Hundreds of Witnesses
Due to its duration and proximity to a populous area, as well as fortuitous timing, these mass sightings produced multiple photographs and videos of the event, as well as a large number of witnesses, making this a unique mass sighting. During the October 31 sightings, a vast number of residents were filling the sidewalks to trick-or-treat with their children, creating a large and cross-sectional witness base. Residents reported entire blocks of trick-or-treaters and parents stopped in the street to observe the objects. On the Saturday, August 21 occurrence, the conspicuous objects were in full view of gridlocked traffic making egress from Tinley Park's 28,000 seat First Midwest Bank Amphitheater (at that time called Tweeter Center) where Ozzfest had just ended, creating another aggregation of observers.
Some witnesses reported seeing conventional aircraft orbiting in the vicinity of the lights.
Opinion among witnesses differs in if the objects appeared to be affixed to a very large, unlighted object (a Black Triangle (UFO) object), or if the lights appeared to move independently of one another. Some witnesses maintain that the lights remained in a rigid triangular arrangement at all times, suggesting it may have been one enormous triangular object with lights at its corners, while others perceived independent movement. On November 2, 2008, the show UFO Hunters on the History channel featured the events, and did an examination of the videos. They used GPS locations of the footage, relative angles, and movement of the lights to reveal their behavior. The determination was that the lights did move in unison to one another, most likely connected, and through relative perspective of the videos, estimated that the size of the object was close to 1,500 feet across.
Sightings were seen in many parts of the continent preceding the sighting in Tinley Park, including British Columbia, and parts across the northwest as well as Texas. Several days later, two sets of the three lights were again caught on film in Australia.
Read more about this topic: Tinley Park Lights
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—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
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—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)