SIGHTING: GRAND ISLE, ME

Witness Testimony

"silent arch of pulsing lights.At 20:25 I went outside to let let my dogs outside before going to bed. I looked up in the western sky and saw an unusual tight cluster of lights moving across the sky to the south. I got my 8x35 binoculars and observed a large cluster of lights and with a smaller cluster to its rear. The rear cluster had a strobe light. Initially I thought it was a military aircraft with a chase plane. As the craft continued south my view of it changed and it appeared to be triangular shaped as the view continued to change it was three lights in a straight row. The craft was making a gentle turn to the southwest the view changed to what I assumed was looking at it from the rear and it appear as an arch of 4-5 white to yellow-white lights strobing from left to right. No sounds were heard and no other aircraft were in the area. We see many commercial flights overhead going to and from Europe and this did not fit any of their running lights. I used to be a crewman in Army helicopters and it did not match anything close to a helicopter. The associated haze around it could be associated with a general haze over the area.((FOLLOW-UP REPORT FROM SAME WITNESS))A cluster of lights moved silently from north to south changing shape to a triangle, straight line and shallow arc of lights.This is an addendum to my report filed 12/28/03. Due to the hurried nature of filing my online report I omitted a few items. On December 28, 2003 at approximately 20:25 hours local, I took our dogs outside before going to bed for the evening. While coming out our door I noticed a tight cluster of lights with a strobe in the western sky. I went inside to get my 8x35 binoculars to have a closer look because this didn’t look like normal aircraft running lights. While looking at the object I realized it was actually two tight clusters of light; a larger one on the left and a smaller one immediately to the right. The one on the right had the strobe. Initially I thought it was a military aircraft with a chase plane, but after watching it move, it appeared to be he same object, just illuminated on two different areas of the object. The general direction of flight was north to south from my viewing position at approximately 20 - 30 degrees above the western horizon. There was very light haze outside, but not enough to obscure the stars and the moon. The object made no sound. Because this aircraft was flying, it changed its position relative to my viewing position, therefore what I saw also changed. As it flew, the configuration of two clusters of lights changed to a triangular configuration, then to a straight line of three lights. A few minutes later it appeared to fly to the southwest and I am assuming directly away from me. The view of the lights at this time was 4 or 5 white to yellow-white lights forming a low angle arc. The lights strobed [flashed] from left to right. There was a haze or aura around it, but I dismissed this haze due to the general haze in the area. Still no sound was heard. No vapor trails were left. I observed it until the tree lined obscured viewing. The entire duration was ca.10 minutes. The temperature was 32 F, the barometer was 29.783, and the winds were ENE at 3 mph. Our location is directly under the path for commercial aircraft flying to and from European destinations, These commercial flights are generally directly overhead flying at altitude. Most of these aircraft can be heard and most leave vapor trails. Occasionally we have helicopter traffic performing border patrol duty. The US/Canadian border is one mile away. The four nearest airports are; Edmundston, New Brunswick, Frenchville, Maine, St. Leonard, New Brunswick, and Caribou, Maine. All are for private aircraft. The last aurora activity we had was November 2003. Loring Air Force Base is closed. Rough sketches will be forthcoming.Thank you.((NUFORC Note: We would like to see the graphics. PD))"