SIGHTING: COROLLA, NC

Witness Testimony

" Orange lights over Outer Banks.I was carrying some of our luggage out of our rental vacation house the night before we left for home. On one of the trips to the car I noticed in the distance several bright orange lights approaching from the southwest. The lights appeared orange in color and I thought at the time they would probably turn out to be the red and green wing lights of an aircraft, once they got closer and I could see more detail.I soon could see that there were three orange lights each separated by perhaps a half mile. They moved one after the other towards the northeast and then each in turn seemed to turn more northward in direction. I thought anytime now I would see the flashing strobes of the planes, as we had seen various private and military aircraft all week. The strobes never appeared, only a very bright intense orange light which never wavered.I have since read reports of “Chinese lanterns” being released in the past, while researching what I had seen, but I find it hard to believe the quality of the light I witnessed was the flickering of a candle. In addition the height and speed of the objects approximated that of the aircraft I had been seeing in the preceding days.The first orange light flew almost directly overhead and while I listened intently for the sound of an engine there was total silence except for the occasional sound of thunder from a lightning storm just to my northwest.I turned to ask one of our traveling companions to take a look and then looked back at the lights and the third light had disappeared, I don’t know what happened to it as I had only turned away for a second. However, as the second orange light passed by, there was an extended lightning strike from the storm which lit up the sky. I could see nothing but the second orange light with no shape or body connected to it. But moving across the sky behind it was a black or dark grey shadow that seemed to pulsate and change shapes stretching first longways and then sideways in an alternating fashion. I then lost sight of all three objects. "