NUFORC Sighting 26786

Occurred: 2002-10-15 21:15 Local
Reported: 2002-12-29 12:10 Pacific
Duration: 3 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Albrightsville, PA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Emitted beams

Aurora borealis looking lights on the horizon shoot overhead to form a pulsating circle consisting of eight curved rectangles.

My husband and I, two elementary school teachers, were driving around 9:15 P.M. south on the Pa. turnpike (Rt. 746) just south of exit 35, the Pocono exit near Lake Harmony. There was great visibility for several miles since we were high in the mountains in spite of the rain and mist. Straight ahead in the southern sky above the tree lined horizon we both noticed from 5 to 8 undulating, free-formed, fuzzy-edged, vertical shapes consisting of medium to light blue lights waivering back and forth. Their length was approximately 1/16 of the total curve of the sky. Our first thought was northern lights or swamp gas. However, in a flash, these hazy, soft, undefinable shapes shot to the ceiling of the thick cloud cover overhead. While still maintaining their fuzzy edges, they took on fairly distinct slightly curved rectangular shapes that together formed a huge broken circle that must have covered perhaps a hundred square miles. There were approximately 8 of these soft-edged blue rectangles with convex and concave ends equally spaced apart. The whole circular configuration looked like a sliced, sectional donut of bluish-white lights. As we watched, suddenly the lights began pulsating in and out, converging in the middle and then expanding back to the original size at approximately 1/2 second intervals. In an instant it shot down to the right side of our field of vision into a smaller, pulsating formation, maintaining the same shapes while hovering about 1/3 of the distance above the horizon. It held the same configuration for about 15 seconds when again it traveled back to its original position into the same immense circular arrangement of rectangles. After pulsating for about 5 seconds, the formation converged and flew over the sky to the northwest horizon, behind us. At this point, since I was driving, I couldn't see it, but my husband said it shot up through the night in a semi-radial pattern with equidistant spaces between each pale blue wide beam of diffused light dissipating to black.

There were several cars on the highway at the time. We wondered if anyone else had seen this phenomena. Lights from the ground cannot be an explanation since no source on the land could have sent its beams that far. Besides the light seemed to come from above. No aircraft could be spotted.

Posted 2003-03-21