SIGHTING: KATY, TEXAS (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"On 31 December 2008 at 2350 I was outside with 3 teenagers observing fireworks being set off around our neighborhood...On of the young men in the group glanced off to the East,,,(we were facing South)and said,,whats that light? I turned and looked in the direction indicated,,and observed a large orange light,,traveling to the southwest, at a steady speed and with no observable changes in direction...I am an airline employee, and am used to seeing a/c landing lights, but I have never seen an orange landing light before on any civil aircraft....There was no sound,,yet the light did not seem to be traveling fast..I could not judge the distance, however,,it did appear to be about 40 degrees above the horizon,,easily visible over two story houses....Light seemed to flare up,,(increase in size) and then decrease in size at a regular interval...Light disappeared on the western horizon,,,seemed to be descending...My first reaction to the sighting,,,,an aircraft or helicopter,,,however,I could see NO running lights, nav lights... During the sighting,,I glanced down the street and saw some of our neighbors,,another group of at least 6 people observing the same light..After the light disappeared,,I walked down to them to ask them what they saw,,and they also felt this was not an a/c or helicopter...My son and I went back into our house,,and he proceeded to investigate "orange light" sightings on youtube...Some of the videos do look like what we saw...We reported the light to the National UFO Reporting Center that evening,,"