NUFORC Sighting 136215

Occurred: 2017-09-16 20:15 Local
Reported: 2017-09-18 20:06 Pacific
Duration: 8-10 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Austin, TX, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Changed Colo

Two Red Lights with Blinking White Lights Over Austin, Texas

I first noticed a single red light in the northwestern sky, about midway between the zenith of the sky and the horizon. The light was steady and barely moving and was immediately unusual. The light then began to move to the west quite quickly and steadily. It continued like this, but in an unusual flight pattern, not like the normal ballistic trajectory of commercial aircraft. My immediate thought was that it was a helicopter. It would move west, then appear to pause (perhaps moving away or towards me) and then continue moving again. It was hard to gauge its distance, but I’d say it was 10-15 miles away. If that is true, then it was moving far faster than any helicopter I’ve seen fly at that distance.

As it approached the western horizon, the red light changed to a white blinking light. This light was blinking regularly, so once again I thought it must be a helicopter. But at the speed it was going I began to think it was a fighter jet. It was just about at the horizon when it nearly disappeared and immediately another separate red light appeared just to the right of it. This red light was steady and even brighter than the first. The second red light began to move to the north as the first was nearly gone.

The second red light was moving toward the north and just suddenly, what I presume to be the first light, reappeared now as a red light with a white blinking light. The two began to make their way northeast irregularly; sometimes moving steadily, sometimes pausing or moving away from me. The first red light seemed to now be following the second, and when they were moving laterally, they were moving quite fast. The only thing I know of that could move that fast at that distance is a jet fighter. But the maneuvers between steady lateral movements were far too acrobatic for a jet fighter.

In less than thirty seconds, the two lights—both with a steady red light at what I perceived to be the front, and a white blinking light at the rear—cruised to the northeast and then quickly approached the northern horizon. Through trees I saw them pausing at the horizon as red lights and then disappearing below the horizon, not to reemerge again.

Posted 2017-09-21

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