2002-01-11 - Daytona Beach, FL - Light

Bright lights seen over ocean in Daytona Beach area on January 11, 2002

On January 11, 2002, at approximately 6:45 pm EST, I arrived home with one of my coworkers. My roommate, my coworker, and myself were all of sound mind at the time, getting ready to have a few beers but hadn't quite taken that initiative yet; all three of us work for the same company, a timeshare and travel agency in the Daytona Beach area, and none of us have ever made a claim or filed anything like this before. My roommate was out on the landing, looking into the early evening sky when I heard him exclaim, "What the hell is that?" I raced outside, thinking maybe he'd seen an accident of something, but he was looking up at a bright light in the sky. Jupiter had recently been overhead, just one or two nights ago, so at first I thought it might by Jupiter or other planet, but it moved. We were facing east at the time; the object was over the ocean, and at great altitude. He said that it seemed to be made of one light surrounded by smaller ones, but I was unable (at first) to make out those details with my glasses. He ran inside to grab his binoculars; our coworker came out to see what we were making a big fuss about, and when she saw the object she also said that it looked like multiple lights. I grabbed the binoculars from my roommate and ran downstairs into the darkest area I could find in order to avoid any ground light. When I zoomed in I could see that it definitely looked like one bright light surrounded by smaller lights. However, the "shape" was not constant; at one point it appeared to be a single light, then a bright light surrounded by four lights, then two lights, then as much as a dozen lights. In addition to the changing shapes, the object's colors were cycling, from blue to white to yellow to red, although I wasn't so observant that I was catching a pattern. Anyway, our neighbors started coming out, and we showed them where to look, passed the binoculars around; we wanted as many people to witness this as possible. We live not too far from the Daytona Beach airport, and as pl! anes, an d even a helicopter, passed overhead, we could tell just from the object's altitude that it wasn't a plane, at least not one that was coming to or leaving from the Daytona Airport. Also, its pattern of movement was unlike anything any of us had ever seen. Though it seemed like it was climbing in altitude, it was moving north, then south, in a snake-like pattern, and at several times it seemed to have dropped in altitude. We asked around for a camera, but it seemed like nobody had a camera, or they weren't willing to take pictures, although I saw one of my downstairs neighbors taking snapshots.

We phoned the local authorities, but they ignored the report. We called the local newspaper, who told us to call the local authorities; no help there either. I even tried to find a local number for MUFON, to no avail.

After about 2 hours, however, the object moved out of our field of vision, and we left it at that, with no explanation and nobody taking us seriously.

((NUFORC Note: If, in fact, the object did move abruptly, it could not have been a celestial body. However, we believe that the first possibility to be eliminated is the star, Sirius, in the southern sky. It can be very bright, and it gives off a very brilliant chromatic display, as described in this report. PD))