2003-10-10 - Crescent Beach, SC - Formation

For two consecutive nights, we watched a pattern of lights before we were stunned by a discovery on the beach.

I am the pastor and director of a Christian outreach ministry. My wife is an administrator, my mother is a retired nursing supervisor, my four children range in age from 20 to fourteen. We witnessed first one light in the sky, from our perspective, to the right of the moon, high over the ocean horizon. It started as a small light and continued to increase in intensity until it appeared as a very bright, directional light. Yet it had know strobe or movement. The lumination continued for approximately 10 sec. and then slowly faded at the same point in the sky. It was a clear night. Almost immediately, another light, in another point of the sky to our east slowly came on and increased in intensity in the exact same manner without movement. Then, two lights, simultainously came on in different parts of the sky, then, together, they went out after approximately 10 sec. Then six lights came on in a pattern, one after another, again, no strobe, no movement, all over the ocean horizon, high enough to be considered air born. They all stayed on for approximatlely 10 sec. and then together, slowly faded out. This continue for one and a half hours and was witnessed by the entire family.

I did not report the experience to officials. Others walking on the beach were noted to stop and point.

The exact same thing happened again the following night, at the same time and in the same manner.

One more very odd thing, I took my three sons kyaking on Friday of that week. We went out in the intercoastal waterway and made our way out to the ocean. We headed north, across the inlet from Cherry Grove, SC. The island we were alongside is deserted. We were going to explore the island. We saw a large group of people approximately 1/2 mile up the beach, walking around as if to be looking for beach treasures. An odd note, from our perspective, they were all wearing long sleeve dark shirts and long pants. Strange for that time of year. We decided we would continue toward them to see what they were looking for. As we continued to approach, we witnessed the large group form a circle, as if they were looking at something that had washed up on the beach. We continued to paddle against the surf to reach them. We looked at each other long enough to consider what the group must be doing. When we looked back in the direction of the group on the beach, they were gone. No sign of anyone. We continued to paddle until we reached the supposed area of the beach combers. We beached our kyaks and began looking for evidence of the group. There were no footprints or trace of anyone, much less a group of fifty. We checked the dunes and looked for boats on the other side, which we could see from the dunes. Everyone was gone. Then, I saw one man walking toward us from the north. He was aproximately 2/10 mile away. I walked toward him to ask if he had seen anyone. He approached and was an old man wearing only underwear. He was carrying a metal bucket which I did not look in. I asked if he had seen anyone else. He said he thought we were with the group. He said he they were part of a group of people that own the private island and that they were doing scientific expiriments. Now answering any more or my questions, he continued to walk south and we never saw him again.

I am perplexed by the events of our vacation and have written it off as unexplained.