SIGHTING: LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"I was at home on my balcony smoking a cigarette around 2 a.m. I live in a semi-rural area a couple of miles due south of Pinnacle Mountain State Park. I first noticed the object when I looked up at the sky which was clear that night. I'm normally not up at that time of night, but I had a bad case of insomnia.I thought the object was a helicopter or plane at first, but it's light patterns were strange and it had too many blinking lights for an aircraft. I have never seen an object like it in the sky before.It rose steadily in the sky and away from my position. It slowly descended on two occasions and then rose again slowly. It wobbled (atmospheric effects?) like it was a fishing bob on choppy water. I watched it for an hour or so until it rose out of sight. It never moved in a horizontal direction for any significant distance but it did move away from my position in a northeasterly direction.I had no binoculars or telescope to be able to make out the object in precise detail, but it appeared cone shape - like a toy spinning top with lights on the cone and on the bottom in a circular pattern which I could see as it wobbled. The lights were green, red, yellow, and sometimes bright white or blue.The strangest thing about the event occurred approximately 15-20 minutes after I first sighted the object. An extremely large helicopter, virtually silent, came in from the east, going west, just north of the apartment complex I live in. I could make out the shape of the helicopter, but none of the details on it. It was jet black, with no lights on in the cabin. It couldn't have been further than a football field away from me. I could barely hear the rotors on it. It had only red running lights and none of these lights were blinking. It looked like it was rectangular shape. The closest variant I could even come close to comparing it to is the CH-53 Super Stallion - but that's just a guess. It was moving very fast at about 300 feet of altitude. I live in a valley (Chenal Valley), it flew over the western edge of the valley and I lost sight of it. To be honest, I just assumed I was seeing Venus or the atmospheric distortion of a star. I've seen it twice now since that night, but it does not appear every night. I saw it again last night and used binoculars to verify the shape and lighting configuration which match what I saw with the naked eye. I saw it around 10 pm last night in the same position I saw it in at 2 a.m. on the 12th. It rose in the sky (like a star or planet), until I could no longer make out it's shape or coloring.Please someone just confirm that I saw a planet or star and the blinking colors were just air pollution refracting the light and I can move on with my life. I accept that my eyes could be playing tricks on me."