{tjd} Circular object with flashing lights hovering in sky.
This morning, at approximately 2:10am CDT, I took my dog outside to our back yard. As I was standing on the deck waiting for her, I noticed an object hovering in the sky straight west of our house, between 1-3 miles away (I'm guessing at this as I'm not good with distance). The sky was clear - no clouds & stars were visible. The object had flashing red lights & flashing white lights - flashing in sequence, meaning the row of red lights would flash then the row of white lights would flash.
I watched it for a bit, thinking it was strange that this object didn't seem to be moving, so I decided to go in & get my binoculars for a better view. Granted my binoculars aren't the best, but I was able to see that this was a circular, solid object, gray in color. There was a row of red lights & a row of white lights surrounding the bottom. I couldn't make out any other details.
The object was hovering for maybe 10 minutes, then moved very slowly to the west. While it was moving away, I went in the house & got my Mom out of bed so she could take a look. When she came out, the object was still visible with the naked eye, but was getting farther away. She was able to see the flashing lights, but wasn't able to see the object too clearly due to the distance. We stood watching while it moved away, and about 2-3 minutes later it had faded away. We could still still blinking lights, but they were surrounded by a haze at that point. Eventually they faded away.
Our house is about 5 miles southeast (as the crow flies) of Wichita's Eisenhower National Airport & a smaller personal-aircraft airport, and about 5 miles slightly southwest of McConnell Air Force Base. I'm used to seeing large airplanes, jumbo jets, commuter airplanes, single-engine planes & helicopters from the two local airports - I see them taking off & landing everyday. I'm also used to seeing tankers, jets, B-1s, B-2s, B-52s, etc. as I've been around Air Force Bases most of my life. I see planes - mostly tankers & some fighter jets - from the Base daily as well - so I'm acutely aware of what they look like & where their lights are situated. This did not look like any plane or helicopter I've ever seen.....and I've never seen anything at any base that actually hovered in the sky, or moved so slowly - and still stayed aloft.
After the object disappeared from our view, my Mom & I stood outside for a few minutes, and a jet came flying our direction (east) at high speed - coming from the area where we last saw the object. The jet flew over our house & headed toward McConnell. That jet had the normal lights on the bottom & I could hear the tell-tale sound of a fighter jet. It was unusual for there to be any jets flying that late - there usually isn't any overnight training/recon flights from the base.
I did not get any pictures or video. I wasn't sure where my camera was, and I had stupidly let my phone run down. It was a very curious experience though. I wish I had been wise enough to document it. I thought someone might be interested in our experience & was wondering if anyone else had seen this, so I decided to go ahead & put my experience on this site.
Thank you for your time.