The Greeneville Sun article from July 9, 2009, documented the sighting of strange lights along Camp Creek Bald by Carl, a retired police officer from Florida, Patti Ritter, and Pauline Petsel, who lived on Birds Bridge Road.

Carl took a photograph of the object, but the evidence was inconclusive to those who saw it.  He said that it was not a meteor.  The cites him as saying that if looked like something on fire, made a sudden right turn, and then sped off toward the Asheville Highway.

Patti was recorded as saying that it was some sort of orange-colored craft with flames coming out of the bottom.

Reading the headlines made others in the community comfortable enough to come forward with their own stories from that time, and a follow-up article was posted in the July 11 edition.

Peter Hasterlik and his wife, residents of Heaven’s Gate Lane, said that they had also seen something strange in the skies on the same night.  They described seeing a bright, white object moving between Camp Creek Bald and Meadow Creek Mountain.  They explained that the light suddenly shot straight up, and vanished into the sky.

An Ebenezer Road resident, who wished to remain anonymous, told the newspaper that she had seen “orange and white, balloon-like, objects in the night sky along the mountains that mark Greene County's border with North Carolina” over the past six years, before the publication of the article.

Angie Hopson also reported that she and her husband, of Wayland Drive, as well as another couple, had seen seven bizarre hot air balloons, glowing orange, moving toward the Bald a few nights before the initial sightings.