A cluster formation of red blinking lights, moving in various directions, until they blinked out was seen in the eastern sky.
Our house is on high elevation in Lorton. We overlook the Mason Neck area. We can see everything from 1-95 freeway to South East Lorton, all the way out to the Potomac River. Left to right in that line of sight are the areas of Ft. Belvoir Army Base, to Mason Neck/Woodbridge area on the right. It's about a 5 mile distance to the river.
Tonight was an overcast evening. I was watching TV with my husband and I looked out the window that faces the river and saw what I thought was at first a reflection. I kept staring at it, wondering why it looked like Christmas lights, because the roof of the house behind us isn't that high (and it was July!). These red lights reflected in the mirror behind me as well.
We both got up to check it out, went out on the deck and saw what appeared to be a formation of lights over the area of the Potomac River. There must have been 2 dozen at first, and slowly as we watched, they all blinked off until there were none.
The lights were red, sometimes white, all traveling left, right, and up (and sometimes slightly downward). Some blinked brightly, others stayed red. I told my husband, I felt like I was looking at the milky way, but it was impossible because we never see more than a few stars at night around here, and with the overcast skies, it didn't make sense. But that is what I could compare it to.
I ran inside to get my phone and was able to get one picture. You can see about 9-12 lights above the roofline when I over-expose the image in photoshop. I took 3 videos, only one slightly turned out. It's totally black except towards the end of the less than a minute video, where you can see a few red lights. I'm going to see if I can take it into my video software and lighten it up.
After the lights went away, we watched an airplane fly in the same area, horizontally, right to left, then turn and fly right over our house. I caught most of that on video as well. We live near the flight path of Ft. Belvoir, but rarely do these planes fly at night, and they usually don't go over our house, but stay on the other side of 95. Coincidentally (?) police helicopters flew over our area for the 20 minutes afterwards that I was out and about. That's not unusual, seeing as we live along the i-95 corridor, in the busy suburbs.
I don't know what we saw. It could have been a wedding that released chinese lanterns. I've actually never seen those lanterns in the sky before, but there is NO breeze tonight at all. It's hot and still and humid, so I don't know why they would be moving all over if they were lanterns. Just my opinion.
We are both 42 year old professional people with a family. I am well known in the community. That's about all I'm willing to put in writing.
Our house is on high elevation in Lorton. We overlook the Mason Neck area. We can see everything from 1-95 freeway to South East Lorton, all the way out to the Potomac River. Left to right in that line of sight are the areas of Ft. Belvoir Army Base, to Mason Neck/Woodbridge area on the right. It's about a 5 mile distance to the river.
Tonight was an overcast evening. I was watching TV with my husband and I looked out the window that faces the river and saw what I thought was at first a reflection. I kept staring at it, wondering why it looked like Christmas lights, because the roof of the house behind us isn't that high (and it was July!). These red lights reflected in the mirror behind me as well.
We both got up to check it out, went out on the deck and saw what appeared to be a formation of lights over the area of the Potomac River. There must have been 2 dozen at first, and slowly as we watched, they all blinked off until there were none.
The lights were red, sometimes white, all traveling left, right, and up (and sometimes slightly downward). Some blinked brightly, others stayed red. I told my husband, I felt like I was looking at the milky way, but it was impossible because we never see more than a few stars at night around here, and with the overcast skies, it didn't make sense. But that is what I could compare it to.
I ran inside to get my phone and was able to get one picture. You can see about 9-12 lights above the roofline when I over-expose the image in photoshop. I took 3 videos, only one slightly turned out. It's totally black except towards the end of the less than a minute video, where you can see a few red lights. I'm going to see if I can take it into my video software and lighten it up.
After the lights went away, we watched an airplane fly in the same area, horizontally, right to left, then turn and fly right over our house. I caught most of that on video as well. We live near the flight path of Ft. Belvoir, but rarely do these planes fly at night, and they usually don't go over our house, but stay on the other side of 95. Coincidentally (?) police helicopters flew over our area for the 20 minutes afterwards that I was out and about. That's not unusual, seeing as we live along the i-95 corridor, in the busy suburbs.
I don't know what we saw. It could have been a wedding that released chinese lanterns. I've actually never seen those lanterns in the sky before, but there is NO breeze tonight at all. It's hot and still and humid, so I don't know why they would be moving all over if they were lanterns. Just my opinion.
We are both 42 year old professional people with a family. I am well known in the community. That's about all I'm willing to put in writing.
No
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
No
Off
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
Lorton
USA
3 minutes
3 minutes
38.70
-77.20
formation
VA
Occurred : 7/19/2013 21:40 (Entered as : 07/19/13 21:40) Reported: 7/19/2013 7:57:43 PM 19:57 Posted: 7/22/2013 Location: Lorton, VA Shape: Formation Duration: 3 minutes Characteristics: There were lights on the object, The object changed color, There were aircraft in the vicinity or aircraft chasing the object
A cluster formation of red blinking lights, moving in various directions, until they blinked out was seen in the eastern sky.