Published: 11:26 AM 12/9/2009

California - 07-08-09

I witnessed three orb-like objects in the sky during July over Santa Rosa, California. As I was walking downtown that evening, sometime between 7:45 and 8:15 on what I believe was July 8, I looked up into the sky, as it was a rather clear evening.

I was located between Brookwood and E Street in a small one block residential strip before the downtown area, headed West. I was struck immediately by the color of three spherical lights traveling in a triangular formation in the sky headed East.

The lights were of a luminous orange-red color and seemed to be flickering, as from the inside, with a yellowish tinge. It is best described as a flicker, as the lights did not blink; there was absolutely no blinking involved. Primarily I likened the lights/orbs to red balloons with a candle in the center.

Upon seeing the lights, I froze to observe them, as they continued to fly in formation to the East. Before passing over me, I was surprised as the two rear lights, which essentially formed the "base" of the isosceles triangle formation, peeled off showing independent movement not only from the leading object of the formation, but also from one another in the process, and they began heading toward the North.

I continued to focus on the two northern bound lights as they continued in that direction and seemed to ascend until completely out of sight. It was then, that I turned my attention back to the other orb/light, as it continued Eastward bound.

By this time, it had passed over my position, and I had turned my body toward the East in order to observe it. It continued East, made a slight deviation toward the North, and it too ascended into the sky until out of view.

This event lasted 40 seconds at the most. It was absolutely silent all of the while.

The orbs were extremely luminous and they were very visible in the night sky. They appeared as striking as Jupiter (this season) in the night sky in contrast with the other celestial objects. The orbs had a depth-like quality to them, which is why I use the word luminous.

There are many reasons why the lights cannot be explained. I am extremely used to helicopters in the area, as Memorial Hospital, which was less than a 1/4 of a mile to the East of the event, is where the Life-Alert helicopters fly patients in. I do not live far from the hospital, and so I am familiar with what they look like in the night sky, what they sound like, and how low they are in altitude as they are landing at the hospital. They were not helicopters.

In addition, I am also familiar with Leer jets and other small planes that are seen over Santa Rosa's skies, although not often. I was able to see that the orbs were not on aircraft, but were airborne themselves, and they did not appear to behave like or look like anything I have ever seen before or since.

I was armed with an unsophisticated cell phone camera, but I did not take a picture, as I was entranced by the lights themselves, fearful that if I looked away they'd be gone, and I also knew from experience that when taking a night picture with my phone of the sky, that streetlights wash out the image.

After the event, I phoned home and spoke with my mother to inform her of what I had just seen. I explained to her the odd qualities of the flicker as opposed to any constant or blinking light source. I since have done a bit of research of the orbs, and I am confident as to what I saw was an unidentified flying object.

I feel that it is important that I report this event to allow it to be logged and correlated with other possible events that may have or might be occurring in the area.