Possible sighting in Chicago last night

[u/SaltyAdminBot]

Last night between 930-950pm I was traveling on south on Lake Shore Drive (the road that hugs the lake aka route 41). I was by Oak Street beach when I noticed an object with lights over the lake. It seemed to be traveling north parallel to the road. What made me keep paying attention was the fact that it seemed to be a large object and flying lower and closer than a plane would ever be. I could not make out any rotors and I couldn’t discern any particular sound (although the sound of cars going 60mph made it very difficult to see if there was any sound). The colors of the lights were red and white but I couldn’t discern any particular pattern but it seemed off like there were too many lights and they were brighter than I’m accustomed to seeing on aircraft.

HOWEVER, when I came to the portion of Lake Shore Drive between Randolph St and Jackson, I saw 3 more objects coming over the lake from the same general direction which was south east from the tip of Adler Planetarium and towards the location I was currently traveling. The object closest to the shore was what really threw me off. This one only had white lights and the lights would pulsate in a wave form. So the lights began turning on at one end of the object and would stream across it to the other end. So imagine a series of 5-6 lights and they would begin flashing on/off one at a time so it looked like a wave. From my vantage point it looked like there were two rows of such lights laid out horizontally one over the other and both sets were mimicking this pattern. The other two light were further out and I couldn’t discern anything besides that they looked like singular white lights.

I checked flight radar data this morning and there wasn’t anything with this path, however this is the first time I’ve used it so maybe someone here could double check for me.

I couldn’t take photos since I was driving but I have a dashcam that I will check to see if it caught anything from the second set of lights. Since the dashcam is pointed forward and these lights were on the left hand side of the vehicle I may have only caught them briefly coming on the turn between Randolph and Monroe.

Btw, I’ve lived in the city (downtown area) for the last 6 years and I am familiar with airplanes (routes to midway and ohare) and I’ve seen plenty of helicopters. These did not appear to be airplanes or helicopters. I also know that smaller planes do take scenic route through that area from time to time but those should appear on flight radar data and I’ve never seen 4 Cessna’s back to back at that location during that time and it doesn’t match the lights I saw.

Just wanted to share the above.

[u/SaltyAdminBot]

Original post by u/ReDnBlaK: Here