NUFORC Sighting 30323

Occurred: 2003-07-23 22:35 Local
Reported: 2003-07-23 22:17 Pacific
Duration: approximately 10 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Cottage Grove, MN, USA

Shape: Changing
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Left a trail, Changed Color, Aircraft nearby

I saw a strange light show over suburban Minnesota

I was outside watching the stars, lying on the hood of my dad’s car in the driveway. I was talking to my friend on the phone at the time. I saw a satillite traveling Northward across the sky. Later, I thought I was another satellite. This observation was reached by the luminousity of the object and it rate and direction of it’s travel. The object appeared as one bright, white/yellow ball of light. Having lived under busy commercial air routes for my entire life, and being an amateur aircraft expert, I readily identified the object as not being commercial air traffic. The object was traveling in an Eastern direction, coming from the West. Suddenly the object stopped. It started to move again, but on a different course. The object was soon almost directly overhead. As the object was overhead, it rapidly flew in circles, zig-zag patterns, and hovered. I noticed there was a sort of hazy halo around the light, and that it left a slight hazt trail as it moved. After a few minutes of said displays, the object started moving rapidly North. Suddenly reversing directions, the object began traveling Southward. It was at this time that I noticed the object was not one white light, but three distinct lights composing one object, or very tight formation. The lights were colored green, red, and white. These are the colors used on commercial aircraft, but the did not appear in the correct configuration to be such an aircraft. As the object sped Southward toward the horizen, it stopped briefly. At this time, the object split into three different white lights in a triangle formation. As soon as the object had completed this transformation, it disappeared at incredible speed to the Southeast.

Posted 2003-08-01