2000-10-18 - McKinney, TX - Light

My wife and I were enjoying a glass of wine by the outdoor fireplace at approximately 22:15 on a cool clear fall evening. We live North of Dallas in McKinney Texas, with an unobstructed view to the South. I have grown up around aircraft and I am very knowledgeable about most types of air planes. Our house seems to be located in a position that gets a large amount of Care-Flight helicopters either directly over, or very near our location. We were watching the air traffic coming and going out of Love Field, DFW and Addison airport, always trying to figure out who was going where. We noticed what we assumed to be a Care-Flight or a private plane headed directly towards us from Love Field (due South). It was a bright red/orange light that resembled a bright landing light or a spot light on the front of a helicopter that was pointed towards us from a distance of approximately 10 – 15 miles and at a low altitude of 500 – 1500 agl (above ground level). After several minutes, we noticed that the aircraft never seemed to get any closer. At that time I got my binoculars out to get a better look at what was going on. The only thing that I could tell was that the red/orange light was all that I could see. I thought I should have been able to see a rotating beacon and anti-collision lights. After a total of approximately 5 - 6 minutes, the light moved due West. Now that I had what should be a side view of the craft, I knew that I could see the rotating beacon and the anti-collision lights. Not only were there no other lights, the spotlight seemed to still be pointed to the North. This is when we both knew we were seeing something that just wasn’t quite right. It was moving to the West at about the speed a fast moving helicopter would be going at a distance of about 5- 10 miles. After a few more minutes, it stopped again. Trying to rationalize what we were seeing, I thought a larger aircraft descending out of the South towards Love Field and then turning towards DFW (this may be possible due to the ru! nways at Love are 33 – 13 and DFW are 36 – 18), but we still couldn’t figure out why the light was that bright and moving that slow. The light was now standing still over DFW for another 4 – 5 minutes. As we were both watching this thing, it went due South over the horizon in a fraction of a second. After we could see the light move over the horizon, I had the feeling that the light was much larger and higher than what we had first assumed. I now believe it was approximately 5,000 agl, assuming that it was indeed over Love Field and DFW. The size of the light was approximately the size of a bb at arm’s length. The next morning we anxiously watched the news for a story on this light over Dallas, there was no mention of anything. I called the towers at Love Field, DFW and approach control via land line and no one knew anything about what we had witnessed the night before. I just pray that it was ours.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that date of incident is approximate. PD))