Light over Slippery Rock Township, near New Castle, PA

The report, as filed

On the evening of 8 August 2015 I was at Cooper's Lake Campground for a large (~10,000 attendees) annual event. I was in camp alone, approximately 50 feet from the northern shore of the lake. At approximately 9:30, as I was speaking on the phone, I saw a light source over the lake. It had no discernable shape, but was fairly "large" as point light sources go; lacking any other external clues, I would estimate it at no more than a hundred yards from me. It was reddish, but not the "stoplight" red of aircraft signals, having a distinct purple/pink tinge. It made no sound and moved quite slowly, but there were two small course changes; the night was essentially still at ground level, so there was no significant wind for it to be moving against. I watched it for approximately three minutes, mentioning it to my conversational partner, before it abruptly disappeared. At first I thought it was an airplane, but it was too large and the wrong color. It was also the wrong color to be a live flame, as in a floating lantern, and seemed to be course-correcting under its own power. Of course, I had no good size cues to judge from, so my estimate of its distance may be extremely off and the lack of noise may have been because it was simply too far away. At this point, my best hypothesis is a toy drone; though those were specifically disallowed by the rules of the special event, people have been known to break the rules.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #121179). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.