On Halloween night, October 31, 2004, residents of Tinley Park, Illinois, and nearby communities reported three bright red lights moving across the night sky. Witness accounts described the lights forming a triangle or line, moving slowly and silently, and eventually fading or disappearing. Multiple reports were submitted to NUFORC shortly after the event, and some witnesses said other people had also observed or recorded the display. The lights' identity has not been conclusively established.
The October 31, 2004, Tinley Park Lights sighting was one of the best-documented episodes in a recurring series of unusual red-light reports in the southern suburbs of Chicago. Around the evening hours, witnesses described three bright red lights in the eastern sky. Some accounts said the lights initially formed a triangle, shifted into a horizontal or other formation, and gradually disappeared one by one. Several witnesses reported that the lights made no audible sound. A number of people described seeing the display with family members, neighbours, or other observers. Reports were submitted to the National UFO Reporting Center in the days immediately following the event. One account stated that a family member who contacted police was told that numerous calls about the lights had already been received. Another report described other observers recording the display, although a stable original video independently verified as belonging to this date has not been established for this entry. The sighting followed an earlier Tinley Park episode on August 21, 2004, and preceded another widely reported recurrence in late September and early October 2005. The repeated reports make the wider series worthy of historical documentation, but they do not establish that the lights were a single structured craft. Proposed conventional explanations have included aircraft, flares, and lights carried by balloons; no explanation is conclusively demonstrated by the cited witness records alone. This entry is limited to the October 31, 2004, episode and should not be treated as a combined account of every Tinley Park Lights report.
| Date: | 2004-10-31 |
| Location: | Tinley Park and surrounding south suburbs of Chicago, Illinois |
| Country: | United States |
| Category: | UFO Sighting |
| Credibility: | Disputed |