A man was strolling through the French Quarter of New Orleans when something in the sky caught his attention long enough for him to take a picture of it.

It was a UFO.

"When I turned the corner, everything changed," the unnamed eyewitness told ABC TV affiliate WGNO.

The 40-year-old amateur photographer initially preferred to remain anonymous, but offered details of the triangular-pattern lights in the sky at 6:30 a.m. on July 19.

"It was probably four or five blocks down the road over Esplanade and it looked like it was the size of a couple of big houses," he said. "It shined its lights in my eyes, so I had no choice but to see it. I've never seen those colored lights in the air before."

Watch this WGNO-TV news report about the French Quarter UFO.

The eyewitness added that immediately after he snapped a picture, the mystery object suddenly vanished. "In an instant it was gone."

Writing on GhostTheory.com, Scott McMan tracked down the eyewitness, now revealed simply as Jeffrey, who filed a report about the UFO on July 20 with the Mutual UFO Network.

Jeffrey described the UFO as "a very intense orange/yellow light blinding my eyes. The light was coming from what looked like two little suns up under the craft. I was unable to see the craft due to the glare and brightness of the lights."

Having been born and raised on air force bases, he says he knows what an airplane looks like, and he just wants some answers about what this thing was.

Then, as it turns out, Jeffrey posted his own account of the UFO story on LatestUFOSightings.net, under the name of J. Wood.

"The craft was low enough to look like some kind of big hovering mass," he wrote on that site. "I couldn't even tell what shape it was due to the brightness of the light shining on me as tho I was under an extremely bright spotlight."

"To be honest, it's life changing," Wood told WGNO-TV. "I saw something that completely defies all the knowledge that I have. And it moves as fast as lightning. I want to know if anybody else saw it."

Wood added to McMan, "What's in that photo is real. Yes, I'm stunned."

Watch these UFO videos from around the world.

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• UFOs Over Michigan -- Jan. 10, 2013

  This changing sequence of lights was seen over Warren, Mich., on Jan. 10, 2013, moving in patterns similar to balloons or lanterns.

• UFO over Moscow -- May 2, 2012

  This is a slideshow of many videos taken by people around the world who happened to be at the right place and at the right time with a video camera to record unusual lights or objects in the sky -- sometimes at night, other times during the day. Statistically, 95% of UFO sightings are easily explained. How many of these videos do you think represent the 5% of UFOs that can't be explained?

• Cincinnati, Ohio -- Sept. 28, 2012

  Three brightly lit objects over a Cincinnati high school. UFOs or, as some claim: skydivers?

• UFO over a Russian city -- June 19, 2012

• A triangle-shaped UFO over Sydney, Australia -- May 2, 2012

• Triangular light formation over Tennessee -- April 29, 2012

• UFOs in triangular pattern over England -- April 26, 2012

• Diamond-shaped UFO over Pasadena, Calif. -- 2009

• UFOs over St. Petersburg, Russia -- April 9, 2012

• UFO video over Las Vegas -- March 21, 2012

• UFO over Fresno, Calif. -- March 1, 2012

• UFO over Fresno, Calif. -- February 2011

• Donut-shaped UFO, Ural Mountains, Russia -- January 2012

• Triangle pattern of lights over Michigan -- Jan. 9, 2012

• UFO zips behind a contrail (Location not given) -- Jan. 6, 2012

• Unusual aerial objects over Campinas, Brazil -- Jan. 3, 2012

• Odd object falls from sky over Japan -- January 2012