Light over Torrance, CA

The report, as filed

I immediately went outside to look and asked him where to look in the sky, and he said north. I couldn't see anything but looked for some point of reference and noticed an airliner taking off from LAX (it was climbing) some 10.7 miles away north west from our location at mother's in Torrance Ca. I asked him if he could see the jet and he said no but would go to the front yard to get an unobstructed view. While he was moving from the back yard to the front I could see a flash that lasted about one second. The flash was about 60% the size of a full moon. This object flashed three times and at three second intervals, and on the third flash I could see what appeared to be a star but in full daylight as it was a very bright white light. I then noticed a pinkish orange flash coming from the star object at three second intervals. My son came back on the phone and said it was on a collision course with the airliner which he could now see. The star object would flash for a second coast for three seconds and then flash again for a second. At this point my eyes were adjusted and I could see a second identical object trailing the first. It was also flashing pinkish orange but at two second intervals until it caught up with the first object. The scene left me with the impression it was dropping down from a higher altitude to a lower one. The second star craft was as it was dropping down reminded me of a shooting flare much like a descending flare from a flare gun except it was bright white. When the two objects were even they both were flashing in complete unison as if they were mirror images of each other. They were perfectly side by side and were headed from the northwest towards the southeast. They gave me the impression like, they were skipping across the sky. Like an ice skater, rhythmic and smooth. I told my son I could see two objects and they were headed towards me. I looked at my watch and it was 15:50 and told my son to go to work because the incident distracted him from going to work. He was suppose to be at work at 16:00 and he hung up the phone and went to work. The airliner was headed perfectly due east and I could see the airliner and star objects converge. I almost expected a collision but the star objects were well above the airliner because one of the star objects was blotted out by the mass of the jet but for only a split second. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better a third object appeared as if it just dropped in on the other two objects. The third object dropped in on the other two exactly like the second star object. I expected the third Starcraft to line up with the other two but it did not, it went into what I think was a kind of missing man formation. It hung slightly back of the other two and at a distance double the distance of the first two objects. Had there been a fourth object lined up with the other three they would have been perfectly spaced. Like this. * * * * except the far right third object was slightly behind like this. • • * Size and Distance if a circle is 360 degrees and from horizon is 180 degrees then the the two objects were about 5 degrees apart and the third object at 10 degree and slightly back. My son sighted the first object at 15:40 I caught site of the first one at roughly 15:48 by 15:50 my son left for work he said he seen two and missed the third possibly because by 15:48 they were closer to me than him. The third object went back up and disappeared while the two continued southeast until I lost sight of them at about 15:55 due to the distance. They were almost directly over head and my neck is sore form looking up so long. They seemed too slow as by my estimation if you could have seen them from horizon to horizon it would have taken them 30 minutes to make that distance. Between my son and I we watched them for 15 minutes. Thank you for your work.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #132586). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.