1998-05-08 - Deerfield Beach, FL - Light

Strange lights sighted over Deerfield Beach, Florida May 8, 1998 at 9:40 PM for 5-10 minutes.

During a sighting which lasted in total no more than 5 to 10 minutes, I initially saw a very bright white light beginning at 9:40 PM on May 8, 1998, while I was driving northbound on I-95 about 2 miles south of the Palm Beach County line near the town of Deerfield Beach, Florida, which is a few miles north of the town of Pompano Beach, Florida. There was good visibility with few clouds while the Moon was also visible and approximately 2/3 full in the night sky at an apparently equivalent elevation but well to the south of the bright light.

Having seen something unusual looking, I pulled off on to the right shoulder of the interstate and got out of my car to better observe what was occurring. This bright white light appeared to be a few miles north of me and was slowly moving in a southerly direction parallel to and somewhat to the east of I-95 coming towards my position. At first, the unblinking white light appeared to have a short contrail which later disappeared when the bright white light changed into a less brilliant unblinking red light which then appeared to split into 2 such less brilliant, unblinking red lights that moved apart but remained side by side and separated by a some distance from each other. Both continued to move slowly in a continued southerly direction.

At about this point, I noticed that there was a third, unblinking, dimmer red light which preceeded the other two by some significant distance, perhaps one hundred to a few hundred yards, which was also slowly moving in a southerly direction and to the east of I-95 towards my position. Eventually the 2 following red lights dimmed to the level of the leading dim red light and shortly thereafter, the pair of following red lights continued to become dimmer until they quickly became too dim to be visible while the single nearer red light, though dim, continued to be visible for another couple of minutes until it also disappeared as it approached my position.

It should be noted that even though a short contrail was seen at first, at no time was there any sound associated with these lights as there should have been if what had been observed was merely a jet or an airplane, (the latter of which don't produce contrails). Also, jets usually leave very lengthy contrails that remain visible long after they have passed which was not apparent in this case in the night sky that was well lit by the Moon. I believe that what was seen could not have been a rocket or space shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral (which is a couple of hundred miles to the north) due to the close proximity of what was observed and the slowness with which the lights moved only a few miles over a period of 5 to 10 minutes. Also, all planes, jets and helicopters have some blinking lights, but none of these lights blinked on and off. Finally, although these 3 lights appeared to move synchronously with each other, the background of the well lit night sky could be seen between them, so that they ultimately could be seen to be spacially separated.

As an addendum to this report, I would like to state that I had attempted to contact a few police departments local to the vicinity of the sighting at that time in 1998 but that I was then unable to obtain confirmation that anyone else had seen or reported a similar sighting until ten years later in 2008 when I first learned about this web site of the National UFO Reporting Center. Whereupon, having checked my original written account of the sighting and searching this data base for the same date, time and location, I finally discovered that one other individual had reported a sighting that matched mine with exactly the same date, time and a very nearby location and although his description differs somewhat from mine there are overall quite a few elements in common between the 2 accounts.