Last week we spent a week in Surfside Beach with my husband's family. If your unfamiliar Surfside is right next to Myrtle Beach. My mother-in-law rented a wonderful beachfront house. It had a great balcony that overlooked the beach. I was sitting on said balcony with my husband at around 9:00 on Tuesday night when I saw a red light rising straight up in the sky from the horizon. I watched it rise about a quarter of the way into the sky and then the light went out. I commented to Nick that I thought that was strange. A plane wouldn't just blink out and not be seen again. He told me he had seen a red light just above the horizon line not long before my sighting. We discussed cloud cover and what not and then let it go, I didn't think anything more of it.
But on Wednesday night something truly amazing happened. Again I was sitting on the balcony with Nick when all of a sudden the same red/orange light appeared. This time is wasn't alone. Five more lights appeared forming a crescent line and they were closer than the previous night. I about fell over my chair trying to get to the door to knock on it and let everyone inside know what was going on.
Everyone came out and for the next hour we all watched the orange lights. They would appear in a line, sometimes alone, sometimes right next to each other. They would stay lit for 30 seconds or so and then fade out. They didn't move much while lit, maybe a little from side to side. After 45 minutes or so I noticed two tiny flashing white lights right next to each other in the sky. I thought it was an airplane high in the sky but as I watched the lights grew brighter and seperated moving farther and farther apart while they moved in land. We saw three pairs of lights move at the same rate of speed getting brighter and brighter as they moved in land. We lost sight of them as they passed over our house.
After seeing the white lights we saw the orange lights one more time only this time there were only about three instead of the seven we had seen before. Again we saw the twinkling/flashing white lights pair up and move over the house.
It was an amazing thing to watch. I put two and two together and realized that what Nick and I had seen on Tuesday night was the same lights we saw Wednesday so on Thursday we went outside at 9:3o and watched again. This time we sat on the walk way to the beach away from the lights of the pool and houses. Sure enough the orange lights appeared. First directly in front of me in a group of three. The light in the middle seemed slightly larger than the two on the sides. Then the lights appeared off to the left four or five more times. Each time they faded away they gave the impression of a disk or saucer, the lights faded out in a semi circle. I should also mention that Thursday night the orange lights were proceeded by random flashing white lights, tiny and star like, but they moved in erratic patterns.
I tried taking some pictures and at the time it looked to me like I wasn't getting anything so I gave up. Imagine my surprise when I put the pictures on my computer today and found that I had three images of the lights. The were just little specks in the photos but after zooming I found the three images below.
No they were not helicopters, lanterns, lasers, airplanes or fireworks. Which is another thing I should mention, there was a fireworks show going on down the beach several miles. The lights were out over the ocean and not near the fireworks.
I've done some searching around the internet and have found that these orange lights are quite common. I have always been one to look up in the sky just in case. You can be sure I'll be looking even more now.
I feel a little Dexterish when I'm inside, which is creepy. Plus I use a propane torch during the finishing process so I have to be very aware of where that is pointing at all times. But so far it is working. The first batch of clocks were dust particle free. Don't be jealous now, not everyone can have such lavish work areas.
