NUFORC Sighting 104958

Occurred: 2013-11-24 22:00 Local
Reported: 2013-11-30 15:50 Pacific
Duration: 7-10 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Bend, OR, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby

On 11/24/13, at 10pm, I was walking my dog to an empty lot near my house, where my dog takes his breaks. It was a very clear night, and I was looking at the stars as I walked. My attention went to my dog for a minute or two when we reached the empty lot, and then I glanced back up at the sky. Upon looking up at the sky, I was somewhat taken back by the amount of bright lights in the sky. It took me a minute to try to interpret what I was looking at, because there was no easy explanation for what it could be. There were at least eight bright red lights in the sky.

The bright red lights were at a 45º angle to the West of me. They were well above the mountains, so I knew that it was not any structure. Additionally, the lights were not moving in relation to each other, nor were they moving in unison. They were very bright red lights that suddenly appeared, and were remaining motionless in the sky. There may have been more than eight, but when I got over the surprise of seeing them and began to count, there were eight. Right after I counted the lights, one of the two top most lights, dimmed slightly, then came back to its original brightness, and then went out. For a moment, there seemed to be a very dim white light where the red light had been… then nothing.

I ran back to my house, about a half block away, and looked for my binoculars. By the time I found them and ran out to the back of my house, there were only five lights left in the sky. In looking at them through the binoculars, I could still only see the lights, rather than what they were attached to. My girlfriend quickly put on warm clothing to go outside, and by the time she got out there, she was able to see two of the lights that were left. I then decided to try to video record the lights, and ran back into my house for the camera. By the time I got back with the camera, all of the lights were gone.

Within minutes, I called the non-emergency police number asking if anyone else had seen, and reported, the lights. While still on the phone with the dispatcher, a police officer called me asking what I had seen. The officer told me that a woman across town had also seen the lights, and had also gotten pictures and video of them. He said that what the other witness had seen, were five “copper colored” lights in the sky.

After talking with the police, my girlfriend and I went back out to the vacant lot to see if there were any more lights in the sky. There were no more unusual lights, but there were several jets in the sky going back and forth in the area that the bright red lights had been in. I spoke to another police officer the next morning, and he told me that he had seen two military jets flying together in that area of the sky that morning.

This is the approximate positions of the bright red lights, in relation to themselves, that I saw: * * * * * * * *

They all seemed to be paired up, with a uniform distance between them, with the exception that one of the four in the middle group was a little farther away from its “wing man”. The lights began disappearing from the top down, and within a few minutes of the last bright red light disappearing, there were jets in the sky going back and forth. From the time I first saw the lights, to when the last one disappeared, was about seven to ten minutes. I am presently attempting to contact the other witness in order to triangulate, to determine the distance and location of the lights. It appeared that they were over a wilderness area, which I would like to investigate.

NUFORC Note:

We spoke via telephone with the witness, and he seemed to us to be exceptionally serious-minded. We suspect that he is an unusually good witness. PD

Posted 2013-12-02