NUFORC Sighting 34068

Occurred: 2003-12-18 18:50 Local
Reported: 2003-12-22 16:44 Pacific
Duration: 5-6 min.
No of observers: 1

Location: Eureka, CA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Emitted other objects, Changed Colo

Bright, strobing light, dimmed to a pulsing amber light. Then smaller lights witnessed moving erratically around larger light.

On the evening of December 18, 2003 I saw a bright flashing light in the southeastern sky. The light was a very brilliant white, with an aparent magnitude of -5, that seemed to strobe about twice a second. After strobing for about eight seconds the light dimmed to amber color, with an aparent magnitude of -2.9. The amber object had a bit of haze around it. Then the amber object appeared to move eastward. I then saw a much smaller light that seemed to move around in an eccentric patttern beneath the first object. The smaller object proceeded to drop earthward and faded from view about halfway to the horizon. As the larger, amber object continued to move eastward, another small amber light appeared beneath the larger one and moved about much like the first smaller light. The large amber object continued to move slowly eastward for a minute or two and then appeared to fade out. The incident occured within my sight for at least five minutes. I observed the phenomenon with the aid of binoculars as well. There are currently some photos of the lights seen over Eureka, Ca., taken by another observer, posted on the website of a local radio station -- www.((URL deleted--photo removed from website)).com. Thank you.

NUFORC Note:

We have spoken with the witness who submitted this report, and he sounds quite credible to us. We have looked at the photo, but it seems ambiguous to us. We do not know what the witness may have observed. PD

Posted 2004-01-17