Three Lights Turning Over Gillette: Wyoming’s MUFON Director Has No Explanation Yet

CASE FILE RW-DAILY-2026-1107-AM

Subject: Three lights filmed turning in a triangular pattern over Gillette, Wyoming

Dates: Clips recorded 24 Sept 2026 (10:21 p.m. MDT) and 25 Sept 2026 (10:24 p.m. MDT); published by Cowboy State Daily 5 Nov 2026; this file opened 7 Nov 2026

Location: Gillette, Campbell County, Wyoming

Status: Footage CONFIRMED to exist; the lights themselves UNIDENTIFIED; non-human explanation UNVERIFIED; leading mundane explanation unresolved

See it first

The primary evidence is a 2-minute, 37-second YouTube upload titled “Rotating lights near Gillette (Courtesy Sommer Chase).” It was posted by Cowboy State Daily on YouTube on 5 November 2026, the same day the outlet ran its story. The witness, Gillette resident Sommer Chase, supplied the footage. The original social posts she made earlier are referenced in the reporting but not linked by it.

• Uploader: Cowboy State Daily (courtesy Sommer Chase)
• Upload date: 5 Nov 2026
• Length: 2:37
• Views at filing: About 3,300 (YouTube count, 7 Nov 2026)
• Recorded: 10:24 p.m., 25 Sept 2026, with similar lights at 10:21 p.m., 24 Sept 2026, per the video description

Key moments (from frame grabs pulled by the desk and the uploader’s description):

• 0:00–0:20: A roadside scene at night. Passing car headlights wash across the pavement and grass in the foreground while small points of light sit in the dark sky above a utility pole.
• 0:30–1:50: The roadway goes dark and the camera holds on the sky. In frame grabs the lights appear as small, sharp points, not broad glowing patches.
• About 2:05–2:10: A vehicle passes through the lower frame, matching the description’s note that the lights turned “as cars pass.”
• About 2:20–2:37: The scene changes to a bluer sky above a tree line. The upload does not label this cut; the description mentions footage from two nights.

The motion itself, three lights turning around a common center, is described here from the video’s own description and Cowboy State Daily’s reporting, not from desk re-timing of every second. A single still cannot show rotation.

What happened

According to Cowboy State Daily’s 5 November report by Emma Jane Jackson, Chase has filmed three lights moving in a triangular pattern over Gillette on evening walks since her family moved to the town in June. She told the paper her first posted video of the lights, shared last year, passed 200,000 views, and that commenters said they had seen similar lights in the Netherlands, Australia, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Chase said the lights do not move like satellites and do not make the hum of a drone. She traced her interest back to childhood sightings on a North Dakota farm and to night-shift reports from her husband at a coal mine in Colstrip, Montana, beginning in 2019. She said she saw the lights there herself in 2022, usually between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.

Richard Beckwith, Wyoming state director for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and, per his MUFON profile, a longtime Rock Springs attorney, reviewed the footage. “I must agree that the objects are very interesting, and I have no explanation at present for what the user recorded,” he told the paper in a text. He added a caution: “because we can’t explain it today, doesn’t mean we won’t be able to explain it in the future.” By his count, 5 to 10 percent of sightings are never explained, and for now he places this footage in that group.

The story spread quickly. Cowboy State Daily pushed it on X at 4:07 p.m. ET on 5 Nov. The aggregator Aliens.co.il summarized it the same day, and the UFO Watch daily briefing for 6 Nov listed it as a “reported claim.” Reposts followed on X, including one from @Truth_SeekersTV, and on Exopolitics Taiwan.

For more Wyoming lights, see the earlier [Cody orbs file](/cody-wyoming-orbs-return/), another case Beckwith reviewed this year.

Timeline

• 2019: Chase’s husband begins reporting lights during night shifts at a coal mine in Colstrip, Montana (per Chase).
• 2022: Chase says she sees the lights herself in Montana.
• 2025: Chase posts her first video of the lights; she says it passes 200,000 views.
• June 2026: The family moves to Gillette, Wyoming.
• 24 Sept 2026, 10:21 p.m. MDT: Lights filmed over Gillette (per video description).
• 24 Sept 2026, evening: Gillette–Campbell County Airport automated weather station logs clear skies below 12,000 feet every hour from 7:53 p.m. to 11:53 p.m. MDT.
• 25 Sept 2026, 10:24 p.m. MDT: Main clip filmed; the airport again logs clear below 12,000 feet from 8:53 p.m. to 11:53 p.m.
• 5 Nov 2026: Cowboy State Daily publishes the story and the YouTube clip; aggregators pick it up.
• 6 Nov 2026: UFO Watch briefing and X reposts.
• 7 Nov 2026: This file opened.

What the research found

• The sky had no low cloud on either night. Hourly reports from the Gillette–Campbell County Airport (KGCC) weather station, archived by Iowa State’s Mesonet, show “CLR” with 10-mile visibility through the evenings of 24 and 25 September. That matters because the classic explanation for rotating lights in a triangle, advertising searchlights painting spots on a cloud base, needs something for the beams to hit.
• “Clear” has a ceiling. The National Weather Service’s ASOS ceilometer page and the ASOS user’s guide explain that the automated sensor detects cloud only up to 12,000 feet. Thin high cloud above that would not appear in the log, so searchlights are weakened, not ruled out.
• The lights look like points, not patches. In the desk’s frame grabs, the lights are small, sharp dots. Searchlight spots on cloud are typically broad, soft-edged discs, according to guides from CAELESTIA, UAP.GLOBAL and Sky Glitch. Phone compression on a 640-pixel copy can shrink a dim patch, so this observation is suggestive, not decisive.
• The investigator is on record but cautious. Beckwith’s quote calls the objects unidentified, not anomalous, and he stresses that most cases his group handles eventually get conventional explanations.
• No second witness, radar or official report has surfaced. The reporting rests on one witness’s clips and one investigator’s review. No FAA, sheriff’s office or military statement about these two nights appears in the coverage.