NUFORC Sighting 151213

Occurred: 2019-10-11 22:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2019-12-01 13:53 Pacific
Duration: 10 minutes
No of observers: 6

Location: Mt. Shasta (near), CA, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Lights on object

String of lights at low altitude moving about 50 mph, 8000’ altitude north to south. Sound of small prop engine faintly.

On or about October 11th, 2019 a small group of friends gathered around 9 pm to watch the nearly full moon rise above a forested ridge in the Trinity Mountains just west of Mt Shasta, CA. We had binoculars, warm jackets, Apple Cider (non alcoholic) and fresh baked apple and pumpkin pie. While we were watching the moon rise in a southeasterly direction, we were looking at some developing vapor trails from high altitude jets flying the routes up and down the heavily traveled west coast. While doing this we noticed a string of lights (no vapor trail) that seemed to be at a fairly low altitude and headed from north to south over the mountain range we were on. These lights were not very bright and seemed like they were attached to a structure of some sort that was very long and narrow but not linear, the lights seemed to be adjacent to each other or within a cubist framework. It seemed to be probably a hundred meters long and one or two wide, not knowing the exact altitude made it very difficult to judge its size. We could hear a faint sound like a small piston engine turning a prop, making me think it was a drone towing something. It must have been going 50 mph or so. There were no lights that we could see that looked like aircraft ID lights. We were at an elevation of about 5500’ overlooking Mt Shasta city to the East x northeast of us. Our first sighting was to the northwest at about 80 degrees, the angle decreasing to about 60 degrees as they got out of sight to the southwest of us.

Posted 2019-12-19