2020-02-23 - Williston, VT - Formation

Precise straight line procession due East in predawn sky totalling hundreds of varying brightness star-like objects

I went out to my back porch around 5am. It was a clear starry morning. I glanced up and saw what could’ve been a satellite (60% brightness from zero to Venus). Then a second one 2.5 inches behind the first at arm’s length. But then I noticed a third, fourth, fifth; all moving in a precise straight lined procession due East. I woke up feeling quite groggy about a half hour before and thought I might just be feeling dizzy or something. I glanced toward the Eastern Horizon and could then see that the procession continued moving in a steady traffic in a perfect straight line. I swept my eyes in disbelief from the horizon to the edge of the roof above me. Heading from West directly East ,yet more continued at uniform speed in varying sizes and brightness. The flight trajectory of each light stayed on precise course but each individual unblinking silent star-like light wobbled slightly. More and more continued.At a single sweeping glance one could take in up to t! wenty five to thirty lights at once from my rooftop to the horizon. As they proceeded forward , mostly in single file but occasionally with a smaller light or lights keeping pace and flanking a single file larger light. The brightest lights were at 80% of what one would see looking at Venus. From the edge of my porch roof looking up at the steady stream coming from the West , a minimum , at conservative estimate , of ten to twelve newly appearing lights would appear per minute . I went inside feeling rather confused...I wanted to wake everyone up. I grabbed a terrible quality cell phone /video device and started whispering into it as I focused the video camera up at the procession for about two to three minutes but stopped because I felt it was not picking up the star-like lights in the dark predawn sky. The Eastern sky was starting to show the lightened approach of sunrise. I went inside after literally seeing 150 ; minimum within a fifteen minute period. I felt that this! was a spectacular event and so I went inside, turned on the m! odem ,an d my computer and then went back out on the back porch. The procession continued in its precise straight line showing the brightest lights still as they approached directly into the brightening Eastern sky. At that time I watched the last in line following the long trail of moving lights. No more continued. I went back inside expecting perhaps to see others posting reaction or even news headlines about this event. It was truly a spectacular procession like some mass exodus out over the sea from a “Star Wars” movie. With decades of experience closely watching many other jets , airplanes , satellites , natural phenomena I could estimate from the perspective and speed of the straight lined procession that the lights were less than ten miles up. It was truly a spectacular display.Had it been going on all night ? I only caught it in mid progress after an unknown amount of time since commencement. There could have easily been eight hundred visible lights ( who knows how many very ! small ones only viewable through binoculars?) per hour all in that perfect straight line travelling due Eastout to sea if they had been as uniformly spaced and paced within my fifteen minute count ( overall viewing approx. half hour ).