Light over COLUMBUS, OH

The report, as filed

I was looking south from my balcony in NE Columbus, Ohio in the late evening on either Thursday July 14 or Friday 15, 2022 (sorry I can’t be more specific) and saw a light rise from behind the tree line that is about 150 yards away. (At the time I assumed the light would have been several miles away, possibly as far as CMH airport, or even closer to downtown, but on reflection I think it could have been a smaller object closer to the neighborhood.) It rose slowly about 60 degrees from my line of sight and then dropped maybe 10 degrees to where it remained stationary for 15-30 minutes (it might not have been that long, but it seemed like an unusually long time for a random light). As it hung there, the light pulsed about once per second, first a kind of bright candy apple neon blue and then a neon mauve/bright red, then blue and then red again and so on. This pulsing was mechanically regular and didn’t pause as far as I could observe. Except for a couple of dashes into the apartment to inform my disinterested roommate, I didn’t take my eyes off the thing for several minutes, until I was distracted by an aircraft closer to my building moving from east to west which I made out to be a helicopter at a fairly high altitude for this neighborhood (usually we see cop choppers pretty close range). As the aircraft moved off to my upper right I looked back to find the light and couldn’t locate it, but then I saw a light (not necessarily the same one) moving at a moderate regular speed at something like a 45 degree angle into the northwest, almost as if to rendezvous with the helicopter, and then as far as I remember it blinked out. That’s it. It didn’t move in any classic “UFO” manner, it was very regular and methodical looking and not unusually quick. If I had to guess, it was a drone of some sort and my reaction at the time was just sort of “huh,” but I’ve been mulling it over since then wondering if it would reappear but I haven’t spotted it. I spend a lot of time outdoors at night trying to make out the stars and enjoying the moon when it’s out and I’m pretty used to the comings and goings of aircraft here, and this behavior was a first. I don’t really suspect it’s anything unexplainable but I don’t know who to contact to satisfy my curiosity about this one. I hope I’m not wasting your time but if I can get an explanation for this it’s definitely worth my taking the time to write this up. Thanks!

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #170575). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.