Strange lights in Pittsfield

Found this over on UFOstalker.com, and it sounds to me like a meteor shower (or debris falling), but I thought I'd post it, as strange lights are strange lights no matter what they are! Here is the entry:

Case ID: 11674
Log Number: US-07222008-0007
Submitted Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:16:27 GMT
Event Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:16:00 GMT
Status: Submitted
City: Pittsfield
Region: Maine
Country: US
Longitude: -69.43769836425781
Latitude: 44.78129959106445
Shape: Circle,Star-like,Triangle
Distance: Unknown
Visibility: Clear

Description:
Sunday morning in Pittsfield Maine July 20, 2008 there was a full moon and the sky was clear. Me and my 2 daughters were sitting outside at 1:16am talking and we looked up at the moon and we saw a very bright light that was moving very fast and then just disappeared (this was not a shooting star). As we continued to look up at the sky we saw more unexplainable bright lights one after another they happened within 10-15 minutes of each other. The bright lights would just appear for about 5 seconds then split in half then disappear there was no reasonable explanation for what had happened we had never seen anything like it before.

The last one that me and my 2 daughters saw was around 3am and it flew right over us from North West to South East over the house and past the trees then we could not see it anymore. This time the light didn't disappear after 5 seconds it just continued to fly across the sky very fast. My daughter noticed that the object had 3 points that lit up like a triangle. You could not hear a sound/noise coming from the object it was very quiet. Over the 2 hour span of time we saw about 7-8 bright bright lights that would appear out of no where flying very fast in the sky then split in half after 5 seconds then disappear.

Both my daughters went back inside to go to bed and I was out side drinking a coffee and smoking a cigarette and around 4am it was starting to get light out there was no stars in the sky and I was outside alone loading my boat on to my truck to go fishing with my son and I saw another bright light in the sky then it split in half then disappeared.
[Source]

Strange UFO lights result of dancing?

Two weeks ago a Florida doctor in Lewiston saw something strange in the night sky... article from the Lewiston Sun Journal.

Doctor says he saw odd lights over Lewiston

By Kathryn Skelton , Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
LEWISTON - Dr. Barry Chandler has seen the space shuttle in the sky at night, and plenty of meteor showers, and this, he says, was definitely nothing like those.

The Florida man looked up in the sky Friday night at 10:05 p.m., from his mother-in-law's lawn on Marble Street and saw a rough string of 10 to 15 lights traveling together in clusters.
...
He, his wife and mother-in-law watched them move from the southern corner of the sky to the north, finally fading from view, after about four minutes.

"They were fairly pulsing. It was like a flame but it wasn't; I can't describe it," Chandler said. The lights reminded him of the flames inside hot air balloons when they take off. They seemed to pulse.
...
Chandler called the National UFO Reporting Center. It hadn't received any other reports. Neither had the National Weather Service in Gray.

Meteorologist Michael Cempa said Friday night was clear. The recent meteor shower, which peaked Sunday, would look like bright streaks across the sky, not steady lights, he said.

The German Web site Heavens Above noted that iridium flares - sun reflecting off satellites - could be seen from Lewiston at 6:14 and 6:23 that night, but nothing later.

A spokesman at Brunswick Naval Air Station said it wasn't anything of theirs. A Hanscom Air Force Base spokeswoman didn't have any information.

Androscoggin County dispatch didn't take any calls reporting strange lights Friday night.

"It sounds strange," said Sheriff Guy Desjardins. "But strange things happen."
[Read full article here: Source

The most interesting of comments following up the article is this one, from Bub: "At just after 10:00, for the finale of a performance at the Bates Dance Festival at Lake Andrews (on campus) -- just south of the good doctor's position -- about a dozen or so medium-sized balloons were sent aloft by performers. These balloons were about 3 feet tall, and indeed looked like miniature hot-air balloons. The flames in the balloons lasted about 5 minutes or so before fading out. End of story."

Strange ball of light in western Maine

I found a new post online that relates a man's account with a strange light in the Maine woods back a couple of decades ago.

Western Maine Unusual Ball Of Fluorescent Light Travels Through The Forest
Posted: March 12, 2007

... I am a retired scientist and during my long camping trips in a remote area of western Maine, I like to read about natural science and try to put the pieces together. My son and I were on a trip about 25 years ago at that location during the winter. On a cold still night, we went for a walk after supper and as we walked down the road, a ball of fluorescent light, maybe 2 feet in diameter, crossed our path about 30 feet away. We were both quite surprised and watched it move off into the forest. We immediately looked for any signs in the fresh snow but found nothing. We proceeded down the road for a while, then turned to return.

When we approached the same area, the light appeared again, crossed our path and disappeared into the forest. At that point, my young son became scared since we were over 5 miles away from anyone else. I have never seen anything like it again and I often walk after dark. ... I don't think this experience qualifies as a UFO sighting but it was certainly unusual and unexplainable.
[Source]

Strange lights continue to perplex Mainers

More reports of strange lights in the sky—this time in Somerset County.

They saw 'strange lights in the sky'
By LARRY GRARD
February 23, 2007

ANSON -- It was about 7:30 Wednesday night when Gehri Rinaldi took time out from her son's 14th birthday party. She went outside to the front porch and lit a cigarette.

That's when she saw the strange lights in the sky. In all directions.

By the time the UFO show was over, Rinaldi and her son, Dalton Mosher, had seen weird, inexplicable sights.

"I saw four of them in a row, and I went, 'wow,'" Rinaldi recalled. "The lights were reddish-orange. I called Dalton out. We looked left and saw two more. And then we saw them going through the trees. That's how low they were."

The family's experience was one of at least four reported Wednesday -- all at about the same time and in the same general area -- to the Somerset County Communications Center.

The Vermont Air National Guard was conducting practice maneuvers in the area on Wednesday, but Somerset County Sheriff Barry A. DeLong hasn't ruled out UFOs. He's seen one before.

It happened back in the 1970s, when he was on patrol one night in Bingham.

"I didn't want to talk about it," DeLong said. "I didn't want people to think I was crazy."

DeLong said the lights he saw were not far from the ground.

"They were hovering about 15 feet from my cruiser, late at night," the sheriff said.

"It had fixed lights that were spinning. It was huge, and oval-shaped. I knew it wasn't a jet fighter. It slowly started backing off toward Sugarloaf, and then at a terrific speed." [Source]

Strange lights spark inquiry in Farmington

Here's something that doesn't happen everyday! The quantity of reports from Mainers in a wide range of towns within the area make this particularly interesting. From the Lewiston Sun Journal, of course. This hearkens back to some similar events back in November and in October of 2006, in Industry, Maine, and Skowhegan, Maine, respectively (click on links to read the original posts).

Odd lights, low sounds cause stir
By Maggie Gill-Austern, Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 14, 2007

FARMINGTON - Strange lights with no obvious cause were spotted all over northern Franklin County Tuesday night, Sheriff's Department dispatchers said.

"The phone was ringing off the hook," dispatcher Bill Hoyt said.

Multiple callers from multiple towns - New Vineyard, Wilton, Phillips, Industry, and around Mt. Abram - called to report bizarre, low-to-the-ground lights, he said.

"They were seeing, basically, a string of seven or eight lights low in the sky, that were fixed," he said. "There (were) also reports of jet engine noise low to the ground." One person who called worked with jet airplanes, Hoyt said. "They were not like any lights he had ever seen." Some people said they looked like stars.

Hoyt called a Federal Aviation Administration office in Boston, which monitors air traffic in this part of New England, wondering if what people saw and heard could be related to military exercises.

"They said the only air traffic was a couple of routine air flights at 40,000 feet," he said.

Hoyt doubts it was aliens.

"I think, personally, most of the time there's an explanation for everything," he said. "But you know, I don't deny the fact that people see things they can't explain."

"It was kind of odd," he said. "All these reports were from different locations at the same time. Maybe it was a meteorite."

The jet-engine sounds and the fixed-ness of the light pattern make him question that theory, though, he said.

[Source]

Some witnesses posted responses to the article online, recounting their experience that evening. Jeanne said, "I also saw the lights as I was leaving Edmunds store in Phillips. At first I thought it might be the big dipper. There were 7 or 8 big bright lights in a half moon quite low and then all of a sudden they were gone. Also I heard sounds of jets but these lights were way too low for jets. when I got out of my vehicle I saw another big bright light and it also disappeared."

Another poster, Audrey, comments, "I first saw the activity in the sky driving north of Belgrade and then again in New Vineyard. Almost as quickly as I could count the number of objects( at least 9) they would disappear. When I arrived in Kingfield and stepped out of the car I could hear what appeared to be airplane engine noise but did not see any further unusual lights."

The other commenter, Kingfielder, gave an even longer response: "I heard jets last night, like you often hear when they are doing maneuvers/practice, and I also saw a bright light in the sky at one point, and thought, 'if that's Venus it's a lot brighter than I've ever seen it... and it's in a different place.' Then, the light went out. I put my coat on and went outside and did see four or five lights (accompanied by the jet engine sound) flying around at different speeds and heights, both close and in the distance. With rapidly blinking white lights most of the time, and sometimes no light visible but just the roar of the jet. I also saw more of the same bright yellow lights (like a bright yellow moon, but maybe 1/20th the size), sometimes these lights were moving and sometimes appeared on the horizon as stationary. Perhaps moving away from me, but hard to tell. This went on for about a half an hour. The last I saw of them, they all headed toward the southwest (from Kingfield) and didn't return."