NUFORC Sighting 44010

Occurred: 2005-05-17 22:30 Local
Reported: 2005-05-18 13:53 Pacific
Duration: 20 secs
No of observers: 2

Location: Abilene, TX, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object

Two points of light traversing the west texas sky, one seemingly in pursuit of the other.

5/17/05 It was a clear night and I was in our backyard at around 10:30 PM when I saw two objects, high in altitude, suddenly (emphasize suddenly and from out of nowhere) appear in the southeast sky at about 60 degrees and moving on a westerly heading.

One was a small, steady (not pulsing) pinpoint of light about the size and brightness of a mid- sized star and reddish- orange in color. The other was an extremely bright white light that was about five or six times larger than the orange light and it was very slowly pulsing on and off, but, not in the manner that a strobe light does and it was much more brilliant than any aircraft strobe I have ever seen.

The white light object was not directly behind the orange light, but, was off to the side and rear and obviously on track and/or seeming to be in pursuit of it. They were not close enough together to be mistaken as being a single object (unless it was an immense thing, thousands of feet long) and neither had conventional aircraft style multi- colored lights as are typically seen. They were both only single points of light as described.

After a few seconds, I got my senses and ran to the bedroom window and yelled for my wife to hurry and come see this and I continued to watch and did not lose sight of them. When she made it outside and I showed her, she said, "What is that?" and I told her that I didn't know, but, they were definitely not any kind of airplanes or jets. By that time the objects were in the west/southwest sky at about 40 degrees.

Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the white light completely vanished and the orange light continued trekking west until it went out of our sight. Neither seemed to make any manuevers to turn or change altitude. There were no audible sounds and I did not notice any other aircraft in the sky during that time, at least, not in the same viewing area.

Total time I would estimate at 18- 20 seconds.

A side note: About eight or ten minutes later, two large planes at moderate altitude, one in front of the other and with identical lighting flew directly overhead from the east on a due west heading. The lighting on them was not like commercial aircraft, but, they were assuredly conventional aircraft.

I thought the event was definitely spectacular and out of the ordinary. Would like to know if someone else witnessed and reported it.

Posted 2005-05-24