I had parked my motorcycle at the back of a petrol station having a cigarette. I looked out over the estuary and noticed 500 feet in front of me, hovering just above the water line, a large group of about 14 rectangular pulsating lights, brighter than strobes, going from left to right or anticlockwise in what's described as the "marquee fashion". So as one light goes to the right the next one follows from the left. The object was if held at arms length was six inches. And whatever this object was it was perfectly flat on the bottom and never disturbed the water even though it was inches above it. It also didn't appear to curve at the edges. I was trying to weigh up if it was circular. My thoughts at this time, I actually said out loud "oh look a flying saucer". I laughed and then I began to think what am I looking at? Was it a helicopter? There was no noise and this was inches above the water. There was no disturbance to the water whatsoever as the lights gave a huge reflection in the water just under the object. Was it a boat with fishermen using some sort of lighted fishing nets? It was not a hot air balloon, it wasn't a light aircraft. I thought of everything that it could've been. So I decided I would drive to a position nearer to it. I drove my bike to the headland (1 minute drive away). Switched the bike off, no helmet on my head, I proceeded to view this object on my right and still hovering over the water below me. I had now viewed the object for 15 minutes. As I watched it there was no sound whatsoever, no air disturbance, just this bank of bright lights with its flashing pattern. Then it started to move towards me and began to rise very slowly up in front of me. This is when I was now about 25 foot away from it. It rose up at a 30 degree angle. Just before it drew level with me I flashed my motorcycle lights directly at it three times. I then thought do I really want to get involved in this? So I stopped flashing my lights and watched this huge thing slowly meander up the valley. It was a clear winters night, at teatime, around Christmas time and there was no other vehicles present during this time!I didn't report the sighting due to my friend saying it was a plane from Walney Island or a hot air balloon from Holker Hall and wouldn't have another word said about it. I took the hint and kept it to myself but never forgot the experience and I still don't know what it was to this day.A few weeks later my Mother showed me a local paper (Westmorland Gazette) reporting that two nuclear physicists from Backbarrow, which is at the top of the same valley, on the same day, at 5.45 p.m. they witnessed the same thing as I had. I managed to speak to them at the time on the telephone and he had said he had never seen lights so bright and in the same pattern as I had seen. Both of them said they thought they would never see anything like that again and we left it at that.My own thoughts, I was never interested in the subject of UFOs but after this I bought every book possible to see if there was any reports of a similar nature to what I had seen. I know it wasn't a plane, or a helicopter, or anything that seemed to make rational sense. Sellafield, the nuclear reprocessing plant is just a few miles away and I think that this thing was taking water samples. But my big question is why did they leave the lights on if they had been switched off I would never have witnessed them.