NUFORC Sighting 30639

Occurred: 2003-08-07 20:15 Local
Reported: 2003-08-11 11:24 Pacific
Duration: 2-4 min.
No of observers: 0

Location: Florida (north)/Georgia (south) (somewhere over), FL, USA

Shape: Unknown
Characteristics: Lights on object

@ large greenish/yellow lights seen hovering in a strange cloud lit up with pink/purple electrical charge from my airplane window

On my flight home from FL to IN, within 30 mins. into the flight I had been looking out my window at the ground below and, as we ascended, the clouds beside & below me. I noticed a very large strangely beautiful cloud that was different from the others because it was lit up with what I perceived as a lot of electrical charge. It was full of pinkish/purplish bursts of light at it's very center. The outside edges of the cloud were so well defined against the dusky background of sky. I was staring at this light show when I suddenly noticed a bolt of lightning come down out of the bottom of the cloud and strike dramatically towards the earth. The cloud was almost perfectly parallel to my line of vision. That is to say, it was directly outside my window at the same elevation as my seat on the plane. I would estimate the cloud was approximately 500-800 feet away from the plane & I could see above and below the silhouette of the cloud. It was just after the lightning bolt struck that I noticed that inside the cloud, but at it's very edge nearest to me, I saw two perfectly round greenish/yellow lights hovering at the very outside edge of the cloud, with just a bit of mist or fog diffusing the lights slightly.(still bright, easily defined round shape) The 2 round lights were approx. 1-2 ft in diameter and maybe 6-8 ft apart. They reminded me of 2 green "GO" lights like you would find on a stoplight, only they were side by side & perfectly motionless. I didn't think they looked like lights from a plane(too lrg) but if they were, I reasoned that they should be moving through the cloud. I also could't imagine any aerial machine entering such a spectacularly electric-charged cloud. It was alone, by itself, so I thought a plane would not be forced to fly THROUGH it. I never thought it was a plane anyway. I was in the 32nd row with my young child on my lap so I could see our right wing lit up outside our window in front of me. It was nothing like those lights. Our light was small, white! and sort of standing vertically & blinking. My initial reaction was that it was some sort of hovercraft.(although I have never seen a hovercraft) For an analogy, it reminded me of two greenish yellow eyes staring out from the very edge of the cloud. They never moved their position within the cloud. If the cloud moved, which it appeared it did not, then they moved with the cloud in the same position. I never witnessed a craft. I never really thought to look for one at the time. If there was one it would have had to be the "front" lights I observed with the bulk of the object hidden in the clouds behind them. Just a footnote, which will make this story sound even wackier...it probably has nothing to do w/this "event", but while in a town north of me in IN I was with my mother previewing homes for my brother, whom is moving back to this area shortly. I own a real estate company. While traveling down a road towards our next home, a tornadic-like wind burst came out of nowhere and snapped a tree in half, which fell into the path of my van. I was going approx 45-50 MPH and had I not swerved to get my vehicle off the road as I almost lost control in the grass alongside the road, we would have been crushed. I have pictures I took at the scene which shows my van surrounded by the upper tree limbs, and across the front & back of my van. We were not injured. The van had some damage. I am glad I had my digital camera w/me...as I was taking interior photos of homes for my brother to see. There is a Sheriff's report on this incident. This story is not so strange, in and of itself, but when my mom called me later that night she said when she got home, which is 25 miles south of the accident site, and she was sitting on her back patio, she noticed that a tree she had recently purchased by mail order(one of several)and had planted, that was no larger in diameter than your index finger had snapped in two at the center and was fallen over itself. The area had rain that day but no strong winds of any kind acco! rding to the officers at the scene of the accident, or as witnessed by my mother and myself, who had been out all morning/early afternoon. Later, we also have discovered that both trees were poplars.(hers and the one that fell on us) That happened 11 days before I saw the lights from my airplane. If you cannot already tell, I am unnerved by the whole thing. I am wondering where that burst of wind came from that snapped a 3 ft diameter tree in two as well as a pencil sized tree in half.(in two entirely different locations) Her rear yard is fenced and the gate is locked. Her dog was inside until she went out back with him. We witnessed nothing else that day except that "microburst" of wind.

Posted 2003-08-28