SIGHTING: ORION CHARTER TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"December 15, 2016. orion township, michigan, usa. observed from about 9:00~9:45 p.M. located about 50 miles north of detroit. suburban/rural community without street lights allowing better view of the night skies. it was a very clear night; outside temperature at the time about 4f. from the very large windows of our home (ceiling to almost floor level), we are aware of the looks, shapes, blinking lights, movements and speeds of airplanes, helicopters, occasional hot-air balloons and blimps; we're also familiar with the positions and brightness of the stars and planets and have observed meteor showers. this was obviously different. my adult daughter was saying goodnight when a light caught her eye in the sky and asked me what it was. when i saw it, it was a set of blinking lights of different colors, mostly white and bright, somewhat larger than the size of venus or mars we always see. my first impression was of an advertising blimp stationary in the sky with lights changing from red to blue to white to green in a rotary motion. no shape of the object was visible, just the ights. it didn't move. it was suspended in the air at a high distance from us. these windows of my house face south; in relation to our view, this light was in a southeast position. as we were watching for almost a minute intrigued by what it was, another similar "set of lights" came flying rapidly in a straight path from the west and then stopped very close to the first one (from our view, on a straight line as if on top, at a somewhat short distance). after about just two seconds hovering together, the first one (i'll call #1) rapidly flew in a straight line to the left (towards the east) and stopped over the tree-line (facing se of our view) again to hover; the second one (#2) just staid in the same position. my daughter and i just stuck to the windows to follow what was going on. i thought about going out on the deck to see better, but at 4f and wind-chill making it feel as -11f, we decided to remain inside. my daughter took out her camera, but it was too dark for the camera to capture anything. about a minute later, all of the sudden a third one also came from the west. at first, #3 came slowly and low, almost disappearing from our view behind a hill in the golf-course behind our house, and then at a higher speed, it flew vertically in an upward direction and then east, and as it was about to join #2, #3 stopped and #2 took off towards the ne while #3 and #1 were still at the same spot stationary, all the time flashing their colorful lights. #2 momentarily disappeared from our view behind the house, but soon enough returned (i think was #2) with two more from the north, and stopped at a triangular formation to our left (east) for a few minutes. (could have been) #2 again disappeared behind the house in a northerly direction, while #4 and #5 slowly moved closer together, still to our east and stayed there hovering in silence. #1 and #3 had not moved from their last position. at certain point, we way a regular commercial airplane flying west to east; it was easy to compare the brightness of its lights (how dim!) and the speed of the craft (how slow). after a few minutes, #1 which had been suspended over the tree line to our southeast view, suddenly moved vertically down the tree-line, where we lost sight of it. all of the sudden, #3 took-off towards west, first at a slow speed and then speeding up. when it was at our view, just about the club-house, it went down as if it would land on the parking-lot and then again sped away towards the west where we lost sight of it. {please keep in mind that i'm describing this from the perspective of our view; these lights were all pretty far away. i did not mean to imply that #3 would have been landing on the club's parking lot; it was obviously miles away}. as we followed in awe #3, we didn't see what happened to #4 and #5; when we looked back, by then these were already gone. it was just about 9:45 p.M. at that point, the bright moon (now waning) was beginning to show-up from behind the house, from an ne direction. the moon light was shining on the snow on the ground bellow, but it never interfered with the view of the event; the sky was sufficiently dark from our point of view. we waited until 10:00 p.M., but there was no further activity. after the moon light began to hit the sky above us, we could see developing expanding-line-clouds in the direct path where #1 and #3 had moved. through the whole event, i only felt curiosity while i tried analyzing what else it could be. i couldn't identify any object that can do this; certainly meteors don't travel in straight lines in vertical or horizontal directions, nor i've ever seen stars, planets or even orbital satellites do that. yes; i've seen "stars" move in a straight path without stopping and my companions each time have said these are orbital satellites; these were way too different. "