It was a relatively calm evening over Darwin, Australia, when 79-year-old Mark Schmutter decided to step out the balcony of his friend’s apartment, where he had been visiting. “I decided to go out on the balcony and take some shots of Darwin,” Schmutter said of the night in 2009 that changed his life. Having strolled out onto the apartment balcony, camera in hand, Schmutter noticed a strange object in the distance–a blue aircraft that “flashed” past just as he held his camera up to snap the photo. Fortunately, this turned out to only be the apparent UFO’s first sweep. “It came back again,” Schmutter recounts, “so I hit it with the camera.”

What resulted were strange images of a turquoise-colored object which, to the best Schmutterand others can tell, resembles a sports car, cruising along in midair. Though reports of UFOs following and hovering over automobiles are relatively common in ufology, aircraft seen in such circumstances often is described resembling saucers, triangles, flying eggs, or long cylindrical “cigars.” However, in a few rare instances, the UFO craft themselves have resembled flying automobiles capable of impressive maneuverability.

Interestingly, such reports date back several decades. One report chronicled in researcher Larry Hatch’s *U* UFO Database took place in 1965 near Wiltshire, England. Witnesses described seeing “a phantom automobile, shaped like a Land Rover but without wheels,” which passed the witness’s moving vehicle. The object purportedly made a loud whining noise while visible, then vanished. A similar story, dating back to 1969, occurred in Australia near Alice Springs. SiFi News detailed the account:

Betty from Alice Springs said her close encounter occurred in 1969, while she was driving 20km south of Aileron towards Alice Springs at 4am with her six-year-old daughter.

“We saw these two figures inside this thing. It looked like a Ford station wagon, with the windows. It came in front of us really quickly,” the Northern Territory News quoted her as saying.

Blogger Jerome Prophet also shared a story at his personal blog in 2007, which detailed a 1986 encounter with a flying car UFO that occurred near Interstate 80 in California. The craft, seen by a father and son traveling together, was described as a small craft that “hovered several feet off the ground, had very bright lights, and darkened window areas. It was colored a very dark green.” Speculating further on the origins of the craft, Prophet comments, “For the 1980s such a craft would be fantastic indeed. I’m not certain if what they saw was extraterrestrial or not. Perhaps it was a remote controlled unpiloted aerial vehicle? Certainly it would have been top secret, and remains so today–twenty years later!”

Could such aircraft be classified government projects? There is indeed a history pertaining to the development of flying cars in both a governmental capacity, in addition to the more recent inclusion of independent engineers today who have made hobbies out of attempting to develop a safe, commercial vehicle capable of both terrestrial and airborne travel. Could this sort of craft have been the UFOs reported in the cases above?

If you or someone you know has ever witnessed a UFO that resembles an automobile, feel free to comment below this article, or email us at info@gralienreport.com.

Image by Bob Jagendorf via Flickr.