NUFORC Sighting 110381

Occurred: 2014-06-18 21:40 Local
Reported: 2014-06-19 11:37 Pacific
Duration: 4-5 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Myrtle Beach, SC, USA

Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Lights on object

4 to 5 "stars turning on and off," 2-horizontally aligned red/yellow spheres, appeared for about 30 seconds.

Sighting Report
Date of June 18, 2014, at about 21:40
Location: Myrtle Beach SC boardwalk, 6th avenue North ((steps down to the beach and Atlantic Ocean directly in front of us)
Weather: overcast earlier but stars started appearing about 21:00, slightly hazy, nice ocean breeze blowing on shore.

We recently (May 3,2014) had moved to Myrtle Beach SC with all our belongings having sold our home in Connecticut, following my retirement as an electrician (licensed) in an industrial facility.

Last night we went to the “beach” to view the fireworks display scheduled for 22:00 (they were on schedule) At about 21:20 we arrived at the above location after having walked and viewed the sights for about 45 minutes. No alcoholic beverage of any kind had been consumed by me or my wife before, during or after the evening’s event. Having recently completed re-reading “The Electric Sky” by Donald Scott and now with but four (4) pages left to finish reading “The Electric Universe” by Wallace Thornhill and David Talbott, viewing the stars is now done with an entirely new sense of wonder.

From our location the fireworks would be “fired” off from the end of a pier about 1/3 of a mile distance South East of us. At about 21:40, I turned to view the scenery including the “Ferris” wheel slightly North West of our location when I observed several more stars that had come into view as the skys cleared even further.

These stars appeared at about a 30 degree elevation form us …. As I watched several more stars appeared, four or five, and to my surprise they began “going off and on at about one second intervals, not necessarily in snyc with one another”… I then brought them to my wife’s attention who also observed this behavior. After a total of about four minutes the “flashing” stars went “out” and were not observed by us again.

At least four of the stars were in a cross formation though wider in the middle. I later judged the horizontal distant between the stars to be about 2/3 across the width of one of my eyeglass lenses….. and the vertical ones about ½ the height of the lens.

I tried to locate the far left horizontal stars position by trying to picture where it was relative to the shore and perceived it to be almost directly above the junction of the beach and ocean…..the two vertical stars were mid point between the horizontal ones.

Again, I had no accurate means or expectation of any need to perform such a task.

As we continued to observe the general location, two luminous circles appeared due East of us over the water. Their diameter seemed to be of 4 or 5 times larger than a star visible immediately to their right side and slightly above them. They had a reddish circumference with a yellowish center, did not appear to be moving and after about 30 seconds just “went out”.

After the two lights went out, I inquired of a couple sitting behind us to find out if they were aware of any of these sightings…… They were facing South and did not observer any of the items mentioned until now but as we talked one of the Red/Yellow circles reappeared in the same location for about 10 seconds the again went out.

The woman sitting there observed this event but had no knowledge of what it might be.

Helicopter rides are a continuous sigh here but though I don’t know if there available at night, the proximity of the objects to one another , the lack of discernable motion and them both appearing then disappearing together make that very unlikely. We did observe two air craft. One was a single propeller type circling over the general area of the fireworks pier a few minutes before the actual display and the other that appeared more like the ISS ( space station) moving North to South, very reflective but as it passes well overhead appeared to have a blinking light. I had observed the ISS before and am aware that there is a web sight dedicated to locating it in the night sky.

Nothing further was observed regarding the stars or circles of light.

Personal background: Recentely retired; Married 46 years; US Navy Nuclear power trained electrician (6 years active duty Polaris Submarines); Former volunteer firefighter; EMT; Certified Fire Investigator (10 years service); Interest include Astronomy, Earth Science, Geology, Ancient Histories, Cannons (Civil War Re-enactor), etc.

My wife is a retire registered nurse, we have 3 children, 5 grandchildren, a son in the National Guard who is a combat vet who served in Afghanistan.

Posted 2014-06-20