NUFORC Sighting 97917

Occurred: 2013-05-16 21:30 Local
Reported: 2013-05-16 13:56 Pacific
Duration: 12 minutes
No of observers: 4

Location: Clermont, FL, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Lights on object

4 mysterious lights over central Florida.
At 21:15 myself +2 neighbors were talking, location was approx. 3 miles south of Clermont Florida. I was facing toward the north, a treeline is positioned approx. 1/2 mile north of my position and tops of structures, including a hospital with a life-flight helicopter can be seen in the distance; approx. 3 miles, weather conditions were calm and clear with 10+ miles visibility, upon seeing the first object my reaction was to think it was a helicopter perhaps transiting smoke from some distant brush fire, the nose light was very orange, I indeed stated to my neighbor are there any fires in the area, the "Life-flight" looks odd. The object was moving east to west at a perceived elevation of less than 1000 ft. (Based on building elevations)speed appeared to be consistent with that of a helicopter in forward flight, except no noise. All three of us watched this object, then a second one appeared above the treeline "Flying" what I can only describe as erratically, changing elevation and direction; best I can describe would be a corkscrew flightpath.

With both object clearly visible; they now had our collective full attention, the second object I perceived to be in trail of the first by approx. 2 miles, then a third became visible, again trailing by about 2 miles, the guessing now started between three of us, a flight of aircraft on afterburner, nope, no noise, perhaps a group of cruise type missiles, we do have a bombing range 30 miles to our west, objects 1,2 and 3 were clearly visible Florida is very flat, I ran to my house and quickly returned with my marine binoculars and quickly brought number 3 into view, it even through the binoculars appeared as an hazy orange elongated ball, my wife arrived home and also observed the objects, then number 4 appeared and the corkscrew flightpath was duplicated except it was about what appeared to be at least 5 miles behind number 3 the only other one still visible. Light number 4 then went into a flat flight for about 10 seconds and then speed up and transitioned east to west at ! an extremely high rate of climb and speed, 3 then vanished quickly followed by number 4, it did not fade out, but more like flipped the light switch, gone. Not visible even through some very good binoculars. mysterious event.

56 years old and traveled the world, never have seen anything like this before.

Posted 2013-06-02