SIGHTING: NORTH CENTRAL UPPER PENINSULA, MI

Witness Testimony

" Intensely bright, red-and-white flashing, silent, slowly moving object.Location was east of Munising, and north of Shingleton, in the north central Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Duration was approximately 7 minutes.At about 10 pm Eastern I went outside in an open area with my two dogs to watch the full moon rise in the east above the spruce trees in the distance. As I turned to the north I was startled to see a surprisingly bright object flashing extremely brilliant red and white lights. The lights were much, much larger than any star, a satellite, or the lights of an aircraft, so much so that my mouth literally dropped. It was approaching me, silently, and gave me the impression of slowly floating. I have no knowledge of the altitude.I will describe the red color as attractive, pleasing, not fire-engine red nor candy-apple red, a cool-ish red but not pink. The red color was more dominant than the white lights.As I watched it drift closer, I was stunned at how beautiful it was and I was riveted looking at it. My Sheltie at my side did not agree. She barked at the bright lights and then she and my Border Collie ran for the door, wanting to be let inside. I was wearing on my forehead a Petzl headlamp on the highest beam and I decided to switch it off.The object gently turned in a southeastern direction, still gliding silently. I had my little palm-sized Fuji camera with me (since I had planned to take some pictures of baby toads) so I attempted to take a short video of the object as it moved southeasterly. I saw there was a faint, quite dim, white light following the red-white flashing object. If I were to hold my hand straight out, the distance between the red-white object and the following white light would be about one of my hands across.As I was watching it, somebody suddenly "turned out the lights"--and it was gone! The dim light that had been following I could see for another 3 or 4 seconds, until it too disappeared.The geography the object had to have come from is Lake Superior and then over wilderness northern forest with very little to no population. My sad attempt at a video turned out to show only a difficult-to-see, pin-point, red flashing light, so like others I have viewed on YouTube.I will add that I took a college course in astronomy years ago and I enjoy the night sky, so I am not a stranger to planets and constellations, various satellites, Iridium satellite flares, nighttime aircraft, and so forth. This experience was unique.((ADDENDUM FROM SOURCE OF ORIGINAL REPORT))If I may, I would like to add some information to my report of August 1, 2015. I did not originally write it into my experience thinking it was too fantastic to be believed and also leaving out my personal feelings at the sighting. But it has bothered me consistently since. If you judge the following to be important facts, please do include it in my report, editing however you consider best. I apologize for adding inconvenience to your already heavy workload. My report was submitted, and has been posted, as: 8/1/15 22:00 North Central Upper Peninsula MI Light 7 minutes Intensely bright, red-and-white flashing, silent, slowly moving object. The object appeared to be composed of multiple splendid glittering, shimmering lights cascading and independently moving, which also gave it a vertical oval shape. None of the lights fell to the ground. My distinct impression was that its intent was to be noticed (and how could anyone not?). I clicked off my Petzl light because I myself wanted to avoid being noticed.((END ADDENDUM)) "