NUFORC Sighting 135579

Occurred: 2017-08-04 21:15 Local
Reported: 2017-08-05 22:08 Pacific
Duration: 20 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Howard, SD, USA

Shape: Light

Red lights moving southeast to the north, one made a 90 degree turn.

This is the second time I have seen these lights in a 5 days. The first sighting was on 7/31/17 at approximately the same time. I will start with that sighting but, am using this date because it was the most recent.

On the night of July 31, I went out and sat on the side steps of my house to have a cigarette, my steps face to the east. The sky was clear and just beginning to get dark. There were whispy clouds very high up and a light breeze from the south. The moon and stars were visible.

I looked to the southeast and noticed a very bright, dark, red, light coming from that direction. I watched it cross the sky and it went behind a tree that is in my neighbor's yard that is about 25 ft. high. when it came out the other side of the tree, I could still see the red light and it headed off to the north. When it was just about out of view, the light was no longer visible but, it looked at that time to be a very black cylindrical shape.

About a minute later, I saw another, and called for my brother to come out and look. It was identical to the first. He thought at first it was a plane but, there was no noise at all, no contrails and absolutely no sound. The light was steady, not flashing. It too moved on the exact path and looked to be a very black cylindrical shape as it went out of view. About another minute passed and we saw another of these lights come from the same direction only it looked a little more pinkish red. It, too, flew the same course and at about the same altitude which, I estimate to be about 1 to 2 thousand feet. I am not good at distance so this may be incorrect. As we watched, 4 more came, spaced about the same time apart. Some seemed to be further to the east and some coming closer to where they were almost directly overhead. Most of them blinked out when they were parallel to us or when they had gone a little further north.

Since we could not see the red light on the first two, as they went out of view, it is possible that they turned if the lights were attached to some kind of craft, or, they just blinked out. I got my video camera but, I was shaking and that video did not turn out well. The lights through the camera looked orange instead of red but, to the naked eye, they were red. My brother thought they might be Chinese lanterns, fireworks but, they seemed too high and some flew faster and some slower.

8/4/17--Again, I went out to have a cigarette before bed. I happened to look to the southeast and was amazed to see the same lights as the previous sighting, again coming from the southeast. This time, two came at once and the one that was furthest to the east all of a sudden made a 90 degree turn and went straight east.

I hollered for my brother but, he was upstairs and didn't hear me. I continued to watch and witnessed 4 more of these lights, one flew almost directly overhead.

I got my video camera again and this time the video wasn't quite so shaky. I tried to zoom in full but, it only caused the light to look like a diamond shape which, I know to be something with the camera and not the correct shape of the light. These were identical in every way to the ones I had witnessed previously. The conditions of the sky were the same also. Again, there was no sound, no smoke like flares would have, no contrails, nothing. I could not see a shape to these, only the very bright lights.

I have no idea what they were but, the one making the 90 degree turn to the east was what really made me wonder what it was that I saw.

Posted 2017-08-11