NUFORC Sighting 82735

Occurred: 2011-07-19 22:00 Local
Reported: 2011-07-26 10:43 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 0

Location: Evans Mills, NY, USA

Shape: Unknown
Characteristics: Left a trail, Emitted other objects

Tight groups of range horizontal lights in the sky.

I live in Gouverneur, NY near Fort Drum. I’m 44 and I’ve lived here all my life. This sighting occurred as I was riding my motorcycle home from Watertown Tuesday, July 19th, at approximately 10PM. I was traveling north on US RT 11.

As I approached a the crest of a hill outside Evans Mills, NY, I saw a string of 8-10 orange horizontal lights appear from east to west in the north northeast sky ahead of me. I would say the elevation was roughly 35-45 degrees.

Upon first notice, I assumed these were flares being dropped by some type of military aircraft, as this is a pretty common occurrence at Drum. Two observations made this incident a little different, however. First, if it was an aircraft, it displayed no lighting whatsoever and was utterly invisible from my location. The only indication of its presence was the afore-mentioned trail of 8-10 tightly-spaced orange globes that appeared "behind" it.

Second, while what I saw were similar in appearance to military flairs, they didn't drop, emit smoke or have the halo usually characteristic of flares. They just appeared, one after another, in close horizontal formation, then disappeared after maybe 30 seconds in the same order in which they appeared.

I saw 3 or 4 groups of these lights appear and then disappear. The whole incident occurred in what appeared to be a broad west-southwest counter-clockwise arc in the sky over the road I was on. To continue the clock analogy, if I’m riding towards 12, the lights started at 1 and, in 3-4 groups of 8-10 lights each, arced to 10. This took maybe 3-5 minutes.

I slowed my bike to watch the show, and a car in front of me had also slowed and pulled over to watch. I did not pull over. I was traveling around 30-35 miles per hour throughout, and was wearing a half-helmet. I could hear nothing such as a helicopter or airplane. Also, I read a report from someone on a bulletin board who claims to have seen something similar near LaFargeville, NY, around 11PM. That’s about 20 miles from where I was.

It was probably military, but it was certainly unusual.

Posted 2011-08-07

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