SIGHTING: RIO DE JANEIRO (BRAZIL)

Witness Testimony

"Two fast blinking lights stationary for +-45s at stars' altitude/distance and vanished - Rio de Janeiro/BrazilI've been seeking for information about something I and two other witnesses saw on the sky on Sunday, 18/05/2003, circa 02:00, Rio de Janeiro, GMT-3. I was at the balcony of a penthouse, with almost complete view of Copacabana sky, talking by phone with my girlfriend, who was at home. As we spoke, I was gazing at the sky, looking to nowhere, when my attention was caught by something I thought was a reddish planet (Mercury, I thought) or star, at aprox. 35 deg. high. It was a crystal clear night, no refraction due to polution nor clouds. About ten seconds later the star's color turned to a bright white, and I turned my full focus to it. A friend of mine was a few meters away from me and I urged him to look up and watch the scene. Few seconds later, the star began to blink at a constant rate (2 or 3 blinks per second). Immediatly another light source -- localized at a some -120 deg. angle relative to the first one and close to it (from my viewpoint, a finger width at full arm length) -- began blinking at the same rate, but kind of alternating the phases. Seconds later tiny glitters, almost invisible, appeared in the space between them. When +- 40 seconds had elapsed from the "whitening" of the first star, the second one suddenly disappeared, and less than 5 seconds later the first one glowed a little bit brighter and vanished. Almost all the time the two stars stood still. The two light sources were definitely no baloons nor low atmosphere gears -- we were sure they were located way far at space. If they didn't blink they would look like ordinary and common stars, just a bit brighter than the others. BTW, as I was talking to my girlfriend I told her to go to the window (she lives some 15 blocks far from where I was, and also facing Copacabana beach) and try to see what I was seeing; she confirmed, having seen about the second half of the 45 seconds show, as we talked."