By Ann Hall, marcoislandflorida.com

Residents came out in droves Tuesday night to share their stories of UFO sightings and hear an investigator share his findings about strange objects seen over Capri.

Morgan Beall of Fort Myers, state section director of the Mutual Unidentified Flying Object Network, said he continues to study the Capri sightings.

“This Capri case is very credible and very interesting,” Beall. “It cannot be explained at this time, and so for now I am calling it unidentifiable.

Beall told about 100 people gathered at the Capri Community Center for what was billed as a UFO town hall that “all of the people I interviewed on Capri seemed very credible and very direct.

“We were able to work together and talk openly about the sightings that could be explained like celestial objects such as Venus or the moon,” Beall continued. “Still, some are unidentifiable.”

Beall said he is fascinated that so many around Capri had seen the objects.

“I am fascinated by the large number of reports in that area, and plan to pull together a team for further study,” Beall said.

MUFON, founded in 1969, is a nonprofit corporation that utilizes volunteers to resolve the scientific enigma known collectively as unidentified flying objects.

The Capri intrigue began with sightings that occurred on three consecutive nights in late March.

A bright white ball of light appeared out of nowhere, made no sound, and did not move except to disappear as quickly as it appeared over Johnson’s Bay on the Isles of Capri.

The light was captured by a video camera installed above the Capri Fire-Rescue station. That image has now been seen around the world due to intense media interest.

“There has been a rash of sightings over the last few months from Marco, Capri and Naples,” Beall said.

At the town hall, a number of local residents spoke about recent UFO sightings.

One witness from Marco Island had the crowd spellbound as she told her story of the unusual object she saw over the Gulf View Condominiums on the night of April 27.