Elsie Craig and her husband Peter had just said good-night to friends at their caravan pitch at Christon Bank, near Alnwick, when they noticed the shimmering globes off to the east.
At first Mr and Mrs Craig, from High Heaton, Newcastle, thought they might be particularly bright stars.
But when the eerie lights began to shift around into different formations, their surprise turned to amazement.
“Our friends had just gone back to their caravan, when Peter shouted on me to come and have a look at something,” said Mrs Craig, who works in telesales for a holiday company.
“The lights were arranged in a sort of conical shape, but by the time I got out they had shifted to form a curved arc very low in the sky. We stood watching for a while, wondering what they could be.
“They seemed to be hovering above the area of Low Newton Links.
“The lights then started to fade out, but four remained, changing from a square formation into a line, which then also faded away. One which had been at the bottom, quite stationary, then rose up into the sky and disappeared.”
The whole sighting, which happened on June 24, lasted around ten minutes.
Retired bank manager Mr Craig, 54, added: “We’ve been going up to the caravan for the last 16 years, but we’ve never seen anything like this.
“We’re probably quite sceptical about things like UFOs, but we can’t explain what these lights were. It was very strange.”
Radar operators at RAF Boulmer’s Control and Reporting Centre – less than tenmiles away from the area the lights were sighted over – said no military aircraft were flying in the area at that time.
A spokeswoman said: “The only explanation we can offer is that, because it is quite difficult to judge altitude at night, that these lights may have been fishing boats.”
But Mr Craig added: “There must be a rational explanation for it but there is no way they were boats. They were clearly up in the sky, and the last one was very high before it disappeared.”
North East-based UFO investigator Gloria Dixon said: “Reflections from the ground or sea onto clouds are certainly responsible for some UFO reports, but the information given by this couple does seem objective and accurate.
“It would be very interesting if anyone else spotted these particular lights.”
The Craigs’ sighting is the third reported in north Northumberland this year, involving orange or golden balls of light.
A couple and their grandson driving near Paxton claimed to have seen five such objects over the sea near Berwick, in a pyramid formation.
And a second witness reported five golden lights high in the air, which “faded out like candles”, also off the coast near Berwick. l Did you see the strange lights? Contact the Gazette on 01665 602234 or email northumberland.gazette@northeast-press.co.uk