On the night of Oct. 8, three friends and I traveled to the Saugatuck Reservoir in Redding, Conn. to watch the Draconid Meteor shower. While we didn’t see any meteors, what we saw will probably stick with us for a long time.

At about 10:15 that night, one of us noticed a very bright, very low-flying orange “thing” just above the tree line of the eastern shore of the reservoir (see above). Beyond the reservoir to the east is a state park called “Devil’s Den.” It is named as such, according to the Darien Times, because charcoal makers in the hilly, rocky area would say that a hoof-like mark made in a boulder was the footprint of the Devil.



It took about 20 minutes for us to become convinced that this was something that we should take pictures of. Once the camera was up and running, the lights remained hovering for about 10 minutes, according to time stamps taken from the camera that took the pictures below. The orange light hovered above the trees moving in an erratic, “jerky” fashion. Near the end of its visibility, it began moving purposefully towards the south, where it disappeared beyond a grove of pine trees that blocked our view.

——— This is not the first time these lights have been reported by observers. ———

(For the record, I am a newspaper reporter who works for a chain of newspapers that includes the newspapers that have covered Redding, Easton, and Weston for a long, long time. No one working at these papers, including the publisher, had ever heard of anything like that which I show below. However, research like this is my job, and I stand behind the information I present to you. But, I cannot guarantee the veracity of the reports listed below. In my opinion, the chances of this many separate reports of similar incidents in one small part of Connecticut over a vast period of time is more than a coincidence.)

As far back as 1966, a Doctor from Darien, Conn. driving past the reservoir noticed lights that seem to match the description of what we had seen. His report was chronicled by the Spartanburg, SC Herald-Journal.

There are also multiple matches for what we saw recorded in the National UFO Reporting Center. Below I partially quote one entry from Feb. 22, 2011:

“Last night at 8pm I looked out my living room window and noticed a flashing bright red light low on the horizon a mile or so away over the Devil’s Den area on the Weston/Redding border. It was low in the sky and unusually bright, much brighter than any airplane lights, flashing and drifting very slowly.”

And another partial quote from Sept. 28, 2010 in Redding:

“I saw a bright light that slowly moved through the sky and seemed to have striations that looked like lightning bolts eminating from it.”

And another partial from Weston in Feb. of 2003:

“Bright light in sky. Not an airplane because it didn’t move. Not a star because it was twinkling white, green and red lights. To the left was another star-like light that seemed to blink a few times then stop…blink again a few time then stop, etc. After 5 mins. or so both lights grew dimmer and more distant until they were gone.”

And another from Norwalk in August of 2007:

“Blinking Bright Star/object, at lower alltitude than normal at stand still/ moving very subtully through the night sky. The UFO appeared to be a a blinking star or a plan. As I laid down in the bed it was descending in a weird fashion.”

——— Our Location ———

Below are three maps which show our location, our line of site, and the location of the floating object. The blue lines represent the opening through which we viewed the orange light. We were only able to witness the light’s movement between the island you see to the left of our line of site (respective to the observer) and the tall pine trees which cover the peninsula to our right. You can find the same maps at https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zwGJfJDQECZY.k7Uby7nJpcsQ

——— The images ———

That night, I was lucky enough to have my Canon Rebel T3i in the car that brought us to the reservoir. I had taken some 30″ exposure shots before the light appeared. All of the images taken that night were in RAW, CR2 format, which can be provided to anyone who might assume they have been “photoshopped.”

Editors Note: MUFON Connecticut reviewed the pictures, and stated that they exhibit classic signs of “camera shake” because of the setting used on the camera. They also predicted that the images were of chinese sky lanterns.

When the light first appeared, we believed we were seeing a plane coming from the east, rising very slowly. However, compared to other planes that very regularly fly over the reservoir at night, it was moving far too slowly, and too erratically. To give the lights some context, I took a picture of a plane traveling above the reservoir just after the orange lights disappeared. It is pictured below.

As one can see, the lights recorded when taking a picture of a plane were regular, and tightly delineated. I was not taking these pictures with a tripod. Any camera shake is negligible, and the lights of the plane are clearly defined. EXIF data and zoom views are included above.

Contrarily, the pictures taken of the odd orange lights were not clear or well-defined. The following picture was taken with the exact same EXIF settings, from the exact same point on the reservoir as the plane lights above. Yet, it depicts something much less defined, with varying colors. It almost looks like a hieroglyph.

The next image of the orange lights give a much better perspective of how unbelievably low these lights were hovering above the tree line. The brightness and contrast have been edited to show a clearer look at the tree line. Also of note are the green lights which seem to be the source of the orange, glowing lights. This image is also taken at about half the shutter-speed as the above two images, and appears to show the eratic nature of the light’s movement across the sky.

A third image of the lights again shows the clear difference between the green and orange lights in the sky, though the human eye could only pick up the green. When we saw it without a camera lens, the light appeared to be an orange circle floating across the sky.

——— Conclusion ———

I cannot even pretend to guess what on earth I took a picture of that night. Maybe its a lighted kite for all I know. All I can do is give you the information I have seen and found, and let you make your own conclusions.

I’m the furthest thing from a skeptic when it comes to this sort of thing, so I urge you to debunk anything I say as harshly as you can.

My fellow observers and I are excited to see what you all may think. Feel free to contact us at CBurns.Relix@gmail.com.

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