2010-04-23 - Stillwater, MN - Sphere

A strange glowing / pulsating colored light was observed in the skys along with a jet that seemed to intercept it

On April 23, 2010 at approximately 1:45 AM my wife and I watched a strange light in the sky for approximately 30 minutes before it slowly disappeared.  I was working overnight in the office downstairs when my wife called me upstairs to take a look at strange light that appeared across a nature preserve that we live on behind our house.  It was a glowing, pulsating light that randomly changed colors (red, green, orange, blue) without following any particular pattern. Every so often we could make out a white jolt of light that seemed to project out from the object in random directions (quickly like lightning). The object was brighter than anything else in the sky and mostly hovered in one spot but also moved from side to side.  At first, the light / object was large and did not seem to be very far away and I was almost sure that it was a strange type of lit up helicopter searching for something on the ground. I opened the window expecting to hear the engine! and was very surprised to find that it was dead silent outside.   I worked as a professional photographer for a few years and have all pro level equipment. I asked my wife to grab my camera (a Canon 5D digital SLR with 70-200 L 2.8 IS lens), tripod, and shutter release cable while I kept my eye on the light. I wanted to try to get a long exposure that showed the path of the light over time. Just as I got everything setup and settings dialed in, my newly charged batteries went completely dead.  I asked my wife to try to find some other batteries while I kept my eye on the light. As time went on, the light seemed to be dissipating and was getting smaller as if it was traveling away from us.

I was also scanning the sky for anything else out of the ordinary and saw a high flying jet moving overhead. The jet turned slightly and headed DIRECTLY toward the light.  We were watching as the jet approached. My wife returned with new batteries and I took a 30 second exposure with my shutter release cable (no camera movement) with the jet approaching the light in the same frame. At this point the light was very distant and just looked like a bright star.

As soon as the path of the jet overlapped and intersected the light, I expected to see the jet continue on it’s trajectory, bypassing the light in the sky. I was absolutely startled when the jet disappeared completely from sight at the exact same time that it intersected the light. It was as if the pilot shut off the strobe lights at the exact same time.  There were no clouds in the sky so I'm certain it did not go behind a cloud.

After analyzing the image, one would tend to discredit the image since the light appears to follow the exact same trajectory as the stars as the jet is approaching. However, before the image was taken, the light was much closer, much brighter, and clearly traveled in multiple directions in the sky.