2005-11-02 - Oblong, IL - Formation

pulsating row of 4-5 very bright lights in SW sky (southern IL), Triangle of 3 lights of same intensity, also small pulsing orbs

At approximately 8:10 p.m. this evening (11-02-05) my husband and I were on our way into town to grab a late supper. We live in a very rural area, with no city lights to obstruct the night sky view and it was perfectly clear this evening so every star seemed visible.

As soon as we pulled out of our driveway and headed south we saw 4-5 VERY bright lights in a row at about 45 degrees up from the horizon in the south western night sky. We noticed them at the same time and simultaneously we said to each other "What the h--- is that?"

The lights were in a row and glowing very brightly, probably 5x the brightness of the brightest planet/star in the sky. They were so bright that we thought at first someone was shooting off fireworks somehwere south of us. But it only took a second to realize that these lights were standing still, in a row.

We stopped the truck and got out to see better as soon as we saw them.

Suddenly they began to move slowly to the west in this manner: the light to the far left end of the row of lights would fade completely out and a new light would appear to the right end of the line and then the last one on the left would fade, then a new one appear to the right end of the line. It kind of snaked its way along like that for about a minute.

Then, we saw three more lights of equal brightness forming what appeared to be a large triangle formation around the first group of lights, but at a distance. These lights glowed brightly, then dimmed completely out, then glowed brightly again, then dimmed completely out.

After about 4 repetitions, all the lights diappeared, then the sky in the area they had been in was filled with random sparkles of light, much smaller then the first lights.

After about another 30 seconds we saw a single bright light identical to the first ones more to the south and higher in the sky. It got very bright then dimmed completely out probably 3 times before disappearing.

Then we spotted another one, this time in the west, about 70 degrees up from the horizon. Same bright light, exact same intensity, same glowing and dimming pattern. After about three reps it, too, faded completely out and we saw more of the small sparkles.

At first I thought 'meteor shower' but meteors don't come in in lines, nor fade and glow over and over, do they? The last set of sparkles took on a pattern, like: 3 blinks, no blinks, 3 blinks, no blinks, and moved in a very randam, almost haphazard pattern. It was too weird.

This all took place in about a five minute time span.

We got back in the truck, going on and on to each other about how cool and weird that was. We headed east toward town and I spotted another light, exact same brilliance, to the southwest again, same dimming and glowing pattern, then disappearing. And again, after it disappeared, there were two sparkly lights, doing the 3x blink pattern.

I have never seen anything like this before, and would welcome any sensible explanation!

We saw several airplane lights in the sky at the same time, as we alwasy do at night, but they were obviously just that, airplanes, blinking, moving slowly across the sky.

These things were NOT airplanes.