2019-06-20 - Hixton, WI - Light

low fast moving blinking light that dropped 5-6 very bright balls that fell into woods

6/20/19 2138 CST approx location 44 deg. 25' 17.6" N 91 deg. 03' 20.7" W https://goo.gl/maps/mdpPK5BSAKmg4NPB7 I was driving my semi truck I-94 eastbound, I was approx 3 miles northwest of Hixton, WI. Off to the right edge of my windshield I noticed a flashing light come into my field of view. It was traveling from my right side to the left, its direction of travel was to the north-east. Because I was traveling 70mph down the hwy I could tell its distance from me was less than a mile, when I first saw it to the end I had gained distance on it and it seemed closer than at the beginning.

So the light was pulsing in a binary condition, meaning full on and fully off at about 4-5Hz (times a sec), and the on period was the same as the off period, it wasn't like the flash strobe of an airplane where you have the quick flash, then long off period and the quick flash again. The light stayed the same throughout the sighting.

The path of the light went pretty much horizontally from my right, over above the field to the right of the hwy, crossed over the hwy and over to the left side of the highway over some wooded area roughly 1/2mi off the hwy taking approx 4-5 seconds, it was moving very quickly. It was very low the entire time, I estimate it to be below 500ft. My work base is very close to MSN airport and I see air traffic everyday at low altitude, I also know it is against the rules to fly that low (below 500ft agl) without a really good reason. While the light was to my left just over the wooded area 5-6 bright lights dropped from the original flashing light, this took less then a second. These lights were constantly lit and they seemed to fall strait down until they were now obscured by the trees in the forest.

I am now watching this from my side window, with the window down. Almost immediately after the lights dropped, the original flashing light turns its direction of travel to near vertical and keeps climbing until it looks like it goes into the clouds and I cant see it anymore. The 90 degree turn was very quick and it didn't appear to be in an arc at all, it was just suddenly going up. During this time its so close I had to stick my head out the window to look up to keep it in my sight.

During this whole thing I'm thinking this is an F-16, and I try to hear the engine, and I should have been able to see the glow of the exhaust. I don't hear anything or see the exhaust, I've been to a few airshows and when jets go into a vertical climb it is very loud below it, and their pretty much giving it full throttle to maintain that climb. I also know that I can hear F-16's taking off while I'm driving my truck with the windows rolled up as it is quite a frequent occurrence when I am driving near MSN/Truax field. I watch them takeoff at night sometimes and they always have a white strobe and their red/green wing lights along with orange glowing exhaust.

After I couldn't hear the engine, that's when I realized I needed to note the time and my location. I knew Volk field was somewhat near so that night I looked it up, turns out its actually over 55mi from where I was. Google maps sat view only shows farm fields, no bombing ranges. And if it was a jet fighter dropping flares, why was it flying a few hundred feet above hilly ground dropping flares into a wooded patch in a farmers field surrounded by farm houses less then a mile away from an interstate highway in near pitch dark.