2019-10-08 - Myrtle Beach, SC - Sphere

Red-orange lights over Myrtle Beach

I was at Myrtle Beach with my elderly mother and her two friends for the week. It was a Tuesday night on Oct. 8. The ladies were already in bed for the night and I was out on a 3rd floor hotel balcony overlooking the beach boardwalk. I was drinking bourbon at the time. It was around 23:00 and as I looks northward up the beach, I noticed Orangish Red lights in the air moving south following the beach. Weather was very cloudy and these lights were below the clouds. There was southward wind around 10 mph. as we were having poor weather last few days.

I first glance I thought all the tourist helicopters were flying down the beach with a landing or spotlight on. I though it was cool, an evening air show of sorts. But then the several lights started dropping other reddish orange lights from the bottom. Just like them but smaller. These lights descended a bit and disappeared. First thought was roman candles or flares.

I then noticed there was no sound coming from the objects. The tourist helicopters were loud, and I should be hearing them, but I wasn’t. As they drew closer. Still dropping their lights. I noticed there was no red or green wing tip lights. Just the reddish glow of the objects themselves. But still no engine noise.

As first one was in front of the hotel and myself, I noticed no white blinking tail light either. Just a spherical light at about a 45-degree angle, below the clouds. And still no noise. It was at this time I woke my mother to look and see if she was seeing what I was seeing. She started watching the event mid-way through and also wondered what they were and also noticed no sound from them. The objects were still continuing to drop other lights. This entire time. My thinking if these were flares, they would illuminate the ground or water, but didn’t. they just dropped and dissipated. They were dropping light so frequently, there would be three small lights under the main. As the forth light would drop the first would dissipate.

After 8 or 10 moved by the last one in the formation which unlike the others, was not dropping lights came by, and as they moved south disappeared into the low clouds. The objects in front were still dropping lights as I could no longer see them but the dropped lights still appeared as they fell below the clouds. This entire event lasted 4 or 5 min.

I still have no clue what I saw. I have considered drones, but cannot explain the dropping of the lights. I have considered candle balloons as they were moving south with a southern wind direction with pieces of the burning materials falling off. But the straight-line formation along with the regularity of the dropping lights discounts that to me.

I frequent airshows. I am a fan of military aviation, and I can identify aircraft as I see them fly over. Not being able to explain this is irritating to me. I do not believe in UFOs. I still don’t. However, there is video footage online that is very similar to what I saw. And I finally realized I had a cell phone to record this and I did video the last sphere as it went by. But as I said. It was not dropping lights like the others so I have no proof of that activity.

If I was to describe this in UFO terms. Foo Fighter seems to match.