BRADENTON BEACH – Anna Maria Island is big on tourism, but are they coming from space?
Probably not, but a Bradenton Beach police officer spotted a strange incident while on patrol at Coquina Beach on the morning of Nov. 5 that left him scratching his head with far more questions than answers.
“I saw a Coast Guard plane flying over the bay, then I watch them turn back toward the Gulf. I thought what the heck is that as I look up and saw a big black thing in the sky,” Bradenton Beach Police Officer Charles Morose said. “I’m estimating based on the size of the plane in the sky, it was at least the size of a car, or maybe a small aircraft.”
Morose said he thinks the Coast Guard plane must have seen the object because it changed course and came back toward the Gulf, appearing to follow the object. He says after the plane began to follow the object, which was almost stationary when he first observed it, its speed and trajectory changed rapidly.
“That thing had to be moving at least 500 mph,” Morose said. “It just shot off like a rocket toward the horizon and it was just gone. I’m no UFO conspiracy theorist, and I’m not saying it was from space or anything like that, but there was something in the sky and it was hauling butt.”
Morose said while he has no idea what was in the air over Coquina, he can say with certainty it was not a drone or an animal. Morose is in the area daily and knows how drones fly, and is well-versed in birds that live in the area. To him, it’s an interesting encounter with something strange, and will most likely remain a mystery.
The Sun reached out to the Cortez Coast Guard detachment, who forwarded the inquiry to their public relations department. After calls to multiple departments, we were told they would reach out if they had any information, claiming there was no incident reported in the area on the date and time reported by Morose.
The Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau allocates resort tax funds to advertise Anna Maria Island in places such as Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom, but has no advertising campaigns on any planet beyond ours, leaving this an Island mystery.
If there are aliens coming to the Island, the best residents can hope for is that their superior intelligence has allowed them to figure out the biggest question of them all – where do we park our ship without getting a ticket?
