Cylinder over Pawleys Island, SC
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
We were sitting on the porch outside and one of us notices a bright orange object and says "What is that?" and the other of us turns around. We see an orange object with 4 horizontal circular lights, one turning off, then each one turning on and off in sequence, right to left, directly above the ocean water. Each time the individual light turned on, a triangular beam emitted directly below the circular light and disappeared when the light when out. After the 4 light/beam sequence, the object disappeared. A moment after, another orange object appears further in the distance, and the first object we saw reappears down the beach and the same 4 light/beam sequence happens again. Both objects disappear after the 4 light/beam sequence.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #166629). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2022-02-05 → 2022-02-22
From the same sky
Related entries
December 14, 2023 · 7:45 PM · TRIANGLE
Pawleys Island, SC
4-5 solid orange lights in a triangle shaped pattern observed during a training flight by PIC. The lights appeared to be situated on one airborne craft. The lights observed were not consistent with standard aircraft lighting, space dwelling objects (such as stars and systems), or normal weather phenomena. Observation aircraft altitude 2,500ft; observed unidentified object/aircraft altitude unknown, estimated to be between 4,000-5,000ft. Unidentified object/aircraft was approximately 3-4 NM offshore, and was only observed briefly before vanishing. No movement of the object was observed. No ADSB data received from the object. Sky was clear with no clouds or visible moisture present. Object was observed by airplane CFI during a training flight. The student on board was wearing a vision limiting device preventing them from seeing outside as a training measure. As a result, the student did not witness the unidentified object.
August 20, 2020 · 10:00 PM · CIRCLE
Pawleys Island, SC
While sitting on the widows watch on top of our rental house we witnessed what appeared to be four military aircraft flying at a high altitude above us coming from W headed E NE. They continued to fly in the same direction for five minutes making a large sweeping circle until coming back headed directly W passing almost directly back over top of us. About fifteen minutes after the military aircraft left our field of view the four of us observed two large orange circles appear in the sky to our ENE that stayed illuminated for roughly fifteen seconds. The two circles were side by side with one slightly higher than the other and almost appeared to be angled down to the ocean. We waited and watched in the same direction to see if anything reappeared and we then noticed two military aircraft coming from our W again but this time traveling at the same altitude but at a much higher rate of speed. The two aircraft passed directly over top of us again and headed towards the ocean and started to veer ENE in the direction of where the two circles had appeared. While heading in that direction the two circles appeared again blocking out the light from the military aircraft. We then continued watching the sky towards the E to see if we saw anything else. We continued watching for another half hour but never saw the circles again. We did witness the military aircraft making passes back and forth up and down the beach line, but well out over the ocean, and on one pass multiple other aircraft joined into the existing two aircraft. When we came off of the widows watch the military aircraft were still making passes up and down the beach line. This same event has happened every night we have been here but this is the first night I have gotten to witness the event. It is never the same amount of lights and they appear in different spots in the sky for different durations. Another member of our party posted a report from earlier this week of their sighting. We have tried to debunk the lights as flares but the light never moves like a flare would in the sky.
August 17, 2020 · 10:00 PM · CHANGING
Pawleys Island, SC
The event started with two orange lights that randomly appeared out over the water which quickly faded out. Within 10-15 minutes, more orange lights appeared further north up the coast, but this time there were four separate lights that seemed to be stationary in a diamond pattern. Just as quickly as the lights appeared they disappeared just as the first two had. This is where things really got interesting. After about 10 minutes we noticed a line of white lights appear and they continued to move north towards our location. As the line of white lights approached it was determined that this line of white lights was a group of around 10-15 military jets. While closing in on the location of the first witnessed orange lights the jets proceeded to scatter and start what could only be described as a search flight pattern. After roughly 15 minutes of the search flight pattern the jets reformed into a line and departed south back from the direction that they appeared from. Finally once the military jets were no longer in sight another craft(s) appeared but much closer to our location. Once again it was either four orange lights in a diamond formation but we were in able to determine if they were four individual crafts or one large one with four lights. Either way the four lights showed up and blinked off twice to finish the event.
November 28, 2019 · 8:43 AM · SPHERE
Pawleys Island, SC
Our family was on the beach enjoying the evening when we noticed a light on the horizon. What drew our attention was the erratic movement of the small orb. It was white to orange in color. What drew our attention and held it was the erratic movement of the orb. It would move left to right, up and down in jerky movement with no apparent rhythm or order. It stayed in basically the sane location but would move in all directions and then come back.
May 14, 2019 · 9:40 PM · FORMATION
Pawleys Island, SC
At approximately 9:40 pm on May 14, 2019, we were sitting on the second floor balcony after dinner. My friend exclaimed “What’s that?” I immediately looked up and saw something in the night sky to the SSE of our location. As soon as I looked up and saw the first lights, which were three horizontal lights, those lights disappeared as if they were “turned off”. As those first lights were turning off, another set of three lights turned on, one at a time, then all three staying on for maybe 20 seconds. Each light was shaped like a thin wide cat’s eye; bright white with an orange glow….I know the exact time as I had my cell phone in m hand and immediately raised it to take a photo; the object doesn’t show in the photo. We sat around speculating what it was and still don’t know. I believe I could see the form of something behind the lights as if the lights were headlights on the object, whether a plane or whatever it is, It did look dark.
August 9, 2016 · 12:30 AM · FIREBALL
Pawleys Island, SC
Red flare-like object appeared 15-30 degrees above horizon. The object proceeded towards the horizon line at an extremely high speed. As it became closer to the horizon it turned from red to green. It disappeared about 5 degrees above the horizon.