I thought I posted in here after my last entry up there, wonder what happened to it? Oh well.

To tuffguy, are you a nutcase for thinking that things might be unidentified? No, of course not. Not in my opinion, anyway. As far as I’m concerned, and despite the various attempts, I still haven’t heard a convincing explanation for what I saw. Frankly I doubt the government knows the “truth” on this one either, but if they do, I’m sure you’re right, the odds of us hearing about it are pretty slim.

To you old farts who think that because you were a pilot that you can prove/disprove any theory- in thousands of years when we’re all gone and humans are visiting other worlds – you’ll never know how just how shortsighted you were.

I’m not disputing any of your points, actually…I don’t fly regularly, but I’ve definitely had some double takes in the air that on second glance turned out to be reflected light, or just another plane, etc. At any rate, I would really like to be convinced that there’s a prosaic explanation…obviously the whole thing scared the living crap out of me or I wouldn’t still bother thinking about it after all this time.

My perception was that the formation was indeed at a pretty high altitude, but just based on the way planes look and sound from the ground when I know their approximate altitude and airspeed…well, this still looked weird. I mean, from my experience, to move across the sky like these did, a plane would have to either at a low altitude, or moving incredibly fast. Like maybe a couple thousand feet up and moving at about 300-400 miles per hour. Certainly not out of the range of your average jet, but I’d think I would have heard something? All the other aircraft that I observed that day were clearly audible, even the ones that seemed to be above 20,000 feet. I was out in the woods, it was very quiet. So let’s say these were at a much higher altitude…they crossed about half the arc of the sky (before I lost sight) in a matter of about half a minute. If they were high enough not to be audible, how fast would they have to be moving to do that? 2,000-3,000 mph? I don’t know.

As to your question about why people who put forth reasonable, earthly explanations for weird looking things in the air get ridiculed for rejecting the possibility of extraterrestrial life, I don’t know…you’re right, what has the one thing got to do with the other? It’s like I said, though, when it comes to UFOs, people tend to be set in their way of thinking, whichever side of the fence they’re on. I guess it’s just human nature. People shouldn’t assume that just because someone looks for prosaic explanations for things that this means the person doesn’t accept the possibility of life elsewhere.

I think the simple explanation should always be sought. I’ve seen people get themselves all worked up about the “flashing red and green pulsating spaceship hovering in the sky” when it is obvious to me that they’re looking at the star Sirius. On the other hand, I think this goes both ways. All I meant before is that it seems that some people are patently unwilling to even entertain the possiblity that some things remain unexplained (for now). And some people definitely and vociferously reject even the mere possibility that life might exist anywhere but on earth…which I think does deserve ridicule, since it smacks of superstitious elevation of our planet to some unique status in all the universe that, to me, flies in the face of probability and logic.

As far as I’m concerned, 99 out of 100 weird-looking objects in the sky are just something ordinary being perceived in an odd way, or with strange light or atmospheric effects involved. For me, the vee formation that I saw was still downright weird and unexplained even taking all those things into account. I didn’t observe anything but a formation of lights…no solid objects, and none of the apparently non-ballistic flight behavior that others have reported, just five lights in a vee, banking very precisely in formation, moving extremely quickly, and not making any sound that I could hear. If they were just planes, albeit very fast and quiet ones with very bright landing lights, then I guess I have five pilots somewhere in the world to be mad at for scaring me like that.

Anyway, thanks again for your response, and thanks also for your service.