NUFORC Sighting 37480

Occurred: 2003-08-10 19:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2004-06-08 17:42 Pacific
Duration: 100 minutes
No of observers: 4

Location: Albuquerque, NM, USA

Shape: Unknown


Stationary object over New Mexico

While passing the football to my son and a couple of his friends, I looked up in broad daylight, and saw an object in the southwestern sky that was glowing extremely brightly. It was way off. I was on the east side of Albuquerque, and this thing looked to be to the extreme west, southwest end of Albuquerque, or even possibly a little farther out over the mountains. It was maybe 10,000 feet up. I regularly observe Venus, and Mars, and know exactly what both look like, and where to find them in the sky. This object was way brighter than Venus, or any star, and it was still broad daylight. I stopped passing the ball and just stared at it. One of the kids (ab out 10 years old) asked what I was looking at, and I said I didn't know. The kid laughed and said it was a UFO. I ruled out a Hot Air Baloon, Venus, a helicopter, and it obviously wasn't a plane because this object hovered there for more than an hour and a half. I should note that it's position in reference to Earth never changed. During this 100 minutes, any celestial object would have disappeared over the horizon, but this one remained at the same relative position over the horizon the whole time. After we finished playing catch, me and my son drove down to Target, still watching this object hovering in the same spot. By this time I was fairly sure it was a UFO. Now here's how I know this wasn't venus, because if you do your homework, you'll probably conclude that I was looking at Venus, especially as bright as it is right now, but this was August of 2003. Venus wasn't unusually bright then, like it is now. This is how I judged how far off and how high it was. Because as the Sun went down over the western horizon, and the western sky turned red, this object also went from glowing a bright white, to turning red as the sky turned red. And when the sky went from red to dark, the object went from reddish, to disappearing in the darkness. So my conclusion is that it was in fact not Venus, it was in the atmosphere, it turned red as the sunl! ight weakened, and disappeared in the dark because it's glow was actually the sunlight reflecting off of it. I should also note that about a month later, someone sent George Noory a photo of a UFO over arizona within a month of my sighting, and it looked like the same thing I had seen. So two similar sightings within a month, one in New Mexico, and one in Arizona. The other thing I found totally suspicious was that this thing had to be on Kirtland Air Force Base's radar. It was within a few miles of the base, but no aircraft ever approached it the whole time it was there. I should also note that it hovered not to far from where air traffic comes in to the Albuquerque Sunport. However, I never saw any commercial flights coming in in that vicinity all during the sighting.



NUFORC Note:

Time and date are approximate. We wonder whether the witness might have observed one of the helium-filled, high-altitude balloons that are launched out of New Mexico, from time to time. PD


Posted 2004-06-18

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