2020-04-02 - Beaumont, TX - Light

We live in town, Beaumont TX so light pollution normally creates adverse sky viewing even if it’s a clear night and no moon.

I was in are back yard at about 9PM moving a bicycle back to our storage room off the garage. It’s a nice dark spot and looking up I noticed I could see the stars really well and the moon was also almost directly overhead. So looking up at the moon and also scanning the western sky just for the heck of it- I happened to see what I at first thought was a passenger plane. I watched it for a second and thought it was interesting because I could not distinguish any flashing from the aviation lights. It also seemed to be travelling about double speed from a standard plane at cruising altitude. Even with that I just kept looking around at the stars and didn’t really think anything was that abnormal. Then, I noticed another one following the first light – in the exact same path and exact same speed. There was a good distance between them. At this point I had been staring up approximately 30 seconds. By the time the first light went out of view to my left (behind some large ! trees in our yard) I could see a third light coming into view from my right. Same path- same speed- same distance apart- same light brightness (about the same brightness as a medium star). So in my viewing field of the sky, I could see 3 of these lights at one time…..like a train here came two more and decided to run in the house to get the wife . She came out and was able to see the last 3 as the came by. The last one we watched as it was almost out of view to our left, my wife said it just vanished. I myself did not see it go out as I was looking to see if there were more coming. I could have sworn I saw a steak of light from that direction also. It was a super calm night – no jet noise could be heard. Maybe satellites? I don’t really think so, never seen any in train formation like that before.