Other over Branchburg, NJ

The report, as filed

On 12/07/2018 at 16:45 I was driving westbound on Burnt Mills Road in Branchburg, NJ, when I witnessed what first appeared to be a jet contrail, however instead of getting longer, it stayed the same size and began rotating in a clockwise direction. It was the shape of a line, or cylinder, and I could see that it was illuminated because the sun has already set and was behind the object, but it was fully illuminated bright white on its east side, opposite the sun. As I noticed it wasn't growing and instead rotating, another, smaller object appeared slightly to the north of it. I drove through a forested section of the road and came to a clearing and pulled off to the shoulder to view them some more. I then noticed 2 more similar shaped objects to the north of the first 2. They were moving very slowly in the sky, and as I tracked them, I could see movement relative to the other objects, and saw that they were traveling west towards the twilight. The first object I saw eventually disappeared to the west, followed by the 2nd, and finally the last 2 disappeared. I am certain they were not planes, helicopters or hot air balloons. I have never seen anything quite like these lights in the sky before. I have logged thousands of miles sailing offshore and many moonless nights at sea, and although I have seen some very strange things in the sky, nothing viewed has ever compelled me to write about before. I would like to know if there were any other witnesses as it was rush hour and there were many cars driving around at that time. This is a fairly rural area, the objects were traveling over farmland and possibly parts of Route 78.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #143991). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.