Saturday night at 9:45 PM, Kelly and I were up on the grassy lawn at Red Hat Amphitheater watching Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers play. Kelly pointed over to the northwest sky, above Dawson Street. Floating through the sky were a half-dozen flickering little balls of amber light. I blinked a few times before deciding they were flares. As the concert went on, the flares continued to march slowly south across the sky. There were well over a dozen of them. I’m sure the 911 center got more than one report of UFOs.

After the concert ended, Raleigh started up its fireworks show from the parking deck behind us. I wondered if the flares had been launched to gauge the air currents, as the flares seemed to have been launched from the direction of Fire Station #1 at Martin and Dawson Streets. I’m not sure why they would need to launch over a dozen of them to do this, though. Why wouldn’t one or two be sufficient? And why launch them well over an hour before the fireworks began?

I think I’ll reach out to my (few) contacts at the fire department to see how the whole process of setting up for fireworks, well … works.

Update 2 Oct 5:53 PM: Raleigh Fire Department says the flares aren’t theirs.