2003-09-01 - Springfield, OR - Oval

Craft seen in daylight over Oregon

While looking up in clear morning skies, I saw 2 oval shaped craft flying in formation to my west at 1 o' clock position heading south at approx 5,000 - 10,000 feet traveling at approx. 300 - 400 mph as they transversed the entire sky from my 1 oclock position to southern horizon, my 9 oclock position in about ten minutes. While I observed with my neighbor the two grey colored craft flying together with several hundred yards separation but in definite formation one slightly higher and in front of the other, I noticed a (blurry) pinkish orange object below the other two in apparent formation with the slightly larger and more defined grey colored craft above it. The three objects moved at a constant speed in constant formation to the south and no exsaust trails or sounds where heard. No anti collision lights where seen and no markings could be seen. From my view the objects where smaller and slower than airliners and there was a brief discusion as to the close proximity of the craft, that they could not have been airliners. My neighbor thinks they might have been military aircraft but I do not agree. I was in Navy aviation for many years and am highly trained in observations and understand aviation and air traffic. As the 3 objects moved out of vision to the south horizon, the sun light from the east brilliantly refected off all 3 objects and they looked like 3 bright stars as they faided out of my view. It would be interesting to check into radar logs to see if they corespond.