Witnesses: Person falls from sky, then vanishes
Several people in New Jersey claimed they saw a person falling from the sky with no parachute, but an extensive police search has turned up no evidence, NBC Philadelphia reported. Witness Kelly Hale and two of her co-workers at Shore Veterinarians in Egg Harbor Township said they watched from their office windows as a human fell head-first from the sky on Tuesday. But there were no reports of missing skydivers.
"I [saw] the guy falling, at an angle, like this," Hale told NBC Philadelphia while gesturing. "Straight down. No parachute. No paraglider." Authorities were still investigating the incident, Egg Harbor police told msnbc.com on Thursday. "We're not actively out there searching, but we're waiting for more information," said police Sgt. Robert Gray. He could not comment on the ongoing investigation.
Several people contacted Egg Harbor Township Police at about 3:20 p.m. Tuesday, saying that they watched a person free-falling from the sky. The witnesses described the person as falling head first, at a slight angle, toward the ground, police said. "You could see the arms and legs flailing and his clothes were blue, a dark blue like a navy, black and gray," Hale said. "There's no doubt that it was a person. We're 100 percent sure."
The witnesses also told NBC Philadelphia they saw a small plane flying nearby right after they saw the person plunging to the ground. Egg Harbor Township police and aviation units of the Coast Guard and New Jersey State Police extensively searched the heavily wooded area until about 11 a.m. Wednesday. The search will remain suspended until further information becomes available, police said.
"We didn't see any signs of debris, we didn't see any broken branches of something like, falling through the tree-line," Coast Guard Lt. Commander Paul Whitmore said. "We didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but that's not to say it didn't happen."
Hale, for one, is convinced of what she saw. "They need to find him," she said. "I mean, there's somebody lying back there."
