Columbia South Carolina may have been the stomping ground of something more than your typical unidentified flying object. The strange thing was almost saucer shaped, but not quite. As the witness reported to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) it actually looked more like a jellyfish with portions of it glowing in the evening light. As the witness watched the strange creature over the course of the next ten minutes, he found himself unable to place just where it could have come from.
The mystery all began at approximately 7:00 PM when the witness was on the phone attempting to handle business with his mortgage. As the conversation went on, the witness reportedly heard a strange popping sound in his left ear. Thinking someone may have just set off a fire cracker or something similar, he glanced over to the trees to his left. What he saw both astonished and perplexed him. Hovering up from the trees a strange jellyfish-like creature emerged and hung there suspended in the evening air undulating like a typical jellyfish would. As it moved up and over him the witness continued his conversation thinking at this point it must have some logical explanation. As if in shock, he was unable to truly grasp the rarity of the encounter until later when he thought back on the experience.
The “creature” had a central dome like a typical jellyfish and what appeared to be flickering red lights along the sides of it. As it fluctuated and moved through the sky above him the witness -perhaps more astonishingly- continued his conversation with his mortgage broker until it disappeared some ten minutes later. The witness had previously made another UFO report to the MUFON reporting center, but did not share any new details of the other encounter.
What could this strange creature have been? Flying jellyfish, as strange as they sound, have been reported several times to UFO reporting centers across the United States, Australia, and the UK in recent years. And while it’s difficult to determine whether the sightings are increasing as time goes on or not, given the lack of any pattern or coordination, it can be determined that witnesses will regularly treat them with a unique casualness that seems only significant when taking other sightings into consideration. Reports of flying saucers often carry with them an emotional outburst or exclamation of wonderment, “They’re finally here!” while these sightings seem too strange for the mind to process. Or so it would seem.
It’s often something UFO enthusiasts wonder about themselves. “How would I react if I finally saw a UFO?” Of course none of us will know whether we would stay on the phone during such an encounter or not until we actually see one. And in the mean time we can only wonder about sightings such as this one. It seems peculiar that the witness saw a flying jellyfish. It seems far stranger that they could react so casually while the event took place.