2007-07-05 - Ralston, NE - Light

Ten starlike objects seen in daylight just s of Omaha - most stationary but some moved various directions

Sighting of ten starlike points of light objects in daytime sky just sse of overhead Ralston, Nebraska (suburb town on southwest side of Omaha). Sighting lasted about 10 minutes beginning at about 8pm CDT on Thursday, 5 July 2007.

I was sitting in a lawn chair outdoors at a swing and big band concert offered by the city in downtown Ralston facing south. The crowd was of about 75 was mainly made up of people in their 50s to 70s years of age and some in front of me began pointing up to the daytime cloudless sky, and I looked up to at first see five bright silver starlike points of light in the sky stationary and in a zigzag like pattern. Within minutes I counted 7 and then I counted 9 and then 10 in all stationary across the sky of various intensities and all silver in color except one fainter one which had a reddish tint. None blinked or pulsated but looked more like how Venus currently looks in the western sky vs a twinkling star affect.

Since the sun was low on the horizon, the brightness appeared to be reflection. Knowing how bright the International Space Station can be after sunset when its orbit is just right and how bright satellites can be in the early evening, these objects could have been at a very high altitude and hence could have been seen across a widespread area and hopefully others have seen something similar.

The lights were not evenly spread out but some were alone and some were in somewhat close groups of two or three in no particular pattern. After about 5 minutes, three of the lights moved in all different directions and the group farthest to the southeast made a tight triangle around the reddish light. After a few more minutes, in this same area, four lights moved close to one another to form a rough letter C.

About ten minutes after first seeing this strange event, a high flying aircraft flew across the sky from east to west and when it did, coincidentally all but one of the lights vanished and by the time the airplane crossed that area to the west, the last light was gone as well.

I did not have nor did I see anyone there with a camera or video equipment to record this event.

I saw no more starlike items in the sky until after sunset an hour and a half later when Venus was visible and by 9:45 several of the brighter stars came out as normal.

I am familiar with planes and satellites and what I saw was not those. I am familiar with the brightness of white-breasted geece flying and how the sun can reflect off them and what they look like and what I saw was not birds. I have always been interested in astronomy and earth sciences and am a meteorologist by profession. I have never seen an object in the sky I could not reasonably identify until late Thursday the 5th. I made a report to the Omaha World Herald news tip line an hour after the event and they said no one had called about the lights but they would check with the Ralston Police Dept (I had not notified them, just the newspaper).

I came across your website today with the phone number and called. No one at work on Friday when I posted an e-mail on the bulletin board responded as having seen it and I took a good bit of ribbing about it.


((NUFORC Note: We express our gratitude to the individual who submitted this excellent report. He describes his background, which clearly qualifies him as an excellent witness, who should be quite familiar with observation of the sky. PD))