SIGHTING: SAINT CHARLES, MINNESOTA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"My friend and i we're gazing at venus and the moon for about 30 minutes using night-time celestron tripod-mounted binoculars. when we had finished up and were about to pack them up i looked to the right of the moon (slightly west) and noticed a solid white light travelling towards the ne (almost directly overhead perhaps 80 degrees from the horizon) and exclaimed to her "hey, i think i see a satellite! we used to watch them from our roof-top when i was living in hawaii". after a few seconds of observation i told susan that it couldn't be one, it was moving too slow to be one. she then pointed out that there was another one following it. i looked behind it and sure enough there was not only one, but several in a straight line about 30 seconds apart from one another, all at apparently the same altitude, distance and speed from one another passing overhead from the wsw to the nne. i mentioned to her that i had done enroute control as well as tower and other radar operations and this was typical for enroute control and that they were probably using the navigational aides at mpls airport or even enroute to that destination. then it dawned on me that they were too far off course for that to be the case and that given the separation required by atc, were following much too close to one another. their course would have taken them to the eau claire, wisconsin area and beyond. (toward the thunder bay area). this didn't make sense either, as there was nothing along that path for the 8 or so craft to land at or even go to that made any sense. i also realized that they were moving a bit too fast to be commercial airliners. they were not flying in what one would describe as a group, but rather in a straight line approximately 30 seconds apart from one another at relatively the same speeds. they appeared as a steady bright white light with no discernable (blinking) navigation lights. i mentioned to susan that they looked like planes at nite with their landing lights on, but were too high up (at altitudes unknown, but high enough not to emit any sound) for that to be be the case, as their wheels would be contracted into their fuselages. we observed several other aircraft in other quadrants of the sky travelling in various other directions, all with blinking navigational lights before, during and after observing these craft. i would like to reiterate that i have over 17 years of combined experience as an air traffic controller for both the navy ('75-'92) and the faa. i was certified as a tower supervisor, facility watch supervisor, enroute control, and final approach controller as well as spending three years aboard an aircraft carrier and as a liaison for the military aboard several aircraft carriers while stationed at pearl harbor, hi as their radar branch manager and leading petty officer (grade e-6) having also received my enlisted aviation warfare specialist "wings" as well as 13 letters of accomendaton/ appreciation. in the mid 80's i was a controller at the minneapolis international airport for about 10 months. i also spent a few months working in the wind tunnels at nasa langley in virginia as an aeronautical engineer's assistant in the mid 90's. i hold a ba in architecture (gpa 3.79) from the university of minnesota and finished 2 years of their 3 year masters program. i have controlled a vast array of various aircraft, both civilian and military, including civil air carriers of all types, puddle jumpers, sea planes, helicopters,military props (single and multi) and fighter, attack, and cargo jet aircraft from all the military branches while stationed at norfolk, va; pensacola, fla; corpus christi, tx; and pearl harbor, hi. in all my years in the field of aviation i have not encountered anything such as this. i am completely perplexed. if anyone else has reported this activity, then i hope my input would serve to help in uncovering what exactly has transpired here. if they were indeed some of our, or others, aircraft, then i guess we can disregard this. but it is extremely odd. an additional note- i no longer have access to air navigational charts, so i have not been able to research into whether or not their is a jet route in alignment with the route described. please feel free to contact me in what ever manner you deem fit if you have any other questions or concerns. thanks."