the backyard and noticed four bright lights just above the tree line over our horse pasture,” said Cindy Pravda. “I had been watching the lights for about 10 minutes when one of the lights slowly moved to the left. It looked like it traveled over the highway next to our house and then slowly moved back in formation.”

Some of the eyewitness accounts from that night were documented for the History Channel show ‘UFO Hunters’. There was apparently so much interest in this particular sighting because 911 operators from several counties reportedly handled hundreds of calls from frightened witnesses claiming to see “a string of Christmas lights” in the sky.

“It looked like about five airplanes following each other fairly closely,” said Grand Haven resident Scott Ruiter. “One would blink, then the other — right to left.”

In fact, 911 operators were so overwhelmed with calls about the UFO that they actually contacted the National Weather Service to see if radar was picking anything up that could explain the sightings… it did… an object gauged at traveling 20 miles in 10 seconds.

“He said he had three things on his radar, and they were in a triangular shape,” said Holland police officer Jeff Vellhouse. “He said they hovered over Holland and moved southwest. He said that one would move out of the triangular pattern, then move back in.”

Although initial reports claimed there was no radar evidence of the event, Dave Reinhart with the Bureau of Investigators of Mysteries & Unusual Phenomena told reporters in 1994 that he had obtained transcripts from the NWS. Interestingly, he also mentioned a contact from Area 51 named “Fred” that provided insight into the UFOs in Michigan -- Fred claimed these sightings happened all over the country.

However, over the past two decades, no one has been able to fully explain exactly what people saw that night.

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