NUFORC Sighting 76732

Occurred: 2010-07-03 22:45 Local
Reported: 2010-07-23 02:58 Pacific
Duration: Approx 15 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: West Bloomfield, MI, USA

Shape: Orb
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

Groups of bright orange/amber lights in the evening sky July 3, 2010

On Saturday, July 3, my mother and I had been watching the local lake association's fireworks display from the comfort of our living room. Our west window had a perfect view of the fireworks that were launched over the lake. After the "grand finale" at about 10:40, I got up to put the dog outside one last time for the night, and went our our back door.

I looked up towards the western sky and saw several pairs of bright orange lights moving from the WSW horizon (roughly the "8:00" position) in a NNE direction. The lights were each at least as bright as Venus, which was still visible in the western sky at that time. They just immediately struck me as very odd due to the orange color -- had they been the traditional white/yellow light of airplanes, I would have just assumed it was a group of planes traveling together in some sort of formation.

I immediately called out to my mother "Quick, look out the west window, there are UFO's in the sky" -- only half jokingly, because the lights were just so wierd. At the very same time, my mother was calling out to me "What are those lights?" They struck her as very odd, too, her comment was "are we being invaded?" I went outside to get a better look. Over the next roughly 10 minutes, there were probably a total of 8 to 9 pairs of these orange lights, traveling from the 8:00 position on the western horizon to the area of the Big Dipper constellation, which was in the northwestern sky perhaps 3/4ths of the way up from the horizon. The lights appeared on the horizon generally about every 60 to 90 seconds, and at most times there were probably 2 sets of them visible in the sky. It took each pair of lights perhaps one and a half to two minutes to move that distance -- they appeared to be rather slow-moving.

When the lights got quite high in the sky, most of the way towards the region of the Big Dipper, the lights dimmed and then finally went out entirely and the objects were no longer visible.

At perhaps 10:50, about 10 minutes after the first objects appeared, there were no more to be seen, and I thought they were gone. After about 5 minutes, another 3 or 4 pairs of objects appeared following the exact same trajectory. The last of these disappeared and I waited another 2 or 3 minutes and went inside -- I noted it was 11:03 pm when I came inside at that point.

I have no idea how high or how far away these objects were. When the lights first appeared, I should also note that I could see at least 3 planes in the sky in the same general region of the sky as these lights. One of the planes was very low, with a single white light and moving from SE to NW, possibly to make an approach to Oakland Pontiac International Airport about 3 or 4 miles to the nother. The other two planes were probably commercial passenger jets -- higher up, and flashing white, red, and green lights, one traveling from the NW to the SE, the other very high and traveling almost due west to due east.

The unknown orange objects may have been low enough to be at the altitudes that small private planes fly at, or, for all I know, they may have been in orbit. I should note that it was a very clear night, and even at that late hour there was still a glow of twilight on the western horizon, so it's possible, I guess, that if these were objects in orbit the light may have been the last rays of the sunlight bouncing off the objects. I have seen the space shuttle in the International Space Station before, and those actually move in a similar manner to these unknown objects, but on those, when I saw them, the light was a very yellow light similar to Venus, not orange. So, still kind of odd in my opinion.

I couldn't detect any noise from the objects, but as I said, I have no idea how far away from them I was, and also, it was a very noisy night, with a lot of fireworks and firecrackers still going off, and a noisy party somewhere a street or two over with rock music playing on a p.a. system and people laughging and hollering.

I find it hard to believe that a lot of people would not have seen these objects. Since it was Saturday July 3rd, a great number of people were having parties and get-togethers, and it was a perfect, warm, clear, beautiful evening, and there was a lot of activity in the area, a lot of cars on the road, and so forth. Since over 1.2 million people live in Oakland County, Michigan, I find it really hard to believe that a lot of people wouldn't have seen these lights, and I find it even harder to believe that they wouldn't have struck others as odd, too.

I truly don't have a clue what these objects may have been -- some kind of squadron of old planes or ultralites traveling to an air show? Military planes? Had the lights been white/yellow, I would have thought so. I did ask my brother-in-law, who was a cargo pilot in the airforce during the Vietnam era, and who still is a private pilot, and he stated that planes would only have white/yellow lights, plus the blinking red and green wing lights on larger planes, but I suppose even he could be wrong. Satelites? Any that I've seen reflecting the sunlight were a more white/yellow light as well. So, what they were, I truly don't know. I just know I haven't seen anything that color before moving like a plane moves, and definitely not in pairs and groups. I carefully watched the local news that night and for the next few days, checked the local papers, and looked online, because I thought this might be a newsworthy event, or at least someone might offer an explanation of these lights. Since then, I've done a lot of searching online, and I haven't found any references to this event. It still baffles me because the lights were just such an odd color of orange, so unlike any aircraft I've seen.

Posted 2010-07-28