There was a "line" of red lights just barely above the height of the Duluth FM "Tower Farm". If you are unaware of Duluth, it is a row of FM radio towers that we in the broadcasting business nicknamed the Tower Farm. The row of red lights were not evenly spaced and not perfectly in line. The object/objects were traveling from the west and heading in my direction generally.
Several miles from my house is the Duluth International Airport, so you can safely assume that I see a lot of air traffic. I see planes coming in and going out. The typical landing route is for a plane to come in from the east over Lake Superior, not to mention that at night the aircraft's front landing lights usually make searchlight patterns in the night sky. However, sometimes you do see planes coming from the west, go over my house, and circle around to take the same landing route most other planes do. Also the two local hospitals have "Life-flight" helicopters so I also see a lot of helicopter traffic.
However, this morning there were no bright "white" lights in the front, nor flashing "strobes" you find on the front center of a plane or at the wing tips-just red lights.
While it was coming towards me, I counted roughly 9 lights. I say roughly because a couple of the lights seemed to fade out and then come back. Another thing that struck me was the speed. It was like the object was moving at a turtle's pace. I have seen aircraft coming into Duluth International, so I am aware of air brakes and how much they slow down. But this morning was different. It was as if the object was traveling at about 50 MPH or less. I mean it was "crawling".
As the object reached me, overhead I counted an additional 3 red lights and saw a not-very-bright blue/white light in the center area of the group of lights. The sky was partly cloudy, some stars were visible. And oddly enough, the Big Dipper was fully visible directly above my head towards the north. It had been more northeasterly the past few nights. But when the object passed me I could NOT make out one continuous object. It was apparent that there was a "longer" part of an object in the center of the light formation. But the lights that flanked it looked not to be connected to it.
Finally the most suspicious part of this whole thing is the noise it made. Once again you can safely assume I hear the planes landing and taking off. As a matter of fact, I am pretty accustomed to the noise of a plane throttling down to land and a plane throttling up to take off. The noise that this object made was steady-it had a SMALL hint of a "jet turbine" sound, but for how low it flew, it was amazingly quiet, almost stealthy in nature.
While it crept past, I could hear the single noise of whatever propelled it. And for the sheer "span" of the lights it seemed unlikely, almost unbelievable that it would have been that quiet. It continued past and continued in an east-northeasterly direction almost following the Lake Superior shore line. But it never raised or lowered its height. There was a slight wind. Weather.com said it was supposed to be 15-20 MPH.
Right after the object passed there was a brief, yet very strong blast of wind that lasted no more than 2 seconds. It was the kind of wind that you could hear coming. It came from the same direction of the craft and blew past me. Finally the lights, which were visible the entire time, made their way over the neighborhood tree-line horizon. And then they were gone.
The whole instance lasted roughly 5 minutes. But I was in a state of confusion immediately after. What was it? Was it really that slow? Could it be a UFO? My heart was racing. During the recent lunar eclipse I made an attempt to videotape it, but my JVC camcorder didn't work very well in the dark, so I didn't even bother running inside to get it-mainly because I was in such awe from what I was seeing and also just the wonderment of where it was going. I am now kicking myself that I didn't at least make the attempt to film it, or get audio of it at the very least.
There is some hope for corroborating evidence. The local media stations, KBJR, KDLH, and WDIO, have "tower cams" that might have caught something at that time. They are usually aimed towards the harbor, which might have been in the line of this craft. Also, the main studios of the same media outlets are located near the harbor and have cameras on the building that are focused up towards the tower farm, and they might have caught something.
All I know is I am still in disbelief. Perhaps it was a plane. But it was the quietest, slowest plane I have ever seen. I have seen Harrier jets hold themselves in a horizontal pattern: I have seen the Concorde speed over Lake Superior, but never before have I seen anything like this.
source: Eric L. Duluth, MN
