KELLTOWN — A South Georgia ufologist has reported a sighting of a UFO in a small community between Moultrie and Tifton about a week ago.

The UFO was sighted near the community of Kelltown in Tift County about 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 17, according to Billy Rachaels of Thomasville, who documents UFO sightings for the national organization Mutual UFO Network.

“It was spectacular,” Rachaels said.

Rachaels said the sighting was made of a lone unidentified flying object just at dark along Highway 319 South.

“It was flying at fairly low level,” Rachaels said. “It had a lot of lights. It had a ring around the center of it, like the planet Saturn.”

Rachaels said UFOs with the ring around the center are not seen as often as other shapes.

“It was impressive,” he said. “About 10 to 12 cars pulled over to the side of the road so they could watch it.”

Rachaels, who was born and raised in Thomasville, worked in Tifton for three years at WTIF. “I have been a radio-newsman for 35 years,” he said. He is now retired and documents UFO sightings as a hobby.

“I was working in Tifton during the UFO wave of 1972 to 1974,” he said. “The sightings started near Dawson and eventually spread to 12 states. There were just a lot of sightings.”

Rachaels recalled a sighting in 1973 that occurred between Tifton and Ashburn.

“A woman was on Interstate 75 going to Ashburn and all of a sudden her car went dead,” he said. “She had to have her car towed in.”

The woman said she saw a spacecraft and spaceman nearby her vehicle.

Rachaels said he spoke with the woman’s mechanic and the man told him the woman’s car engine had melted from the inside out.

“Spacecraft have been known to stop car engines,” Rachaels said.

Around that same time, Rachaels said a UFO was seen in Doerun. It was flying close to the bridge at the Ocklocknee river.