2004-10-20 - Charleston AFB, SC - Triangle

large triangle shaped blinking lights and red circle of light over charleston AFB

I was sitting outside waiting for a freind when I noticed about 8 white lights blinking in the distance quite far off. I thought wow thats a lot of airplanes at once, but as the blinking lights moved closer i saw that they blinked in a pattern, a huge triangle pattern. one light blinked at the top and then 3 or four blinks down the sides simultaneossly (spelling). this thing was huge and it moved toward the air force base. when it reached about the edge of the military property line it changed direction and instead of moving toward me it headed right towards the flightline and center of the base. I was on a cell phone with the a freind and she pulled up to see the top of the triangles blinking light before it disapeared behind a row of trees 2 steets away. It was high up enough that I could make out all the lights it, even though it never got on top of us,but it was not way up either. I would say about the level planes fly when they are mid level in the sky. it should have been low enough to be heard! they lights moved across the sky together never geting farther or closer apart so I kow they could not be a bunch of different planes. Well my freind and I stood staring into the sky and about 2 minutes after it disapeared a red circular light came from almost exactly where I had seen the triangle last, it moving swiftly our direction. It was solid red never blinking and it was at about the same level as the triangle in height. If it was a plane It would have been audible. It flew at the same level as planes in the sky that night that were clearly heard. this is where this gets military. I am at the far end of the base and I only hear planes take off when they are fighter jets. right when the red circle was overhead of us, we heard fighter jets or jet take off, the roar is loud and unmistakeable. as soon as we heard the roar the red light just was gone, blinked out. it did not zipp off or continue flying it was just gone. like someone turned out a light. I wanted to call military authorities but then I did not want my husband to be blacklisted or something. We are not a fighter base, but my husband says we have a few for defense purposes. I think it is odd at the timing the fighter took off, and that it made the red circle go away. I have not slept all night long and i watched the news and no one said a thing. this triangle of lights was huge maybe a half mile across, and the red circle was about the size of an airplane. Large not the usual size of the blinking or non blinking lights on a aircraft, the light itself was as big as a plane. I think the red circle came from the big triangle. also odd was the fact that there were a number of airplanes in the area, so many so I commented to myself about it before this happened and then directly after it the sky in are area was completly empty. no more planes. I dont know if that is relevant or not but it stuck out at me. that the once busy sky seemed empty when these other craft arrived.