NUFORC Sighting 54925

Occurred: 2007-01-23 19:40 Local
Reported: 2007-01-24 20:05 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Franklin, VA, USA

Shape: Triangle
Characteristics: Lights on object

Three big orange lights in triangle formation

On Tuesday, January 23, 2007, at approximately 7:40p.m. I was driving SE with my four year old son on my way home from a friends house when I spotted what I thought at first was a planet--possibly Venus.

This object was to my left in the eastern sky, and looked to be a few miles away from me--(after some researching today I found out that this object was most probably 2-3 miles away from my location when I first spotted it.) This object was VERY bright, and a light orange color. Even thought I thought it looked awful large for a planet, I still assumed it must be since it was not twinkling like stars do.

I pointed the light out to my son, and proceeded to bore him with trivia like how to tell if a star is a star or if its a planet. The object was in my view the entire time I was driving-(except short periods when trees obscured it.) A little over 2 miles up the road I had to make a left turn to head due east. I had started thinking there was something weird looking about the light so once I turned, and saw no other cars were coming, I stopped in the road to have a safer look.

This was when I noticed the light was not a single light, but THREE lights. I thought to myself that it was weird for an airplane to have three large lights underneath it like that because for it to have been an airplane the two front lights would have had to have been on the end of each wing, and the third rear one on the tail, but all would have had to have been UNDERNEATH the object.

These lights all looked to be the same distance apart and were very big looking lights, all large, all the same light orange color, no pulsing, or color changing, and they were set in a triangle pattern--(note I stated the shape of the craft was triangular, but I am unsure of the actual shape of the craft itself--only what formation the three lights were in.) They didn't appear to be landing lights, especially since the plane was not coming from, or going towards the direction of the closest airport, so I'm sure it wasn't landing or taking off.

The object was closer to me by the time I stopped to look and was heading towards me in a diagonal path. I made no unusual note of speed, or movement--(it appeared to move slowly, but I wouldn't say notably slow, nor did I see any unusual movements that defy conventional aircraft performance.) I heard no sounds as if an airplane was passing overhead, but I never actually cut my van off, so I suppose it's possible there were some sounds.

This object appeared to be flying pretty low, yet was too high for me to make out any of the aircraft itself--I could only see the three lights. It's possible this may have been a normal, everyday aircraft, but I have to say that I've been driving for many years, and have been out lots of times at night, and I have seen many, MANY, airplanes, helicopters, and such in the night sky at varying distances. I've seen all kinds of colored lights on planes at night time,at different altitudes, sometimes steady, sometimes blinking and blipping around.

More than a few of them have given me pause, but I always realize very quickly that it is in fact just an airplane, or some other form of 'normal' aircraft. You just--KNOW when what you are seeing is normal, and when it is not, and this didn't look normal to me. I can't say as I've ever seen three big orange colored lights in that formation on the very bottom of an airplane like that before. Ever.

Thought I should mention that I submitted a report to the NUFORC a while back....I think it was a year or two ago and it concerned a possible UFO sighting I had when I was younger back in the early 80's in nearby Suffolk, Va. (I believe that was the last time I have seen anything 'unidentified' in the skies until last night, btw...lol) The one I saw in the 80's was a single big, bright light, but was orange like the lights I saw last night. Might be nothing, but thought worth bringing up.

I made and am sending you two drawings I made via a computer paint program. The first drawing represents pretty much the exact way I saw the object in the sky--the direction it was heading, as well as the size in relation to how it looked to me up in the sky from my van. The second represents how large the 'orange planet' appeared to me when I first spotted it by comparing it to the 'north star'.

Posted 2007-02-01

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