2016-01-30 - Hopkins, MN - Formation

Mulitple points of orange-colored lights moving in formation over the ground and then accelerating into space.

From the area of central Hopkins looking directly west, I observed what initially appeared to be a large display of fireworks. Since the individual points of orange-colored light did not diminish in intensity over time, and appeared to be moving towards me,

I then thought I was looking at a very large formation of individual aircraft. I then noticed that the lights continued to accelerate and move in different directions, with all of the lights accelerating upwards in the sky. At first there were about 25 individual points of light visible moving through the sky, but the individual points began to dim until only one light remained visible.

This last point of light lasted about a full minute longer than the others, and I watched it until it seemed to rise beyond 50,000 ft. in the atmosphere. There was no sound associated with these lights and no air bursts as one would expect with fireworks.

When I first noticed the grouping of lights I called my wife over to witness the event. She had the same initial perception that this seemed to be either fireworks or a formation of airplanes, but then we witnessed the lights accelerating skyward, at which point we could not rationalize what we were observing.

I captured some of these lights in a video on an iPhone.