1998-07-15 - Chapel Hill, TN - Formation

I never knew there was a way of reporting this without being exposed or ridiculed. On the approximate date at roughly the time indicated. I was sitting on my back porch with my witness. The night was very clear and we could see all the stars. I often watch the skies and plans transporting people from Nashville (I think) to Florida. I know that they usually are somewhere around 25,000 to 30,000 feet high. I also fly R/C aircraft, and have flown small aircraft (as a student pilot). We were looking to the east when suddenly two lights appeared on the horizon, apparently side-by-side. We both saw them at the same time, and they were on a westerly path.. right over my home. They were coming VERY FAST at (I estimated about 10,000 feet). As they went over our heads, we tried to see the shape of the objects, but it was simply too dark to determine anything. There was a trail behind them, like fire (guessing), and they were only in view (because of my house roof) for about 3-4 seconds. At that altitude, I expected to hear something (it was a quiet night) but neither of us heard any sound whatsoever. I don't know of any military aircraft that can travel (estimated) from horizon to horizon in less than 8 seconds. The speed would be much faster than anything I know of at that altitude. I do know that we have helicopters with silent running features, but certainly they are not nearly capable of speeds like that. My witness and I thought maybe they could have been two meteorites, although they did not appear to be losing altitude to either of us. In any case, I watched the newspapers and television news for several days to see if a couple meteors may have hit somewhere far west of us.. but no reports. It really bothered both of us that we didn't hear anything, not even a sonic boom (which I thought was not posssible for an object traveling at speeds far above speed of sound at that altitude). We waited patiently to hear it, but nothing at all! I'm not a physicist, and could be wrong what it takes to create a sonic boom. Wish I had more to share with you, but that's all there was to it. In a nutshell, they were very very fast, about (maybe) 300 feet apart going the same speed, with no sound at all, and far exceeding the speed of sound. My best guess is that they were at about 10,000 feet (much lower than commercial aircraft, and far higher than small aircraft fly).