NUFORC Sighting 144046

Occurred: 2018-12-12 20:56 Local
Reported: 2018-12-12 22:54 Pacific
Duration: 2 hours
No of observers: 1

Location: Colby, KS, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

Red light in the sky.

I was driving down the frontage road by the interstate, when I noticed a red light hovering about 20 degrees above the horizon east-southeast of town. I slowed down and watched it and it disappeared and appeared again a few seconds later to the right of the location where it had been. For a little over an hour and a half this light never moved up or down, but it would move back and forth along the same plane over the field where it was hovering. (It moved from the east-southeast to the southeast.) I timed it and it would disappear for three seconds, five seconds, 17 seconds, 23 seconds, and come back and be visible varying lengths of time. There was never any repeating pattern, and it was mostly random how long it would appear and disappear.

At 2233 I noticed a military plane flying circles in the vicinity. Four minutes later, at 2237, two other red lights appeared in the sky along the same plane as the first light. They were the same size. The original was i! n the southeast, the second in the approximate location the first appeared in the south-southeast and the third was about 10 degrees to the left of the middle light.

The one on the far left disappeared after a few seconds and never came back. The second light, in the middle, was visible for approximately 10 minutes before it disappeared. The original light kept disappearing and appearing for about 10 minutes more before it started to move off to the southeast. By 2310 it was barely visible.

Posted 2018-12-14