2013-01-20 - Lawrence, KS - Other

2 brightly lit craft with banks of lights seen after dark within ten minutes of each other in similar flightpath.

I was driving to pick my girlfriend up from work on E-7 HWY when from the S side, over a ridge, came a very bright craft with a bank of lights unlike anything I'd ever seen. Sunset had been just about 18:30. As it was turning to go N, it banked and the bank of lights turned with it. It looked like one quarter of the lights from the ships from Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind. I assume these were entirely terrestrial, but am including this report in case any others saw them. We were under wind advisory conditions and I can attest to 40-45 MPH winds and this would be a mean feat for any aircraft, especially lighter than air ones as these must have been. They were going too slowly to have been regular planes and almost looked as if they were some kind of advertising gimmick. I should note there is no military flight path nor event center I know of for miles. I followed this craft with the eye until I could no longer see it. I picked up my girlfriend (waiting about ten minutes) and immediately told her about the sighting. As we went back toward W HWY-10, another craft, exactly the same, came over the crest and I had to stop the car to give her a good look at it. Wind gusts were really getting high now, but the highly-lit craft (mostly white) with its bank of very bright lights took a similar flight plan and didn't seem to notice. No effects on car, radiation or otherwise. It did not occur to me to try to take video of either craft, if I had been very alert, along with traffic, I might have gotten blurry video that may have looked like a very new type of aircraft.