2007-08-06 - Texarkana, AR

Inexplicable bright lights and moving objects

Event date: 08/06/2007 Time of occurrence: between 10:30 P.M. and 11:00 P.M.
Location: Southwest Arkansas (approx. 10 miles south of Texarkana)

A friend and I were sitting on his front patio conversing when over his shoulder I saw a somewhat red/white light appear above the horizon in the eastern/southeastern sky moving at a 45 degree angle and then the light became a series of 3-4 white rectangular lights that appeared in a stepwise fashion, each bright light burning for a second and fading. My friend could tell from my reaction to the initial lights that something was unusual, so he turned in time to see the last couple of bright lights burning/fading. We were astonished and confused. He said, “Maybe it was fireworks.” I disagreed. Within seconds another series of 3-4 bright white rectangular lights burned in a periodic, stepwise manner further north in the sky. This scenario continued with the lights sometimes burning at angles, thus appearing diamond shaped, sometimes flatter and rectangular. One time the lights appeared and did not fade before the next appeared; this left an angled series of five or six bright, white, diamond-shaped lights that illuminated and faded in 2-3 seconds.

Star-like points of light also appeared and remained illuminated for long stretches of time as they moved in random paths in the sky. It was difficult to determine how many of these points of light were moving simultaneously in different parts of the night sky, but I would estimate four at one point. The aforementioned large, bright, white lights seemed to originate from these point of light, which were like fast moving stars. The points of light would change direction haphazardly. I was watching one of these points of light that appeared in the direction of Cassiopeia and headed southward in the sky very quickly when my friend said there was another further south moving toward yet another one that was slowly moving, then seemed to become stationary as the other light approached it; these two lights converged and disappeared for a split second only to reappear as a single bright, white light that moved away very fast.

There were airplanes in the clear sky on this evening, and they were easy to distinguish with their flashing red lights and straight paths in the sky. It was difficult to gauge the distance to these lights against the night sky, however the distance seemed significant from our perspective. One of these starlike points moved so rapidly across the sky it had to have been moving extremely fast and been a little closer, but it was the tiniest pinpoint of light and still seemed quite a distance away. We had an open view to much of the horizon, and the activity occurred in a range from the horizon to approximately 30-40 degrees above the horizon. After we had witnessed a few of these lights I went upstairs to get my friend’s wife and her sister to have them witness these lights. They stuck their heads out the upstairs window and saw a round and said, "Cool," then returned to their movie, not as impressed as we were.

My friend is an agriculture pilot in that area; I am a Registered Nurse, with multiple science degrees and way too many generic science classes taken over the years. We are not crazy; we were not intoxicated; and I would hesitate to tell too many people. But we did see these unusual things in the sky, and I am sure there’s some rational governmental explanation, and I would love to hear it!