SIGHTING: COVINGTON, LOUISIANA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"At 9:01PMCST My wife and I were sitting outside our home before going to bed. We looked up and saw a set of lights which at our first thought was two aircraft flying in formation. It looked strange as there were no anti-collision lights, strobes, or landing lights. Our home is in the approach pattern for MSY and the object(s) were in a perpendicular flight path then normal approaches(NE to SW) into New Orleans.From our vantage point we could see what appeared to be either outboard lights, or nose/tail lights. Those lights were pinkish red quickly alternating with white. As we were talking about what it could be, it banked 90 degrees on its side in a slow and wavering motion, but never changed its course. It appeared that one of the lights rotated around the other without ever changing distance relative to the other. I.e. something rigid between them. It rotated back to horizontal slowly and disappeared over the treeline 7 minutes later at 9:08PMI am not sure of the distance between ourselves and the object, but it appeared to be quite large and some distance away. We could see a commercial jet at altitude to the object's west about 15 miles, so I am guessing it was probably 3-5 miles to our NW. At the range, and we are still guessing, the object appeared to be at least one half mile wide. It dwarfed the commercial jet in appearance. The altitude appeared to be 3000-5000 feetAGL.Witnesses:-My wife and I watched it for 7 minutes(starting at 9:01PM) with one 10-15 second break where I ran to the door and called our son's 9 year old friend to come outside and see this. Our 5 year old was sleeping. Our son's friend was with us for the last 3-4 minutes before it dropped behind the trees in the distance(1/3 mile to treeline)-At 9:15PM, after losing sight of the object, I called a friend 5 miles to our NE and told him to go outside to see if he could see the object. He could not see it.-9:17PM I called a friend who lives in rural area 30 Miles to our North in Bogalusa, La. I was on the phone with him when claimed to see what at first he thought were two satellites moving parallel to the ground, but then saw the same type of relative pivot we had seen a few minutes before.He watched it for several minutes before it passed out of sight. After that conversation,my wife, our son's friend, and I Stayed outside for about another 20-30 minutes looking at the sky. We then retired to bed.At 11:24PM, my friend from 30 miles north called me back. He was excited and told me that just a few minutes earlier, he had seen a disc shaped craft approximately 200' in diameter at about 500' AGL within a quarter mile of his house. He said it had no running lights, but a soft glow and moonlight reflecting off the leading edge. He also claimed to have seen structure as the stars were blocked out as it passed. He claimed it was moving slowly and silently, but at one point in the distance seem to accelerate very rapidly to the south. He called his wife outside who also witnessed the event, and as he put it, freaked out. During that conversation, I woke my wife up and we went outside to see if we could see anything. We stayed up another 30-40 minutes and did not see anything, so we went to bed.I am not sure what we saw, so we tried to rule out any possibilities.We went through every combination in our minds to try and take a guess. What we are very confident of is that it was not an airplane, helicopter, or a formation of either. From our vantage point as it disappeared over the trees to where our friend observed the object was probably around twenty miles. This took about 9 minutes or 130 MPH. That made us think it was not a weather balloon. Too fast and against the light North wind we had last night. Satellites are usually out of the sun by this time of night and the pivoting motion precluded that. It was not a blimp, but if lights are an indication was 10-15 time longer. It was not Japanese lanterns, or a toy UAV. We just don't know. At one point I was a member of MUFON, and have the study guides for investigators. I am very familiar with aircraft, both Civilian and Military. My wife and I are both professionals, both with college degrees with her having an advanced degree as Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. We were not under the influence of any kind. All we saw was very unusual lights in the sky and a need to report it.No pictures were taken as the range and dark sky did not allow for it with the camera on our phones."