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Texas-05-15-08-
I was standing on back porch (faces easterly) at home near DFW (three miles to east) Airport, allowing pet free roam of yard for a break. Sky was overcast, ceiling was variable that evening. Noticed what I presumed to be landing lights on an incoming (to DFW) aircraft low on my horizon (top of fence line) to the north-northeast traveling left to right in my field of view and a separate, unidentified group of lights at a higher inclination (around 40 degrees) off to the east-northeast.
This unusual second group of lights consisted of two equivalent sub-groups, one appearing "ahead of" (smaller and below) the other. Each subgroup consisted of five (or more) squarish emitters aligned horizontally (a width to height ratio around five) that would cyclically pulse in luminance scanning from left to right (approx. 2hz 50% duty cycle). At any one time the light emitted from any particular emitter appeared predominantly white, color would vary from pulse to pulse and was at times quite monochromatic. Approximately at the center of the horizontal bar described previously, was a slightly "lower" red/orange more point-like emitter, the pulses from which appeared unsynchronized with the horizontal pulse trains. No structure could be discerned, only these lights (assumed embedded in cloud cover), and the two subgroups remained in tight alignment as they moved right to left in my field of view in a northerly direction. Within a minute or two, the quite bright (when flashing) (relative to the ambient light reflected from the cloud ceiling) ensemble had diminished in scale and brightness and became visible only by moving my eyes about to catch a flash in my peripheral vision. Unable to see any structure, I presumed I was looking at two objects flying in exacting formation away from my position on a constant northerly heading at a constant altitude just west of DFW airport. Individually or together, the lighting schemes made no sense in that they did not conform to FAA guidelines for navigation lights or emergency beacons. The rigid alignment between the two subgroups gave me the eerie impression that these strips of lights were at opposing ends and perhaps on the underside of a rather large rectilinear object (longer than wide in the direction of travel). Rather large would be an understatement if the METAR reported cloud ceiling (4600' - 5000') for that evening is accurate: METAR KDFW 160153Z 01006KT 10SM BKN046 19/12 A3001 RMK AO2 SLP156 T01940117 METAR KDFW 160353Z 36004KT 10SM FEW050 SCT300 18/12 A3004 RMK AO2 SLP167 T01830117 I believe the time was approximately 0900CST. See attached illustration (apologies for the poor sketch). source & references: MUFON Submitter 10774 |