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Pinson
Alabama
USA
January 1, 2016

Three slowly moving lights in shape of inverted triangle observed in southern sky, north of Birmingham, AL

Around 7:15pm on January 1st, 2016, I was taking the dog out to use the bathroom. I was standing on the walkway to our front porch waiting for him to do his walk around the yard. At roughly 7:19pm (based on the time of the photos), I noticed an inverted triangle in the southern sky, probably around 20 to 30 degrees above the horizon. (this would possibly place the lights a few miles east / northeast of Birmingham, AL since we are located roughly 15 miles northeast of the city.

When I noticed the lights, they drew my attention because they were much larger and brighter than any stars showing in the sky at the time. The color of each light was also different than a star, appearing to be either a yellow/orange or orange color. Initially I believed it could possibly be some type of lanterns in the sky based on color and the time of the year (new years), but they stayed in that same tight triangle formation without wavering (like the lights were connected). It also appeared that the triangle formation was rotating (the upper two lights appeared to rotate clockwise with the left light moving further away, all while maintaining the triangle formation. I assume it is very possible that we had 3 lanterns tethered together forming a triangle, but with so many triangle formations reported over the years, I thought this worth a look and was very odd. I have never seen anything like this in person before.

During the time I viewed it, the three lights moved VERY slowly east, and as I mentioned above, the formation appeared to be slowly rotating. Picture any triangle shape rotating slowly in a three dimensional space, with all corners staying at a consistent distance, and this is what I saw. It APPEARED as though the upper left corner/light rotated away from me because of the shape changes of the formation, and the way that corner/light appeared to go a bit dimmer than the others when the shape changed. (you can see this in the last few pictures taken).

Feelings while seeing the object was I guess complete surprise. I have witnessed some fairly odd things in the sky over the years that may or may not have an explanation (could have been satellites, etc), but this was definitely something I have never seen before with my own eyes. Seen it on TV and other reports/videos from around the world, but never in person. I'm still a bit in shock from what I saw.

The sighting lasted roughly 3-4 minutes probably, with the shape disappearing behind some fast moving clouds moving in from the south / southwest. After the clouds moved in, I haven't seen anything else in the sky. I was able to capture 11 pictures using my iphone 6, rear camera (sorry the quality isn't better, but phones don't take very good night sky pictures.)

This was also witnessed by my wife, mother, and daughter. All viewed from the side of our front porch.

Credit: MUFON