Circle over Youngstown, NY

The report, as filed

At 5am a small light like a very bright star but in the tree caught my attention, a tree directly across the street from my home that is wilderness. I wished it wasn’t there because I had things to do, but it demanded attention. At first, I thought it might be a planet or star visible through tree leaves that made it obscured; but no, definitely not that. I went outside and could see intermittent pulsating lights that chased each other as if around the perimeter of a circular object. I moved around to observe it from different angles (it was not Venus or Sirius) A red ball descended and it was frightening, not normal. Thoughts that something might come out of the thick brush concerned me, but I heard nothing. My neighbor was rushing off to work, I tried to get him to come see, but he was in a hurry. From his truck, he looked at it, saw the lights, but he said it was a drone. Who flies a drone at 4am? It was very bright when it flashed, but I couldn't get a p! icture of it. I would estimate a three foot wide section, seemingly more than one section of lights in the tree. Lights traveled in a circle randomly, so pretty they mesmerized, chasing flashes of white. Strange. Several lights came down from it, not something a drone would drop. I took pictures but they are black. I stood out there staring at it for 40 minutes. It started to rain and I went inside. A few minutes later, I went back out but it was not there. Now I wonder if it dropped anything, but it is a thicket over there.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #159801). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.