Oval over Deadwood, SD
A conventional explanation is favored by the record but was never formally confirmed.
The report, as filed
We witnessed a string of low flying bright white lights 15-18 of them at low altitudes for 10-12 seconds moving from the west to east direction at 9:45 pm on a clear flawless night. Once they were in front of us just above tree top angle approximately 12-15000’ they all vanished on after another. These were not Starlink satellites. They were to low and they vanished like some type of cloaking device was activated. If they were satellites we could have watched them travel to the eastern sky. We took pictures and a video of them but they did not record to the cell phone. No images appeared on the phone’s camera. No sound was heard. No other aircraft in the area. Crafts we’re heading in the direction of Ellsworth Airforce Base outside do Rapid City SD. [NUFORC annotation: Starlink - Probable]
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #177964). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2023-08-08 → 2023-08-25
From the same sky
Related entries
August 11, 2023 · 9:45 PM · OVAL
Deadwood, SD
9:45 pm as we were sitting in the driveway, from the west came a string of oval shaped objects numbering 12-15 illuminating the sky and tree top’s approximately 1500’ above the trees, passed in front of us moving towards the east. We observed them for 12-15 seconds then they just dimmed and all vanished and was gone. Not Starlink satellites. Starlink is 340 miles up. Too low to be and Starlink! We would have been able to observe them traveling eastward out of sight. They just disappeared in front of us
September 12, 2018 · 5:00 PM · CIRCLE
Deadwood, SD
There was a round flat surfaced object that appeared at about 80 degrees above the horizon, it seemed to mirror the sun and clouds, super reflective, which at times looked like a full moon yet the moon was below on the horizon in a waxing crescent. Others watching thought it looked like a ringed object with an opening in the center. The outside edge of the object was very bright and looked as if there were lights that encircled it. People around stated that they had seen it from other locations in the the area from as early as 14:00 hours and it remained there, in the same spot until after the sunset.