Glenwood residents baffled by strange lights making 'curious movements'
Strange lights that track constellations and fade in and out have left a regional community searching for answers after dozens of sightings over the past year.
Strange, silent orange lights making curious movements, sometimes hundreds in one night and often visible in the sky for hours, have been reported by multiple witnesses at Glenwood, north of Gympie.
Just what the lights are, nobody is certain, but they have been observed, photographed and videoed by at least three local residents in the past year.
One witness, Mary Bayliss, reported seeing “hundreds” of lights in one night going in and out behind the clouds, and including a “much larger one that glides above the tree line”.
For more than 12 months, “every few nights, depending on the weather and clouds, I have been watching strange lights move around the sky, in a particular area,” she said.
Glenwood property owner Paul McEwan, 49, thought he and his family were “going mad” when they first saw lights above their weekend retreat several months ago.
Mr McEwan and his family spend most weekends at their Glenwood acreage and often trek to the highest point to watch the night sky out to the west.
“Always around 7 or 7.30pm, they start,” Mr McEwan said.
They appeared to be some distance away, over the range around Mount Kanigan, “just over the horizon”.
“We go up there every weekend … they’re (about three lights) there every time we go there.
“One light would appear, then another would pop up, after about 10 minutes, one by one.
“(They are) like a bright orange light.”
Mr McEwan described their bizarre movement pattern as “circular”.
He said the lights, which he originally thought were helicopters, started off directly west, but through the night would slowly appear to move through the sky with the constellations.
They often appeared for as long as he and his family would look at them, which could be hours, he said.
“It could happen all night.
“Can’t figure out what the hell they are … always (near) the same constellation as well.”
Ms Bayliss, a semi-retired artist and psychic, said at about 4am many mornings, around the area of Orion’s Belt and Venus as it rises, “I see these lights, they look a bit like stars, and they move around”.
They appeared to “fade in, move in a straight line and then fade”.
While their movement did not match what Mr McEwan saw, the “fading” of the lights, and their movement tracking the constellations was consistent in both accounts.
“Some are bigger than others,” Ms Bayliss said.
“I see quite a few of them flying around, some seem reddish.
“I have seen four and five moving around at the same time.
“There is a much larger one I see every so often, that glides above the tree line, from the left to right and sometimes back again.”
Ms Bayliss said she initially thought they were drones, but noticed the lights were always behind the clouds, meaning they must be further away.
She said while they were difficult to capture on a phone camera, she was hopeful others with more photographic firepower would join her to document the phenomenon.
“My sister and two friends have watched them with me and can vouch for me,” she said.
Neither Ms Bayliss, nor Mr McEwan, reported any accompanying noise from the objects.
Another Glenwood resident, Nick Williams, reported a much closer encounter with mysterious lights in the area.
“I not only saw lights from where I live; I was interacting with them,” he said.
“Got as close as a couple of metres. I thought they were drones at first they were hovering around the tree line, about 10 of them, but they were completely silent.
“I started videoing them then they noticed me and started flying around me a couple of metres off the ground.
“They kept changing shape and colour and I got what I think was the (mothership), it was amazing, and if I didn’t get pics and videos of it I would think I was seeing things.”
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