SIGHTING: TARPON SPRINGS, FLORIDA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"At approximately 11:10pm, i was sitting outside on my back porch, facing east when i observed a very bright orange-yellow light, approximately 25-30 degrees off the horizon, east-south-east position. sky conditions were generally clear, with light scattered low level clouds. lights from that direction are not unusual since they are normally commercial aircraft entering the downwind pattern to tampa international airport, eventually turning onto final approach to the south for landing. however, what caught my attention was the intensity and color of the light being orange-yellow, when normal aircraft landing lights would be bright white. i got up and moved to a different position to get clear of my porch ceiling for a better view. i continued observing the light looking for evidence of a red beacon light or red/green wing tip position light to confirm it was a commercial aircraft. beacon or position lights were not detected. the bright light continued in a north-west direction. when the light was directly due east of my position, it began to slowly dim. at that moment i assumed it may be a commercial aircraft climbing to altitude. what was unusual is that the light dimmed slowly. normally commercial aircraft would turn off their landing lights when a specific altitude was reached during climb-out, the landing lights would normally turn off abruptly, with the red anti-collision lights and wing tip position lights remaining on. when the light was north-east to my position it had slowly dimmed to the brightness of a typical star, of which many were visible at the time. about 10 seconds later the light had completely extinguished. throughout the entire observation period, the light remained on a steady path, and speed, to the north-east, and at no time were red strobe or rotating anti-collision lights, or red/green wing tip position lights noticed. also, the speed at which the light traveled appeared to be greater that what was normally observed when commercial aircraft would transit a similar path, whether climb-out from a local airport or if transiting at cruise altitude. it is possible the lights may have been from a military aircraft, since mac dill af base is located just south of tampa international. however, to my knowledge, even military aircraft are required to have their red anti-collision lights on when operating in commercial atc airspace, and the orange-yellow color and bright intensity of those lights are unusual even for military aircraft. although i am not claiming to have witness a "genuine extraterrestrial ufo", i feel it still worth reporting due to many unusual characteristics of the light that i observed. it is something i have never seen, even with 37 years experience in commercial aviation, in both maintenance and flight operations. "