2004-12-07 - Midwest U. S., OH - Unknown

Airline pilots see strange lights approaching((City name deleted))

I'm an airline pilot and have been flying a total of 26 years. On a flight from ((city name deleted)) on the evening of 12-07-04 ; 21:45 local time, we were approximately 150nm to the northeast of cvg at flight level 310. Just prior to begining our descent, I noticed 3 lights at our 11 to 12 o'clock postion. There was an overcast layer of clouds way down below topping at 8000 feet and crisp clear moonless sky above. The lights caught my attention because they were moving unlike those of commercial aircraft. I immediately assumed they were military and thought they might be flying in the area of Buckeye MOA. I was on with Indy center and asked them if Buckeye was hot and they said that no aircraft were in there tonight. I continued to watch the lights and their movements as we descended. I checked on with the next Indy "low" sector and asked this new controller if Buckeye was hot and "No" was again the answer. I then began to describe to the controller the lights that we were seeing and their movements and direction from our postion. Another airline pilot on the frequency backed up my description. The lights would periodically move vertically very rapidly down then back up to a hover. The lights would line up at an equal distance apart in this hover parallel to the horizon. The strangest thing that I saw was that all three lights then moved horizontally a small distance in unison. I thought that maybe I was staring too long and it was my eyes causing the movement that most people will experience when they stare at a star for instance. The star might appear to move or drift if stared at too long. So, I looked away at the fixed cloud deck below but kept the lights in my poriferal vision. They still moved. I tested my vision again looking repeatedly away in different directions and confirmed that they were all moving together in unison. Then occasionally one light would be brighter than the others and then fade. At one point they all disappeared for a couple of minutes and then all reappeared together. There were also times when only one or two lights were visible at one time as well. They were not commercial aircraft and not military aircraft in formation as I know what they look like. Also, at 150nm from cvg, it looked as though the lights were in the vicintiy of cvg but as we got closer to our destination, we could see that they were much further away in the distance and so I could not even guess on their range. Again, the most striking characteristics were the movements in unison and the high velocity they appeared to have whether it was vertical or horizontal. I've never seen any aircraft do that, military or otherwise in all my years of flying.