1988-10-15 - Missouri, MO

It was Oct. of 1988 (unsure of the dates) about eight o'clock or a little later, that I was going to visit a friend. I pulled up into the driveway. (This is a very rural area in Missouri.) I went to the door and knocked. My friend was not at home. I got ready to get back into the car and leave, when I noticed several lights in the western sky. They were moving toward me at a slow but steady speed. I moved away from the car and into a field adjacent to my friends house. I could not make out what it was. There was no discernible silhouette, just several lights coming my way. The object then got directly over head and seem to take up the entire night sky. I then noticed that the lights (There were either three or five of them I don't really recall) seem to be attached to one large object. The lights seem to be facing towards the object instead of facing outward as you would expect. When I looked at the object I got the impression that this is what a blimp would look like if it had been flying at night with the lights turned towards the blimp. It seem to be just above my head, about two hundred feet or so. I'm just guessing. There was dead silence. I heard nothing that would explain its propulsion except the wind. Even though the object moved slowly I think it would have moved even slower if governed by the wind
alone. I continued to watch the object until it disappeared in the eastern sky. This may have been a total of five to ten minutes. It never once slowed down or seem to veer from a straight course and seem to stay the same distance from the ground the entire time. I got into the car trying to sort out what I had seen, debating on if I should tell anyone else. I went to eat a late dinner and then decided I would go and tell another friend of mine about the experience. I got to his house right at ten o'clock. The local news was just coming on. Just before I had the chance to tell him about my experience. The first line of the news cast said " If you saw it, you weren't the only one." They continued to say reports had come in by the hundreds and that it had been seen in at least seven different states that night. An investigation was under way. The next morning there was a small news segment about scientists
thinking it may have been a gaseous cloud that had ignited in the upper atmosphere but it was still being investigated. On the day following the official report came back. It was a Russian Rocket that was reentering the earths atmosphere. I have problems with all the above explanations. For instance, Anything burning I believe would at least flicker. This was not consistent with what I had seen. The lights never blinked or seem to diminish in any way. It maintained a slow but direct course and stayed the same distance from the ground the entire time. I have never seen a falling star or meteors do anything like that. If they had said it was a low flying blimp. I would have believed this before any of the other explanations, At least, before It had been reported seen in seven different states that night. But after hearing this. I began to wonder if there may have been more than one object roaming the skies
that night.