NUFORC Sighting 64795

Occurred: 2008-07-16 22:00 Local
Reported: 2008-07-26 08:41 Pacific
Duration: 10 minutes
No of observers: 4

Location: Indian Beach, NC, USA

Shape: Light

Strange lights over Atlantic Ocean

While vacationing at Indian Beach NC on the evening of July 16 at approx. 10:00pm I and 3 others witnessed a very strange series of lights.

The house we were vacationing at was on the beach with a clear 180 degree unobstructed view of the Atlantic Ocean. From the second floor deck the previous night we had identified the Cape Lookout Light House which was just on the horizon at about the 9:30 position from our location.

The night of July 16 was brilliantly clear, full moon rising over the Ocean. There were 4 of us again relaxing on the deck when approx. 10:00 pm I observed a point of light, orange in color at about the 10:00 position up a few degrees up from the horizon. The light was slightly brighter than the lighthouse beacon. The light lasted only a few seconds and then diminished, then over the next minute or so there were three more lights in the same general location, again one at a time and short duration. I witnessed the first 3 and the others only caught the last one. The event certainly had our attention.

As we were discussing what we had just seen the sequence started again, same general location and this time 5 or 6 lights, again one at a time over a few minutes duration. There was no visible motion to any of the lights just appearing and the quickly diminishing.

The only plausible conclusion I can think of we were near the Marine Airbase off Cherry Point NC and what we saw was the afterburner glow from departing aircraft.

Posted 2008-08-12