“What is that?!” my wife exclaimed in 2014, her voice a mixture of awe, confusion, and excitement. About 150 feet away, suspended low over nearby woods, a nebulous light hovered in the rural New Jersey night. It roiled like the sun but cast no glow on the surrounding landscape. The trees directly beneath it whipped about ferociously while the neighboring trees stood eerily still. Not a sound could be heard from it.

Our sighting lasted roughly 20 seconds before the anomaly slipped out of sight behind the tree line.

And so my transition from skeptic to researcher began.