2012-12-25 - Amherst, NY - Light

Silent orange lights, initially traveling horizontally, and then rose vertically till they disappeared.

Before I start, Thank You Peter for the forum you provide.

I left a Christmas gathering a few minutes past 8:00pm and once outside noticed an orange light with an occasional “halo” effect that could be seen as it got closer. I could not see the “halo” part the whole time; it kind of flickered a bit, but the bright bottom was illuminated steadily. I only saw one light at first. It was silent and its movement seemed directional, not as if it were just drifting.

I went back in and called others to come out and see (7 people in total). The first light was still there and I then saw two additional lights behind it, all having the same general characteristics (atypical from SkyLanterns, as the “structure” above was not always visible). They seemed to be traveling on a “flat plane” at the same general altitude (guess-timated at 500 ft.) and then when they were over the property where we were standing, they seemed to go straight up, with the lights becoming smaller until they disappeared (possibly through the cloud cover). There was no further additional travel to the west, just seemingly “up” above the house and then out of sight. All in all, the lights were visible for about 3 minutes maximum. Roughly 2/3 of this time was in “flat planar” travel and 1/3 in what appeared to be vertical travel.

While outside watching, I heard the reaction of neighbors to the left who were also observing, and their tone was of excited confusion. (A bit of "What IS that?" in excited speech). I could not hear all of what was being said however.

When I got home and had the opportunity to check weather stats from a local media weather site (WIVB ~9:20pm), the winds were noted as 4mph E on the site’s front-page, and 0 mph calm N in their "Current Conditions" section. Precipitation reflection on radar (for upper level winds) showed a very slow trend from north to south in direction.

I checked additional stats taken from another weather website - (Visibility 10.0 miles, Clouds Few 2800 ft Overcast 3900 ft (Wunderground) 10:55pm) I also checked local news websites and their individual reporting forums for any type of chatter about sky sightings but didn’t find anything. Still curious, I went back outside several times, not expecting to see anything, but saw another orange light southwest over Main St. at 8:59pm, and then saw a grouping of 4 others “behind” the first, to the south (guess-timated at 800 ft.). I lost track of the first, but they all came from the south traveling north and then seemed to angle west northwest and begin to go more vertically (~65 degree elevation from horizon). They then followed this trajectory slowly to the cloud cover and disappeared. The bright lights that were their primary composition would become smaller and smaller, although with similar brightness, as it elevated (counterintuitive to a flame in a SkyLantern exhausting itself), and it seemed to me that they were breaking through the cloud barrier.

The group of 4 moved somewhat randomly although all in the same (very distinct) direction. All were going to the same area in the distance, but moving in and around each other in getting there. There was then noticed that there was one straggler about 30 seconds behind. The group of 4 was almost gone when I noticed the last. This last one followed the same general trajectory, although it did seem to stay illuminated longer. Possibly due to height variance in cloud cover? These lights seemed to have the same longevity as the first group noticed at about 8:05pm, at least in terms of proportion. They were seemingly 2/3 “planar” motion and 1/3 more vertical motion.

In total, the first group had 3 lights (1, then 2 following) at around 8:05pm and the later group had 6 in total (1, then 4, then 1) at ~9:00pm. Land distance between the two sightings was about 1.5 mi. The first group traveled from east to west then roughly at a 90 degree altitude straight up (total time observed – about 3 minutes), and then the second group from south to north then WNW at ~65 degree altitude (total time observed – about 5 minutes). I have seen nothing since. (I checked off-and-on till about 12:30am that night) I saw nothing great through binoculars either. I only had a good look at the last light in the second group, and its size did not change to any great degree—maybe it was too distant.

Thanks again Peter for the good work that you do.