NUFORC Sighting 64749

Occurred: 2008-07-24 21:30 Local
Reported: 2008-07-24 20:30 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 4

Location: Southern Shores, NC, USA

Shape: Unknown
Characteristics: Lights on object

Three flashing red lights in the sky, moved in a triangular formation, moved towards me, then away, then disappeared.

I am unsure of the exact time but I left the cottage my family had rented for the week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina at about 9:20 and the event occurred about 9:30 maybe. My family, consisting of my parents, two sisters, two cousins, aunt and uncle, and grandmother all left to look for fiddler crabs at the beach (though my grandmother stayed at the cottage).

We looked for crabs with flashlights for a while and we saw a lot of them. My dad and uncle brought beach chairs and beer and sat on the beach enjoying the stars. After a while people began to get bored and I sat in one of the chairs and looked at the stars.

The fog was creating an effect, which made some stars near the horizons flicker weirdly, and I atched the stars and occasional airplane for a while. I saw something, which my family and I thought, was a satellite but we decided it was moving too slowly and eventually lost sight of it in the fog. We concluded that it was an airplane without the flashing lights.

Between this airplane(?) and the flickering effect the fog gave the stars the night sky was looking a little odd. (Though I must clarify that the night sky was still clearly visible, just hazy near the horizons.) All of my family except my dad, my aunt, and my youngest sister had gotten bored and returned to the cottage by this point in my stargazing.

I was thinking of returning to the cottage when I saw something in the sky south of us that made me point and exclaim “Holy shit, what is that?” I saw three blinking red lights in a triangular pattern in the sky moving east. My dad, aunt, and sister saw it as well, and though they definitely said something, I don’t remember exactly what.

We watched the sight for several minutes. The red lights moved through the sky in the same general direction. I am not sure if they were three very distant aircraft or if they were lights on one large and very close aircraft. They (or it) made no noise. The lights adjusted formation as they flew, but generally kept in a triangular pattern. This triangle seemed to change dimensions as it flew. If these were three aircraft then they had adjusted their flying formation; if it was one, it was tilting or turning. My dad and I both think that a fourth light may have appeared once or twice but we are not sure.

While I was watching I distinctly thought that the lights were one large and close aircraft. I thought I could see a triangular or disk-shaped body but it was probably my imagination.

The lights turned and they appeared to be moving towards us, moving in our direction and getting farther apart. This is part of what made me think it was one aircraft. I said something along the lines of Woohoo, I’ve finally seen a UFO.” (I’m a UFO/cryptozoology enthusiast and wanted to see something along these lines for a long time.) But as it came closer I began to feel somewhat frightened and crouched low to the sand. I thought about shining my flashlight towards it, but it was unlikely to be close enough to be illuminated by a cheap flashlight we found in the cottage’s kitchen drawer. All it would do is obscure the sight of the lights (and perhaps, I thought, provoke the occupants of the aircraft or aircrafts.) My sister got scared and returned to the cottage. I recalled what I knew of UFO and alien lore and wondered if I would return to the cottage to find that several hours had passed. After seeming to move towards us for about a minute, maybe less, (it was difficult to judge how long the experience was, I was so transfixed,) the lights seemed to move away from us. My sister had returned to the dune deck near the beach and was shining a flashlight at us. We all yelled at her to turn it off, the light was obscuring our view of the lights.

The lights shortly disappeared. I do not know if they shut off or if they disappeared into the fog shrouding the horizons. With the lights gone my fear evaporated. I grinned and ran back to the cottage. My sister met me on the dune deck and asked me if the lights were gone. I told her that they were and went back to the cottage. I found that there was no lost time and informed the rest of my family that they had “missed the UFO.” My sister (the one who had not been at the beach when I saw the UFO) said that she didn’t believe my other sister when she told her the news while I was still watching the UFO. My dad and aunt quickly followed me and we explained the story to everyone else.

I then wrote this down.

Posted 2008-08-12