NUFORC Sighting 38128

Occurred: 1997-07-07 20:45 Local
Reported: 2004-07-15 09:38 Pacific
Duration: 30 minutes/less
No of observers: 1

Location: White Sands Missile Range, NM, USA

Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Changed Colo

It looked like a standard house lightbulb very bright and luminous.

It was 8:45 PM, July-7-1997. I was leaving work and heading west down Nike Ave. I had just reached the horse shoe curve at Launch Complex-32 . In the distant mountains, just north of the artillery range, in the smallest portion of the mountain range, I thought I saw a orange ball of fire burning two- thirds the way up the mountain side. There were fires in that same place the year before. The smoke of those fires invaded Main Post. The diameter of the object was about 1/4 to 1/5 the height of the mountain. As I continued to drive west on Nike Ave. I notice that this was not a fire but something that was fiery orange and was floating down the mountain. When the object was about half way down it headed north towards Main Post. I continued to drive west on Nike Ave towards Main Post. The object then changed from orange to a luminous white. The object then headed in my direction and stopped half way down Nike Ave. It stayed lit or luminated all the way from the mountain to the halfway point of Nike Ave. The light intensity stayed the same too.

It started to descend and I thought it was going to land but it did not.

It came within about 15 feet of the ground and I waiting to see sand kick up around it but there was none. It was the size of a VW beetle shaped like a ordinary light bulb.

This object just stopped in mid-air and didn't float around or wobble but stayed in one place.

Any other known aircraft would wobble a little to compensate for air currents.

It wasn't a helicopter because it was so close you would have heard the helicopter's motor. There was no sound. You can hear a helicopter a mile away and this object was less than a block away.

The object was so luminous that it was like looking right into a light bulb at night and seeing nothing but the light.

If someone was inside the object they would be blinded.

I stopped my car and set my headlights in it's direction.

I then saw the light turn off. (The light being the object).

I said to myself if this is a hot-air balloon then when it relites it should flicker before it glows in full intensity.

I have seen balloons at night like at the Night Glow Festival and they all flicker when the propane burners turn on.

I then said to myself " don't blink my eyes or I might miss the relighting and miss the glimpse of flickering.

I did not blink and the object did not flicker but came back to full intensity instantly like turning on a light bulb.

I thought if there was any intelligence on board this thing it might understand mathematics.

I turned my headlights off and then blinked the headlights once, twice, and three times, then twice, then once.

This would show addition and subtraction in its simplest form.

Now the object started to move in the direction from which it came.

It followed the same flight path back the same way it had came. As though it was following a programmed flight course.

I started my car and continued to drive west on Nike Ave. Keeping an eye on it until it went over the mountain. It got to the mountain before I got to the end of Nike Ave. which tells me this thing was not a balloon but flew under quite some power because it traveled an estimated distance of 8 miles in about 8 minutes and that works out to be about 60 MPH.

From that point on I headed home going north on Owen Road which leads to Highway 70.

As I cloverleafed around to get on highway 70, I was now facing south and looking at the mountains where the object flew over. I could see two bright lights coming over the mountain and they were together. It looked like headlights of a car flying over the mountain heading north.

The lights, flying parallel to each other, split apart, one going west and the other going East and both turned back to the mountain they just came over to go back over it again.

I also observed a red blinking light setting over the mountain where these two white lights were.

Then all three lights moved back behind the mountain and I didn't see nothing after that. I proceeded to continue on my way back home.

After many years of pondering this incident I don't believe it to have been a balloon.

Because people flying in a balloon so close at night in the mountains would be very dangerous. And this object flew a long distance in a short time which means the balloon would have to have a motor to move it so fast. But I don't know what it was I cannot leave out the possibly it could have been a balloon. I have another idea it could have been a light source like a laser facility shinning a light against the mountain and then pointing the light down Nike Ave. But when I saw the light at such close distance to me the object looked like a solid object. I don't know to this day what I saw.

Posted 2004-07-25