NUFORC Sighting 180706

Occurred: 2024-03-03 20:30 Local
Reported: 2024-03-04 16:59 Pacific
Duration: 2-3 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Anaheim, CA, USA
Location details: 33°48'42.6"N 117°55'02.0"W

Shape: Formation
Color: red to green shift
Estimated Size: smaller than a conventional helicopter
Viewed From: Land
Direction from Viewer: 180 to 90
Angle of Elevation: 80
Closest Distance: 2000 feet above ground level
Estimated Speed: 100 knots horizontal to hover to vertical movement
Characteristics: Lights on object, Changed Colo

3 objects flying in slowly in a straight line formation below cloud cover, then directional maneuvering, vertical maneuvering

3 objects smaller than a helicopter, larger than a consumer drone, emitting greenish slowly changing to red back to green. similar to aircraft navigation lights, however colors were a bit off, and not blinking, but slow aurora of light change back and forth, almost like trying to simulate aircraft navigation lights, but not quite getting it right. Some dark form/structure was visible to the naked eye, but not in my photos. These 3 objects were flying slowly (aircraft speed) at about 2000 feet above ground level (estimated), just below the cloud ceiling. They were in a straight line formation, traveling from the south in a north direction, and made gradual curved turn east with the lead object following, then the next object, then the third object. they then appeared to hover in place briefly, before moving vertically out of sight, above the cloud ceiling. flightradar24 showed no aircraft with public ads-b in the area at the time. many people were in my immediate vicinity, but none appeared to notice or be interested in the objects. I took a short video, however I could not find them on my phone screen while recording, so I thought they were not being recorded and stopped taking video. Reviewing the brief footage later I do see them come in and out of frame as I am moving my phone around trying to find them on the phone display. I took 3 photos as well, prior to attempting video.

This sighting did appear above Disneyland Park. But I am adding this report as drones are not in use at the park for operations, there are drone and flight restrictions around the park. While these could have been drones violating the restrictions, they seemed to operate at a higher than expected altitude for consumer drones, flew/maneuvered in formation, had strange red green lighting as opposed to normal aircraft or drone navigation lights, ultimately flew into the low cloud ceiling, out of visible control of any potential remote operator, and did not reappear while I was observing, a few minutes. I have observed drones flying at night, and my immediate impression was these were not drones, but still unidentifiable to me as to what kind of aircraft they could be.

Southern California normally has a quite busy airspace, from Disneyland if any aircraft are visible it usually is a law enforcement helicopter or high altitude commercial flight. A quick check of flightradar24 showed no nearby aircraft, which I screenshotted.

While I would not characterize myself as an aviation professional or expert, I did grow up around military aviation, frequently attend airshows, and consider myself an aviation enthusiast/hobbyist.

I have never reported an unidentified flying object before, but felt this was odd enough to warrant documenting, while remaining skeptical due to its proximity to Disneyland that it might have been civilian operated drones or somehow tied to some testing Disney was doing, with unusual commercial drones.

Posted 2024-03-13