Bright lights following an aircraft and then rapidly changing directions and disappearing.
On my daily commute to work I, I generally see a scheduled flight coming in to the Range Regional Airport. On this particular morning, I noticed the inbound when they turned on the landing lights in preparation for landing. Navigation lights were also visible. Then I noticed a second inbound. About 4-5 miles behind the first and appeared to be on the same glide slope.
The second inbound was surprising to me because it’s a small regional airport. Then I noticed the second inbound looked a bit “off”. The landing lights were much brighter than normal and were vertically oriented rather than horizontal. I momentarily took my eyes off the second to watch the road and follow the first aircraft disappear below the horizon as they were on short final for the airport. I concentrated on the second inbound to try and determine what it was. After a few seconds of watching it still following along the approach lane for the airport, it was about 5 miles out in front of me when the lights dimmed a bit. That’s when i noticed it appeared to be a cylinder or a rectangular shape with lights on the top and bottom. The lights came back up and it translated straight up.
It went to 30,000 + feet in a second or two then bolted off due west and was out of sight in less than 3 seconds. Well beyond the capabilities of known aircraft. Total time I watched this was about 3 minutes. Please note, I work part time for MNDNR forestry as an aerial observer spotting wild land fires over this area.
On my daily commute to work I, I generally see a scheduled flight coming in to the Range Regional Airport. On this particular morning, I noticed the inbound when they turned on the landing lights in preparation for landing. Navigation lights were also visible. Then I noticed a second inbound. About 4-5 miles behind the first and appeared to be on the same glide slope.
The second inbound was surprising to me because it’s a small regional airport. Then I noticed the second inbound looked a bit “off”. The landing lights were much brighter than normal and were vertically oriented rather than horizontal. I momentarily took my eyes off the second to watch the road and follow the first aircraft disappear below the horizon as they were on short final for the airport. I concentrated on the second inbound to try and determine what it was. After a few seconds of watching it still following along the approach lane for the airport, it was about 5 miles out in front of me when the lights dimmed a bit. That’s when i noticed it appeared to be a cylinder or a rectangular shape with lights on the top and bottom. The lights came back up and it translated straight up.
It went to 30,000 + feet in a second or two then bolted off due west and was out of sight in less than 3 seconds. Well beyond the capabilities of known aircraft. Total time I watched this was about 3 minutes. Please note, I work part time for MNDNR forestry as an aerial observer spotting wild land fires over this area.
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Off
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
Chisholm
USA
2 minutes
2 minutes
47.50
-92.86
cylinder
MN
Occurred : 9/11/2020 05:15 (Entered as : 09/11/20 05:15) Reported: 9/13/2020 7:31:55 PM 19:31 Posted: 11/5/2020 Location: Chisholm, MN Shape: Cylinder Duration: 2 minutes Characteristics: There were lights on the object, There were aircraft in the vicinity or aircraft chasing the object
Bright lights following an aircraft and then rapidly changing directions and disappearing.