NUFORC Sighting 174786

Occurred: 2023-02-28 20:40 Local
Reported: 2023-03-01 09:57 Pacific
Duration: 10 or 12 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Columbus, GA, USA
Location details: Moving from west to east, horizon to horizon, just south of the ecliptic.

Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Lights on object

Brilliantly illuminated, scintillating, disc-shaped objects moving at constant speed. Illumination dimmed as objects passed over city.

At approximately 8:40 PM, I exited my house to retrieve my iPhone, which I'd accidentally left in my car during a previous evening excursion. I looked back to the west as I walked to my car to see if Jupiter and Saturn had already set—they apparently had—and the first object appeared through the bare branches of my next-door neighbor's tree.

The object appeared at least five times as large as Saturn or Jupiter and was brilliantly illuminated, almost as if on fire. The light was in the yellow-orange range of the spectrum. At first, I thought it might be a missile, but the illumination was in a circular pattern with no exhaust trail. The illumination was also more sparkly than a missile trail. The illumination was the wrong color to be aircraft landing lights and again was circular without the forward beam of aircraft landing lights.

The object moved across the sky from west to east, just south of the ecliptic. As it came over the city of Columbus, the illumination completely dimmed and the actual disc-shaped object itself could be detected. I followed the object until it was no longer visible in the east.

Then, as I turned back toward the west to go back into my house, an identical object was crossing the sky in the same manner—just south of the ecliptic, moving west to east. Its illumination also dimmed as it moved across the city, and its disc-like shape could also be detected.

Again, I followed it across the sky toward the east and again turned back to the west to see yet another identical object, again just south of the ecliptic, moving west to east.

At this point, I ran into the house and summoned my thirty-eight-year-old son to join me outside to view the objects. As he came out into our driveway, we both looked back toward the western horizon to see the fourth object as it exactly repeated the behavior of the first three objects I'd seen.

Some of the objects remained illuminated longer than others, and one object, after its illumination had diminished, appeared larger. This apparently larger object appeared to either be rotating or to have a red light circling around it.

Altogether, I watched eight of these apparently evenly-spaced objects cross the sky from west to east. My son saw the final five of the objects.

Their speed is difficult to estimate because I could not discern the altitude. My guess is that the objects were considerably lower than a transcontinental passenger jet, perhaps only ten thousand feet altitude, yet they were completely silent.

The eighth and final object crossed the sky at approximately 8:50 PM.

I am attaching images captured with my iPhone. However, these images are somewhat blurry because my phone automatically adjusted exposure times to compensate for the low light levels. I was able to upload less than half of the images I captured, and not necessarily the best images.

Posted 2023-03-06