2003-10-17 - Las Vegas, NV - Triangle

I witnessed classic "V" shaped formation of 5-7 dim, orange-amber like lights, traveling directly in a straight line from east to west. One in the front (lead) and 2-3 lights evenly spaced from one another, down each side. I was smoking a cigarette in the front of my house while watching a bird, for a few seconds, fly towards the east. When I lost sight of the small bird, I was directly facing the eastern horizon. I immediately saw a small patch of red light (similar to a laser pointing pen) piercing through the eastern sky (approx. 3-5 miles away). The patch of red light was at first (5-10 seconds) small in size similar to the front lights of an approaching commercial aircraft at that distance. After about 10 seconds, I was able to make out a perfect "V" shape outline of the craft with 5-7 semi-circles. I don't remember the altitude of the lights; my best guess is it was around 2000-3000 feet (?). To make a short story even shorter, the object became larger and larger as it flew closer to where I was standing. It peaked in size about a quarter of a mile away from me (about one-third,maybe one-fourth the size of the belt of Orion). At that point I was able to look directly underneath it. The lights were no longer semi in shape but full, orange-amber in color with a slight white-yellow haze. At that point I could no longer make out the lights original red outline.