Cylinder over Sanibel Island, FL

The report, as filed

My husband, a friend and I were out at the lighthouse on Sanibel Island, FL hoping to photograph the Milky Way from 12:30-3 am the morning of July 3, 2019. To do night sky photography, you need to have the camera on long exposure, so 15-30 seconds on a tripod. We had been shooting from various places near the lighthouse, the pier and the main beach area. While we were on the small beach area and had our cameras facing toward the lighthouse and the Milky Way we saw lights in the sky. They came from our right - over Sanibel end of the bridge - and we all noticed them at about the same time. I didn’t hear anything, but saw a long, cylindrical (rocket-like) object that looked as if it had flames coming from the middle and end of it. Around it were 6-10 small lights. They all traveled at about the same speed and in the same direction, toward Ft Myers Beach. The small lights didn’t break away from the rocket-like cylinder, they all stayed in the same pattern that we first! observed. At first we thought it was a meteor shower, but none were reported that night. Then we thought maybe a rocket launch gone wrong, but we none were reported being shot up that night/morning. Perhaps it was a satellite breaking up, but the smaller lights traveled at the same speed and in the same direction as the rocket-like cylinder, so didn’t seem to break up. Of course our cameras were facing the wrong direction to catch the unidentified flying objects and were on long exposure, so were useless to catch the UFO. But I did catch a quick photo with my iPhone and tried to get a movie (tho it isn’t good), though by the time I thought to grab my iPhone, the objects had moved quite a distance away. You can identify the rocket-like cylinder and a few lights around it as well as the Ft Myers Beach skyline.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #147611). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.