NUFORC Sighting 18922

Occurred: 2001-08-09 23:45 Local
Reported: 2001-08-10 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 15 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Los Alamos, NM, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

Jet chasing object over Los Alamos National Labs

I have been camping outside of Los Alamos. Last night I couldn't sleep and was laying in my sleeping bag looking up. I had just seen a shooting star a few minutes earlier and so was watching the sky carefully. The event started by my seeing what I first thought was a satelite. Very shortly after though, I heard the roar of a jet plane. I have been camping here for several months, so I'm familiar with the jets that normally pass over the area. This jet was excessively lowd and I was confused for a second. Then the jet came out from behind a tree and I could see that it was following the "satelite" which I could now see clearly was at a low altitude. The light and the jet had both come from the west and had apparently just cleared the mountains west of Los Alamos. The object and jet maintained the exact same distance for the entire time of the incidence. They both flew directly over the lab and much lower than any aircraft I had previously witnessed. It looked as if they were tied together, since the distance between them never varied. The light in front continued to look like a satelite the entire time, while the jet had it lights on and was clearly blinking and showing its normal lights. I looked at the object as it went by and couldn't see any shape and couldn't tell how big it was. The jet was obviously "after" it. There was no sonic boomb, so the two objects were going less than the speed of sound, however they were moving much faster than the commercial jets which fly over often.

Posted 2001-08-12