NUFORC Sighting 77435

Occurred: 2009-06-05 22:00 Local
Reported: 2010-08-26 18:03 Pacific
Duration: 30 mins
No of observers: 7

Location: , , Unspecified

Shape: Flash
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby

bright lights on ground were following along with the speed of our plane

On the night of June 5th, 2009, my daughter, boyfriend and I were flying on American Airlines from DFW to Boston. It was a night flight, I’m not sure what time it was specifically, but a lot of passengers were sleeping. I’m not sure what area of the country we were flying over at the time, but my daughter observed some bright lights below, outside the plane window.

She was 10, an elementary student, at the time, sitting on the right side of the plane (if facing the front), and I was 35, a police officer, sitting on the aisle. My boyfriend, who was in the Navy over 30 yrs, and a fire fighter for over 30 yrs, looked out the window and also saw these lights. I leaned over her to look out the window and I too saw these bright lights below at ground level. To me, the way I can describe it, was it appeared as if transformers on the ground were exploding, then fading…so a bright blast of light, fast, moving along with the plane. But there were several flashing at once, and in different sizes of flash, some small and some really big, and it was on the ground, and going about the same speed as the plane, just slightly trailing behind the plane.

We were probably at about 35,000 feet and about 400-500 knots, the average flying speed and height. The night sky was clear and the moon was out.

At first we thought they may be a bunch of transformers blowing up below, but there is no way that many would do that, and if they did, there wouldn’t be any other lights on in the little cities/towns we were flying over. Then I thought maybe we’re flying over a bunch of little ponds and lakes, and it was the reflection of the moon on the water. But then we’d pass a highway or a large lake, and you would see the lights all the way up to the highway or lake and then they would jump over to the other side, fast. And the reflection of the moon on the water was distinctly different. These lights wouldn’t flash over the water or highways. When we would pass over a tree/wooded area, we could see these bright lights light up the trees. If we passed over neighborhoods with street lights, you could see these bright lights light up th! e immediate areas where they were.

Then we asked some other passengers to look, they saw what we saw. We even had a retired air force pilot look. He said he’s seen some strange things in his air time, but nothing like that. No one seemed concerned, but we all kept watching.

This phenomenon occurred for about 30 minutes, that we had timed it, then just stopped. Who knows when it started. So, something on the ground, or just above it, was moving fast enough to keep up with a jet/passenger plane, and bright enough to light up the areas around it…and several at once.

I just wanted to know if anyone else had reported anything like this that same night.

Posted 2010-08-30