Chanute, Kansas- 05-06-10

I live in a small town in SE Kansas. On May 6, 2010, I was up relatively late and after watching the weather for approaching storms, noted that there was nothing anywhere near us.

There was a large storm near Salina, KS, which is many counties NW of here, about a five hour drive. I went to bed about 11:00, and was trying to sleep, when I noted flashes at the corner of my North facing window every time the fan would rustle the curtain.

I finally got curious and pulled the curtain and the blind, laying back down to try to sleep again. I then noticed there was a wild lightning show to the North, quite a distance from my residence.

Living where I do, I have been watching lightning and severe storms (tornado alley) my entire 48 years on this planet. This was indescribably strange.

I could see clouds and the occasional small bolt of regular lightning, but most of it consisted of huge bright and totally round flashes, lighting massive portions of the cloud cover.

I sat up in bed and watched the show for awhile, wondering that I had never noticed a lightning storm that looked like this one did. I also noted that I could see stars above and to the left and right of this storm, and the clouds themselves also seemed to be a bubble and was not overly massive.

The storm was not visible on the radar presented on the Weather Channel. I once again lay down to sleep, closed my eyes and immediately noticed that there seemed to be an extremely bright light shining on my eyes.

I sat up once again, and saw 3 very, very bright lights that appeared to be in front of the storm and seemed to be shining directly into the window. I watched them for a while, thinking they were helicopters.

They changed positions, but not by much, continuously shining directly into the window. They were large and extremely bright white lights. They then one by one would dim way down and no longer appear to be so near. You could see them, but they were dim.

Then they would fire back up and become brilliant again. They repeated this a number of times, then two of them dimmed and seemed to disappear. I then noted that they appeared to be airplanes, and they turned and left, one seemed to go north and the other to the northwest.

The third continued its behavior of shining and dimming. It then suddenly turned, dimmed, turned into what appeared to be a normal airplane, and took off very slowly to the southwest.

I was quite mystified by this. First, we have no military facilities here nor that many helicopters in one place. Remember, at first I believed they had to be helicopters.

We do have life flight helicopters, but only one and it is 45 miles away. We live near no large cities.

Secondly, how does a helicopter all of a sudden turn and start looking like an airplane?

Third, why would they be there?

I pondered this and then lay back down once again. It was by now 11:30. I closed my eyes and once again the extremely bright light appeared on my closed eyes. I looked back out the window and there was one light, not three as before. This time, the light immediately dimmed and turned, and left once again, appearing as an airplane.

I watched this time, and sure enough, it left my line of sight and a few minutes later returned and stopped in front of my house and lit up again.

Then it dimmed, and this time it went the opposite direction, to the east or maybe slightly southeast. Then, after leaving my line of vision it returned.

It repeated its light show, and then flew off to the west. It was about 11:45 at this time.

The entire time, this really wild lightning storm continued. It meandered off, for all the world looking like an airplane once again.

There is a very small airport here. My home is northeast of it, probably about 3 miles. I can find no reason for airplanes to behave in this manner. Helicopters might have bright lights, but they do not fly the way these did. I could hear no thunder, no sounds of a helicopter. It was windy. My east window was open, but not the north facing one.

I want to finalize this statement by saying that I had gone to bed, but I had not fallen asleep. I'd only been in bed 2-3 minutes. I was sober and sane. I ask around a bit, and my son told me he had been out driving that evening, noticed the storm but not the lights.

I'm not sure exactly where he was in relation to my house, but he was probably on a gravel road nearby. He likes to go for country drives.

Nobody else saw a thing that I am aware of. I have tried to describe the event without elaborating excessively, only stating what I saw.

It was a lovely show and I enjoyed the visit!

Joanna,

Chanute, KS