SIGHTING: TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN (UNITED STATES)
Witness Testimony
"I work as a corporate pilot. i am a 59 year old male. entered naval service as a pilot in 1986. retired as a commander (o-5). have worked as a corporate pilot for 22 years. on 16 jan, 2020 i was conducting a night flight from montreal (cyul) to centenial denver (kapa). at approximately 8:00pm est over traverse city, michigan my copilot said, "hey look at those stars". these are the notes i took after this sighting: cyul-kapa i woke at 0800l cst (good nights rest) 16 jan, 2020 0100z (2000l est) fl430, hdg 265, traverse city, mi. m80 85kts hw, 380kts gs, -60c sat, -4isa no weather 20 deg to the right of venus line of moving (star like) lights bottom left to upper right at approximately 60deg to the horizon lowest light illuminates at 15 deg above horizon light extinguishes at 25deg above the horizon approx 10 lights in sight at any given time. varied 8-11 total time elapsed 5-6 minutes (of our observstion) as the white lights moved along this 60deg line, the lead light would shift to a reddish tint, then after 3-4 seconds the reddish light would dim and dissapear. the string of lights were not in an exact straight line. the lights moved at roughly the same speed. i would estimate this speed to be 1/5 of the movement of a typical satellite as viewed from the ground. the disappearance of the lead light and the appearance of a new light was not exactly coincident. the distance of these lights was difficult to estimate. but my partner and i both belived it to be outside of the earths atmosphere. this concludes the notes i made after this experience. i have no idea if this event that we viewed would have been viewable from the ground. we were ar 43,000 ft. one thing that i know for a fact is that there were hundreds of other aircraft in flight traveling west that might of also seen this event. i just wanted to add my information to the data that you might be recieving. my buddy brought my attention to what he saw, he said, "look at those stars". i looked up and and said, "i dont know what that is, but they are not stars. if we had a string of ten stars in the northern hemispher like that, it would have a special name that every 5th grade student would know the name of. and those lights are slowly moving." it was a fantastic experience. not real dramatic, but pretty cool none the less. i hope this info is helpful. keep up the good work! mike "
