2012-09-08 - Charlottesville, VA - Light

Orange lights near Monticello, Charlottesville, VA

I was traveling eastbound on State Route 250/Richmond Road. The sky was shrouded in cloud cover and no stars or moon were visible. I was passing a stone quarry on the right side of the road (facing south) when I saw approximately 20 orange-colored lights in a vertical formation in the sky beyond the quarry area. Geographically, the area below the lights is uninhabited; since all the land beyond the quarry is part of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s estate. This property is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I continued to see the orange lights intermittently as I drove (dense trees blocked my view), then I turned on to County Road 729/N. Milton Road and pulled into a the school parking lot. I saw 3-4 of the lights only by that time. As I watched with another observer who had arrived there shortly before I had, there were 3 lights that moved slowly upwards and towards each other. Then they faded from view.

The other observer I spoke to stated he had made several attempts to photograph the lights on his phone, but though he could capture other lights nearby, there was no image when he tried to photograph the orange lights. He stated he had also traveled east on Rte 250 and he had also seen the 20 orange lights in formation as I had seen them a few minutes earlier. There were also 2 tour buses idling in the parking lot, but I did not check to see if the drivers were present or had witnessed the event