NUFORC Sighting 178882

Occurred: 2023-08-25 00:00 Local
Reported: 2023-10-13 18:17 Pacific
Duration: 20 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: , Islamabad Capital Territory, Pakistan
Location details: Airborne over the Himalayas on the border of Pakistan and China

Shape: Formation
Characteristics: Lights on object

Several groups of lights moving in orbiting formation and erratically changing altitude impossibly fast

I'm a commercial airline pilot for a Canadian airline with over 10,000hrs of flight time, but I've never seen something quite like this before...

We were flying from Pakistan to Afghanistan at 32,000ft (a lower altitude than usual for us due to turbulence at higher altitudes) along the standard commerical airliner route through the Himalayas.

We observed three to four bright lights at very high altitude moving in an orbital pattern initially and then they slowly transitioned to a vertical diamond-shaped formation (two high and two low moving up and down ) The position of the lights and the intensity of the illumination was curious because the altitude appeared to be very high (at least twice our own) however the intensity of the light was much brighter than you would expect viewing from that distance. (The same intensity as if we were viewing landing lights of another aircraft from quite close)

If these were military aircraft, it is unlikely that they would be operating with lights on, and if they were it certainly wouldn't be that bright. There is a possibility that the light was afterburner glow from fast manoeuvring fighters but again, operating constantly in full afterburner is unusual. The movement of these craft was also very rapid from point to point and irregular (darting back and forth). There were times the light appeared to come to a dead stop, but this may have been an optical illusion created by depth perception as the lights moved further away.

After 15-20 minutes of observation, the lights moved off rapidly towards the Chinese border with Tajikistan and faded into the night.

We did not attempt to query ATC since we were operating in an area between several volatile countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, China) and we did not want to instigate military action. We also failed to make any official report upon returning home as there is no mechanism to do so (as far as I'm aware) as a Canadian Air Operator.

Posted 2023-10-28