Ill. county a UFO hotspot

O'FALLON, Ill., July 13 (UPI) -- St. Clair County in Illinois has become a UFO hot spot since a large triangular object was sighted in the area seven years ago.

The most recent report in the county east of St. Louis was in June.

Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center in Washington State told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the 2000 unidentified flying object was significant because many of the witnesses were police officers.

"The events that occurred constitute one of the most interesting and well-documented incidents our center has ever seen," Davenport said.

Mark Lopinot, a police detective in O'Fallon said the sight of the large object floating over his city in January 2000 was "shocking" and he still can't explain it. He receives a lot of telephone calls from people reporting mysterious objects in the sky and recently talked to a Japanese film crew making a documentary about UFOs.

Police officers from at least five towns reported seeing the object, which they said was completely silent. One described it as looking like a "floating house with bright red and white lights."