Saturday, October 1, 2011

Flock of lights over Wildomar and Lake Elsinore

Megan reports observing fascinating patterns of lights over Wildomar at 8:00 pm last night (Friday, 30 Sept 2011). Her words:
We we're coming home from Temecula around 8pm, and at 1st thought, it was night skydiving but it wasn't. These lights looked as bright as stars in a long string. I don't know how else to describe it. They constantly changed shapes from long, to stretched out, to a ball, to all kinds of random formations. The lights we're long an a lot. I don't know how to describe the length and how they moved. The length was at least a mile long, easily, but formed into random shapes, went high in the sky, moved low, moved left, right. Nothing like this, I had ever seen. And it moved so gracefully. It was amazing whatever it was.
I have no idea what Megan saw, but I have observed similar motions from sky divers using lights, and I've observed the flocks of birds making extraordinary patterns in the sky. I offer no explanation, but have one relevent observation.

Skylark airport had a lot of skydiving activity Friday night. Skydiving is pretty routine, so I rarely photograph it, but I was impressed by the dispersal and diversity of motions of jumpers at 6:15 pm when I was outside, that I snapped a few photos, such as this one:

You can see their plane in the top middle, a chute in the center, and two in the bottom left doing their final spirals to the ground (click the picture to enlarge it).

What was I doing outside? Last night offered some stunning crepuscular rays and irridescent clouds:

Crepuscuar Rays

Irridescent clouds, showing purple, orange, and green colors

I welcome the observations of others, but please note that I won't be able to post comments promptly today.
jg

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The description provided by Megan in this particular post is interesting. I found it by running an internet search; key words included "lights," "sky" and "flock like birds." The reason for my search is that I am a MUFON field investigator and there is a case in Albuquerque (where I live) that happened on October 15. I am investigating this sighting, one where witnesses described an incident similar to Megan's. It was at night, and dozens of star-like lights manuvered from a line into various formations from west to east, until departing in a straight line toward the east. Witnesses say it was amazing and that these formations moved like a school of fish or "flock of birds." My name is Paul Garver and I can be reached at pdng02@aol.com.