Odessa, TX

I have more than one event to report, but I will do them seperately and chronilogically. The first event I remember occurred in either the summer of 1975 or 1976. My husband (at the time)and I shared a common interest in things like weather-watching, storm-chasing and skywatching in general. We had driven to a remote area Southwest of Odessa, Texas to a place on the Caprock that was an excellent skywatching spot. There are many radio, and television transmitters strung for miles along this caprock. We had driven to a spot where the line of towers was behind us by probably 5 miles at most. We were in his small convertible sports car.....an old, tiny mid-engine Porsche.........and we were sitting on the tops of our seats where they met with the frame of the car. There was no back seat to this car, and it was like a T-top. I don't remember how long we had been watching the sky, when one of us spotted what at first looked like it might be a satellite...........reminded me of a moving star. No blinking or twinkling to speak of, no changes in intensity. We first noticed it in the northwest, and it was moving slowly but steadily. across the sky towards the Southwest. We became convinced it was a satellite within about 30 seconds, and at this point, it was in the center of our field of vision (almost due West). If you think in terms of inches, it was about 12 inches above the horizon at that point we came aware of another identical light moving from the Southeast along the same horizontal plane. We both then began to scan the entire sky almost instinctively, and immediately became aware that there were numerous lights coming from several directions, including directly overhead . I remember at this point I was extremely excited and we were both shouting expletives and I was saying over and over, Whaat is going on, now.............come on, what the hell is happening and him saying Wait, wait, look over here and oh crap there's another one. They finally had us convinced that they were going to collide and I remember how intense the feeling was that we were about to witness an explosion of! some ki nd...........but instead, as they got closer to each other, they slowed a bit, all at the same rate, and all stopped instantly, where then you saw what was either six or eight spots of light in a circle, equidistant from each other. Then they began to flash independently but in an organized sequence that then gave an impression of an octagon or six-pointed star. It was like if you drew dots on a piece of paper and then connected the dots so that the shape was revealed. However, It seemed that the area within the dots was not obscured. You could see the night sky within the area formed by the dots. After about maybe 30 seconds to a minute (I have never been sure about how much time went by) they stopped flashing, one at a time, as if each had to complete a sequence, then they were gone for a couple of seconds, then all lit up at once, and began to increase in brightness, and then began to glow red, and then streaked off in all 6 or eight directions, leaving trails that reminded me of meteors on fast-forward but disappeared before traveling halfway across the sky. As we sat there with our mouths hanging open, I was crying in wonder more that fear. About 10 seconds maybe, after they disappeared, we heard what sounded like a sonic boom and a flash that lit up the whole sky for a split second, brightest at the horizon. Only in retrospect can a say that the flash reminds me of what I have seen in films of nuclear bombs.......the first flash. I can remember us jumping off the car and each lighting cigarettes and just standing there smoking and looking at the sky and not speaking, me crying. Then we put the top back on the car and headed home. I remember the drive from our location to the highway, but I don't remember anything else about getting home. My next memory was going to work the next day and telling my boss and co-workers about it, and being ridiculed about it for weeks afterward. My ex-husband and I stayed friends and had other skywatching adventures, but only eclipses and meteor showers. I cannot remember us talking about it to each other in anything but a round-about way, except for a couple of times, between the event and when I moved to Tulsa in 1980. I had very little contact with him from then until 1985, when I had been back in West Texas about a year. I attempted to ask him about the subject, and he said he didn't remember the details very well. I sensed an even greater reluctance to discuss it when we talked again about 3 years ago.