2004-09-10 - Vine Grove, KY - Light

Colored lights near Brandenburg Kentucky

On the night of September 10th at around 22:45-23:00hrs my wife and I were on our back deck in Vine Grove Kentucky, enjoying our hot tub and looking at the stars with our oldest son when I noticed a bright colored light to the west north-west. My son got our telescope out to get a better look, the object was definately closer than we first thought, maybe 20-30 miles which I know is very difficult to judge at night. The light continued to change color probably twice a second from red to green to light yellow to light blue and repeated. The light was stationary in comparison to our deck, the treeline, and the stars for 10 minutes or more, then it began to slowely move to the north and west and was visibly moving in comparison to the surrounding terrain and stars in the sky. We were able to view this for another 10-12 minutes as it moved north west until it was obscured by the neighbors trees. It was about twenty degrees or so above the horizon and was brighter than any surrounding stars in the western sky. The light never pulsed or faded, it remained brightly illuminated but continued to changed color as previously described which is what caught my attention and thought was so odd. I'm a private pilot and airplane owner with close to 500 hours logged in the last two years approximately 50-75 hours at night. I am familiar with GA and commercial aircraft anti-collision markings at night as viewed from the ground and while in the air. I have also been on active military duty for the past 18 years and am familiar with military aircraft markings and operations. I have to say this was deffinately not marked like any civil or military aircraft that I'm aware of to date. I would have placed its location or direction of movement near Brandenburg Kentucky or perhaps slightly to the south west. The weather conditions were clear with a slight haze and no moon. I called Louisville tower watch supervisor to see if they had any aircraft in that direction on radar, they did not. I also called Godman Flight Operations (Ft. Knox) to see if we had any military activity to the west of post, again the answer was negative, though he did say that the Brandenburg 911 office called the previous week asking the same question due to some calls they recieved from residents complaining of bright lights in the sky. (No further information was available). I have no idea what we saw, but I know that planets don't remain stationary, brightly change color, then transition across the sky from south to north west against a stationary background.

((NUFORC Note: We spoke with this witness, and he sounded quite credible to us. He is a retired member of the military. We suspect that he may have been witnessing the very bright star that currently is in the western sky, which gives off a very prominent chromatic display, although that is just a guess. PD))