NUFORC Sighting 13119

Occurred: 2000-06-15 23:45 Local
Reported: 2000-06-16 00:00 Pacific
Duration: approx. 15 min.
No of observers: 2

Location: Ringwood, IL, USA

Shape: Light

We witnessed 4 swirling balls of light that met in the night sky and dropped a shaft of light to the ground

At approximately 11:45 pm. on Friday the 15th. of June, my husband and I witnessed something the likes of which we have NEVER seen before. We live on a conservation area and our home sits on a hill. With very few city lights to be seen, the sky is pretty dark out here. Off in the northwest sky we watched in amazement as 4 lights "danced" around. It reminded me of four people holding four flashlights and making them swirl and dance upon the ceiling...each ball of light making a random swirling path across the dark sky...sometimes coming together for a "spin" then going off again to their own dances. We watched this incredible sight for about 10 minutes or so. After a short while, the 4 balls of light converged and glowed brighter. Suddenly a shaft a light dropped from the mass to the ground and stayed that way until the light of the converged 4 "melted" away. I couldn't tell if the shaft stayed in the sky or the image of the bright light stayed in my vision (light a flash from a camera sometime does). I caled all over to the small police headquarters out here and am happy to say that no one treated me like a crackpot! No one else however, called in such an occurance. The Adler Planetarium in Chicago told me it was from the recent solar flare and the northern lights. Is it? It seemed somehow mechanical to us ..kind of like butterflies fluttering around only to meet and sepparate to flutter around some more. Now I can understand if it was the Northern lights..what what the heck was the shaft of light coming down from the glowing mass?? Any ideas out there?

NUFORC Note:

We presume that the witness possibly describes an advertising light, the type that has four projectors, all of which rotate around the same axis. Incredibly, these lights are reported to us quite frequently, despite how common they appear to us to be. If our theory is correct, the case seems to illustrate just how unreliable and incapable some "authoritative sources" are in accurately assessing reports of anomalous events reported by the public. A major planetarium identifying advertising lights as the aurora borealis!!! God Help Us!!! PD

Posted 2000-06-21