Location of Sighting: Just West of Emporia, Kansas
Date of Sighting: December 9, 2017
Time of Sighting: 9 PM CST
Description: I witnessed the lights at 9 PM. My sighting lasted about 5 minutes. The location was just a few miles west of Emporia, Kansas on Interstate 35. There were a little more than 10 blinking red and white lights in a line, way up in the sky, moving quite slowly to the northwest, but they were definitely moving. I was unable to get a video of it because my phone’s camera quality isn’t high enough. I can confirm that it was not any sort of cell phone towers, as like I said, the lights were moving and very high in the sky. They never broke formation and were evenly spaced. This suggests that they may have been of a single object. At about arm’s length, it appeared to be a little over a foot long. The date was 12-9-17.
Note: The commentor below appears to have come up with the explanation for this and several other similar sightings on Dec. 9, 2017. The lights were due to military exercises.
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But you know, most witnesses got what they were seeing 100% correct. Likely they were too far from the flight paths to hear the aircraft, but still, most didn’t describe anything that they didn’t see. To me that’s a pretty good vindication of people’s ability to accurately describe an unusual observation!
Here’s additional information about the JFEX17 event. Scroll down this page to see the aircraft participating in the exercise. You could also have looked at an ADS-B tracking web site & seen the aircraft in question right where people were reporting them & right when they were reporting them:
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/16843/those-lights-in-the-sky-seen-across-the-u-s-were-big-formations-of-military-airlifters
Yes, looks like this is what people saw. I don’t have time to scroll through radar sites. I still would have expected some witnesses to hear some sound.
My goodness, I listened in to the operation, via HF radio, as the aircraft from the east side of the US flew toward Nevada. What people did or didn’t hear had everything to do with their distance from the aircraft.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17010/that-massive-cross-country-usaf-airlift-exercise-was-the-largest-of-its-kind-ever
This was sightings of USAF C-17s & C-130s participating in JFEX17 (Joint Forced Entry Exercise). It’s all over news & internet aviation sites.
I don’t believe that for a minute. No one heard any sounds and the Air Force wouldn’t conduct exercises across the entire U.S. on the same night. C130’s are loud. I have ridden on them.