NUFORC Sighting 164073

Occurred: 2021-07-01 23:15 Local
Reported: 2021-07-13 19:26 Pacific
Duration: 2 Minutes
No of observers: 4

Location: Covert, MI, USA

Shape: Light

Bright warm white lights observed moving at rapid speeds

My wife and my two children (ages 10 and 13) were camping at Van Buren state park on the shores of Lake Michigan. The state park is located approximately 5 miles south of South Haven Michigan and adjacent to Palisades Nuclear power plant.

We checked in for a week long stay on Wednesday June 30th, 2021. On the evening of July 1st, 2021 my son and I returned to the campground from fishing in South Haven at approximately 10:30pm. At that time my wife, both children and myself decided to walk down to the beach despite the fact the beach and park lot leading to the beach having closed at 10pm. We proceeded to the beach at approximately 11:00pm.

From our camp site across the parking lot to the beach is approximately .5 miles.

Once we reached the beach I immediately noticed that in the distance on the horizon you can see the lights of Chicago. In the faintly illuminated sky of Chicago I notice a bright light just off the surface of the water.

Despite the perceived distance, the light was bright. Initially, despite the rough lake state, I thought it was an anchor light of a boat. From where we stood on the beach if looking directly across the lake was 12 o’clock the light would be at 10 o’clock. In miles Lake Michigan is approximately 70 miles in distance across the lake.

As I was explaining to my children that you can see the lights of Chicago in the distance a second light appeared directly above the first light that, to this point, was stationary. I said “look there is a second light” At this point my two kids were getting scared and were panicking. We all had flash lights and I asked them to shut them off so I could try and see what the lights were. At this point the second light that appeared disappeared and the light that was stationary began to move from left to right. At this point it began to pick up speed to the point I said out loud the my wife and kids “look how fast it is moving”. It moved from the 10 o’clock orientation to 12 o’clock or straight in front of us in a matter of seconds. It maintained a perceived orientation of just off the surface of the water.

Once it was at the 12 o’clock position it stopped and the second light reappeared and disappeared. The light that was on the surface of the water went directly up then started closing the distance between where it was and where we were standing.

Once the light was what I perceived to be half way to us I told everyone to run back to the campground and not to stop.

From the time we saw the second light for the first time and the time we began to run to the campground was only probably 10-15 seconds.

Once we saw the second light we tried to film the lights but with the hectic nature of the experience and the dark conditions we only managed to capture just the light for a brief second.

Weather conditions- Cloudy sky’s 65 Degrees Wind from the north at 15Mph

Posted 2021-08-16