Light over Knoxville, NC

The report, as filed

While flying from Charlotte to Memphis, I was piloting a jet aircraft at 34000 to 36000 feet. I was on a heading of approximately 273 degrees. The Big Dipper was to the right of the airplane. Approximately 30 minutes prior to touchdown around 1115pm to 11:30pm eastern standard time, a light appeared below the handle of the Big Dipper. It appeared very dim like a distant star, then increased in brightness very quickly. When it was full bright, we could see approximately 3-4 smaller very faint dim lights that would fly around the main light. After 5-10 seconds, they would all disappear. A couple minutes later, they would all reappear in the same area. A few minutes later the same thing would happen, except they would be above the handle of the Big Dipper. A couple of times, there would be 2 bright stars far apart from each other. They would appear full bright and quickly fly to each other then disappear. These lights had no aircraft strobes or red/green position lights. This kept happening for at least 30 minutes until we landed in Memphis. It could have gone on longer, but as we approached the city, the lights of the town made it difficult to see the sighting location. In my opinion, these lights appeared to be in outer space, and not in our atmosphere. It was definitely not satellites, star link, shooting stars, etc.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #178506). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.