SIGHTING: DES MOINES, IOWA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"I saw something very strange the night of November 29, 2014.It was like nothing I'd ever seen before in my life. These orange red amber lights. I was visiting at my in laws house talking with my mother in law, she saw them out the window and we went outside because we knew immediately it was not an airplane. From where we were near a golf course on a hill looking out north and it's dark in the sky so you get a very good view at night. It appeared they were coming from the west or southwest but downtown lights made it hard to see them until they were almost right over our heads. First it was 3 red amber lights that seemed to be in a triangular formation moving northeast, they moved silently holding altitude until they moved out of our sight. Then more amber lights followed, some moving singularly others in pairs. I went and got my husband and he and my father in law came outside and watched them too. Many more lights came and did the same thing. They seemed to be gliding and were completely silent. They moved northeast towards Altoona then some moved off North towards Ankeny. My husband tried to take a video on his phone but it is really hard to see the lights and isn't very good. They didn't appear to "float" upward, they seemed to all be around the same altitude about where a helicopter would fly, even as they appeared and then moved out of sight then new light would show up in a pair or single. But NO sound at all, none. The lights we saw didn't blink or flicker it was more of a very slow pulse, a little dimmer then brighter or just a solid color all the time. We saw them over the course of maybe 5 mins or so until no more came. Very weird!In total I think we saw 12 different lights. They didn't appear to be connected to each other and like I said some seemed to be flying together and others by themselves. I think it was around 5:45 or 6:00pm at night. It was dark out but not late at night. We had just got home from Christmas shopping and were going to pick our kids up at my in-laws house. We had decided to stay and visit or we would have never seen the "lights".I wasn't drinking and what I saw were NOT Chinese lanterns because the wind was blowing out of the North that night so they couldn't have been moving into the wind like they were. My husband thinks they are military drones (and still does) so I asked a military friend about drones. He said it is unlikely that drones would be flying together. So I don't know what they were but I wanted others to hear about what I saw in case they have an experience like this too. I was with 4 other people who saw the same thing I did and it was very weird. Not scary just weird. Although, the more thought I've put into it the more it has bothered me that I can't figure out what they were. Anyone have any thoughts on what these could be? "