NUFORC Sighting 161021

Occurred: 2020-12-03 19:45 Local
Reported: 2020-12-04 09:20 Pacific
Duration: ~1 minute
No of observers: 2

Location: Columbus, OH, USA

Shape: Orb
Characteristics: Lights on object

Line of lights in western sky above Columbus, OH

At around 7:45 PM on 12/4/2020 in Columbus, OH, near the area of Morse Rd. and I-71, two of us witnessed a line of lights to the west. They appeared about the size that Venus appeared at the same time, and seemed to be a little less bright, or at least more yellow to the color. No other structure could be seen associated with the lights. They appeared to be almost perfectly, equally spaced from each other, forming a perfectly straight line staring from lower left to upper right, making roughly a 45 degree angle with the horizon. This is a rough estimate, but I would say they were located maybe between 15 and 30 degrees above the horizon. As far as distance from where we were standing, it was very hard to gauge, but my best guess would be between a few miles to maybe 50 miles. The person I was with pointed them out to me, and we watched them for about a minute, as they appeared to be moving slightly towards us, then slightly north, maintaining the same ! formation the entire time. Then, just as they appeared to move north, they started to fade out and not be visible anymore, starting with the lights at each end of the line. It almost appeared that they were turning and the lights were no longer facing us, but they did not reappear as I observed for about 20 minutes afterwards, so I think they just faded/turned off. The movement was not along the direction of the line, but was perpendicular to the line. The movement was also very slow, in fact I was not even sure that the line was moving at all until it moved slightly to the north.

I read your requests to not report the SpaceX Starlink satellites, and I don’t believe that is what I saw. I looked it up afterwards and did find a number of stories referring to people sighting these strings of lights. However, the ones I saw appeared to be cloud-level, not moving along an orbital path, and the angle in relation to the ground would not make sense for where they were in the sky, but I can not completely discount this possibility. My friend suggested a group of drones, but I can not really see that as the formation remained equally-spaced and along a line for the entire encounter. The weather conditions were fairly calm at the ground, but even so they would have to be pretty high-end to keep such a tight formation.

I am generally a skeptic of such sightings (not a non-believer though), but the location in the sky, the formation, and the pattern of movement all leave me with no solid explanation at the moment. I have a degree in physics, so I am generally aware of the possibilities outside our planetary sphere, and I have spent plenty of time stargazing, so this really did make an impression on me to start looking this far into it.

Posted 2020-12-23