Accipiter, from how you’ve explained your ideas, I am now wondering if this could be closer to truth.  Last night your last post helped me ponder, I also thought about my own writing that ‘we’ (the rest of the world) would be overwhelmed by such technology.  And then I thought too, if they were JUST very advanced and eloquently lighted flying crafts with highly developed movement and speed, no matter how produced, they would have been still, basically JUST lights.  I am reminded of those laser beamed hand-held wands used by cat owners to put pin-prick lights onto a surface to excite our cats into trying to catch them?  (But don’t those little wands have a beam extending from the wand tip to the spot finally made onto the surface?  I’ve never used one.)

When you say “backward and forward” I assume you acually mean: becoming brigther, and dimming. That creates an illusion of coming forward and backward, but isn’t necessarily the same.

I’ve seen military aircraft practising at distance, and civil aircraft approaching a distance. Your descriptions sound very smilar to that. Please note, with very clear weather conditions (such as you describe!) these aircraft can be many, many miles way, up to a few hundred miles on occasion.

btw, laser-pointers (which are for pointing out things on slide presentations by lecturers, but adopted by cat owners) do have a beam but it is (almost) invisible. When the beam hits a reflecting surface, a bright dot shows up at that place.

With searchlight, whether the beam is visible depends on distance, and weather conditions. If there is very little (in terms of moisture particles) to diffuse the light, the beam itself is barely visible.

I do understand absolutely what you describe as backward and forward movement lights at night with crafts.  When these moved, the light didn’t dim and it went in a sideways movement, the lights just became smaller but not dimmer.  Please bear in mind that these lights were huge and did not flicker at any time.  In this area, because we were at a higher altitude (there were mountains some distance from Tabriz so we were on an incline geographically), there was always some condensation in the air and I think that’s why a beam from the ground would have been noticed as would a beam from the sky coming downwards, or if a beam moved to the side. 

These lights seemed not to penetrate beyond themselves (that’s why I was curious about large laser beams) and were vivid with no bluring around their edges.  This in part made viewing them quite remarkable.

I did send an e-mail query to MARA with what we have been discussing here and what all of you have been trying to help me identify.  This is what was sent back to me this morning:
__________________
Hi Rebecca,

I don’t think what you saw was similar to the Halewood LITS phenonmenon.  It is starting to look most of the Halewood LITS sightings were fireballoons.  There is an explanation of fire balloons towards the bottom of http://www.mara.org.uk/Project_IFO.htm  Fire balloons will only move slowly and not zig zag because they follow the wind.  I can’t explain what it was you saw, but I am sure that the very oppinionated people on the Hoax forum are wrong about it being ordinary aircraft or military aircraft.  People often jump to conclusions too quickly because it makes them feel clever, but in my experience quick answers are often the wrong ones.

Cheers,

Bill Bimson_____________________

I looked through their IFO page to see if there was anything there that might help, but none of these were even remotely near what we saw. 

Clearly I don’t know where to go to next, OR why this is now bothering me.

Of course.  Clearly, looking for a supernatural or extraterrestrial explanation is far more desirable than looking for a completely mundane and sensible explanation.

People believe bizarre and unsupported things because that’s what they want to do, not because of any logic.  Logic dictates you look for the most likely answer first, not the most intriguing.

Actually, that’s why I thought the Halewood lights would be the answer.  That made more sense to me, or even the Soviets doing interesting maneuvers with new craft.  When I asked my father that night though, this a man who had much knowledge of the surrounding area, the people, tribes and political structure, he said he had no idea and could only guess.  We tried to make logical determinations all the while we watched these.  I am sure too that there is a logical explanation, but it surely is not anything that was then or now being furnished to the citizens (of the globe), that’s for sure.  I have a feeling there’s a technology still under development, here in this country or some other, that when revealed will astonish all of us.

Looking for answers in the time of life when we feel we should have them all is not new.  There are questions in all of us from our past that we would like to know the answer to.  I am sure that what you saw with your father was something that he did not wish you to know the answer to.  I am almost positive that because he worked for the government he got an answer soon to this.  He was probably told not to share the information with anyone.  I know that this does not help you to understand but you are probably right in your thinking that the Soviet Union had something to do with it.

Boogirl, you’re just making all that up.  You have no answers so you provide the ones that sound ‘cool’ and intimidating.  Why believe a wild, paranoid fantasy over a perfectly normal and boring probability?  Oh, sorry.  Answered my own question there, didn’t I.

Charybdis - 28 January 2006 03:47 AM

Boogirl, you’re just making all that up.  You have no answers so you provide the ones that sound ‘cool’ and intimidating.  Why believe a wild, paranoid fantasy over a perfectly normal and boring probability?  Oh, sorry.  Answered my own question there, didn’t I.

Charybdis, you are somewhat of an enigma.  Challenge is a good term I think, but I’m not sure if you’re really challenging, searching or just love debate HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  If, on the other hand, none of these things are really true of you, then I am inclined to believe (there’s that word again) that you’d like proof that you and all the rest of us, really do exist, if what is around you is really real.  In truth, there is NO proof of any of this world, universe or even our ‘awareness’ of it. 

There are cultures who claim that none of this is real, that it is an illusion (perhaps of just a huge glob of eneregy that is ‘us’, but isn’t).  And if they are right (but there’s absolutely no proof), then the ‘proof’ about everything to date delivered by science (which is also a religion of unfounded proof by some ‘beliefs’) are also non-proof. 

So, let me offer this, there is no such thing as ‘proof’, there is no such thing as ‘us’ ‘we’ ‘you’ ‘they’.....  and even this ‘illusion’ is a fake. 

As to what Boogirl said though, that is, according to our understanding of this universal illusion (if it is), true.  My father spent many years having to withhold information from his family.  At times what he knew and was not permitted to share nearly rocked him to his knees.  It wasn’t until MANY years after leaving the service that some of this was discussed with me.  But there were a couple times that something, a name or place slipped that he supposed would hold no meaning to any of us. 

I believe, that night, my father knew what these lights were.

Charybdis - 27 January 2006 04:01 PM

Of course.  Clearly, looking for a supernatural or extraterrestrial explanation is far more desirable than looking for a completely mundane and sensible explanation.

People believe bizarre and unsupported things because that’s what they want to do, not because of any logic.  Logic dictates you look for the most likely answer first, not the most intriguing.

Exactly.  Thank you, Mr. Spock. 

Okay.  I have searched all over the internet for anything remotely like what my father and I saw.  I ruled out ball lightening, earthquake lights, craft lights including cars…. I found a number of zigzagging sitings but these were red or shaped like disks etc. and clearly not what we saw.  I’ve written to a number of institutions as well and sent the description to a couple professors, one who is an astronomer.  I am waiting for a response from the last one.

Tonight I decided to just search sticking with EXACTLY what we saw and was not happy that though these have been seen as we saw them, they are still being described as UFO.  I suppose that’s not too bad since all that really means is ‘unidentified’, but it still feels too close to nutsville for me. 

The last article I found was closest to what we saw and I thought I would paste it here:

http://ufoinfo.com/filer/2002/ff0215.shtml

This is somewhere in the middle of the page
FLORIDA FIREFLY TYPE LIGHT SEEN
TAMPA—Two witnesses were coming out of the AMC Westshore Theater around 9:45 PM, on April 8, 2002. The witness reports, “I looked up to look at the night sky and saw was a meteorite coming down or skipping around on the atmosphere. So I kept looking but in less than three seconds it turned and began to move very quickly. It was zigzagging like a person shining a pen light on a board and moving it in motions like a composure. That is why I thought it was a meteorite skipping off the atmosphere at first. Then I realized that it was going in and out and underneath and above the clouds. It moved from toward the south all in the space of about 10-30 seconds. Nothing to my knowledge could have endured the G forces caused by the maneuvers and the speed was tremendous. It traveled about 5 miles within 5 seconds. I pointed it to my mother who also saw it. She said she would never get over it. I have wanted to see something like this for 22 years. I would also like to make clear that it looked like a firefly but there were no trails of light behind. This light was very clearly a UFO. Thanks to Peter Davenport Director NUFORC http://www.ufocenter.com

Just as I thought.  Thanks for digging until you found the answer.