SIGHTING: STRATFORD, IA

Witness Testimony

"Huge spinning yellow orange lights in the Central Iowa sky.My mom, 48, and I, 13, saw it. Dark, very cloudy night. We are driving down the road. I see 3, half moon size circular, yellow orange lights appear out of the clouds not very high in the sky, close together in a horizontal line. They spin slowly left to right counterclockwise. The one on the right would disappear as a new one came on the left. They disappeared as a formation of 4 fast moving planes in a horizontal line, far apart from each other, crossed right where it was. The planes didnt slow down or anything. The lights then came back with 5 or 6 of them a little farther away in a 45 degree angle. They were circling more rapidly now. My mom saw this, she didn't see the first set. She pulled the car over so she didn't crash because her eyes were now fixed on them out the side window. She rolled down the window and there was no noise. We watched them for 30 seconds until they disappeared for about another 30 seconds. They then came back in the horizontal row for about 10 seconds, then disappeared never to be seen again by us. We waited and watched the skies around us for about 10 minutes. We are very used to seeing aircraft as we are in the National Guard flyzone along the Des Moines river. We have never seen anything like it. Mom's Notes: Location-county blacktop just west of Pilot Mound IA, driving North, appearance was in the western sky, just west of the Pilot Mound Cemetary. The 4 planes (small white blinking lights)flew south at a higher altitude. We ask that if anyone else in Iowa witnessed this, they report it to this center to help validate what we saw."