NUFORC Sighting 61379

Occurred: 2008-02-02 17:45 Local
Reported: 2008-02-02 18:59 Pacific
Duration: 1 minute
No of observers: 1

Location: Mesa, AZ, USA

Shape: Oval

Very large oval shaped object about the size of the City of Phoenix flying through the clouds.

My family and I were driving from Queencreek AZ to our home in Mesa, AZ. We were on the U.S. 60. My wife was driving and I looked out in front of me at what I thought was a funny smoke shape about 30 miles plus away. It had a ribbon like shape and was vertical thus my thought it was smoke. However it was in the middle of the horizon and maintained its shape for the entire duration of this experience. I continued to watch this trying to figure out what it could be. It seemed to appear and disappear over and over with a waving like motion. I then saw these round like puffs that looked like something bursting in the air like when you see movies of flack but the "smoke" was white in color. What really seemed strange was that this explosion then seemed to reverse in outward movement to inward and more condensed. It was then that about 10 Miles away I saw something that looked at first like a hot air balloon going through fog. It was at that moment that I thought, "Wow" there is fog really low going horizontal to the freeway. Then it appeared again even closer and it the object came into view and looked more like the front end of a blimp, however it was huge. I thought, wow that fog is alot closer to the ground than I thought and the blimp looked as if it was within 30 feet to the right of us. It was then that I saw that my eyes seemed to adjust and realize that what I was thinking was a low fog was a very high cloud and around along ways away. I yelled out loud, "WHAT IS THAT? I realized that whatever it was, it was the largest object I had ever seen. I told my wife to look but she was driving and could not see what I was looking at. It was at that time that we passed the 202 ramp and the 60 dipped. I watched the object all the way until the wall next to the freeway covered my view. My wife kept saying, "should I pull over?" I didn't know what to do. I kept waiting and looking to where I thought it would emerge from the end of the cloud into open blue sky. It had been! clear a ll day and we where out at our with our friends and so clouds were the last thing I expected. I did not regain view of the clouds where the object was seen and I told my wife to exit the freeway. She exited the freeway at power road as I looked into the sky looking back and forth scanning the whole area for a low flying hot air balloon a blimp or something else as the path seemed to be heading toward the opening sky. We drove north on power until Broadway and never again saw this object. It was then that I saw a jet flying in the opposite direction as the object I saw and the jet was still pretty high flying the normal pattern toward PHX Sky Harbor airport. I gasped when I realized the magnitude of what I had seen. The object dwarfed the plane like a plane against an upside down mountain. I continued to reflect back on what I had seen and can only say that it was only the front end blimp shaped in front and the smoke like ribbon was the same object passing through the clouds giving the solid object the smoky like appearance. It was not a cloud behind another cloud. It was a definite Oval object and I would estimate it from just the nose and from how far away the clouds where that it was bigger than the size of the city of Phoenix.

I don't know what it was, or what it belonged to. I know that I saw something and I know that it was a solid object. I have never seen anything that big except for a mountain. It was not a mountain. The object I saw was skimming through the clouds and because of its huge size it through my perception of the actual distance of the clouds way off. The planes that flew in toward Sky Harbor were still very high above the ground and the clouds where still higher in the air then they were. No low flying clouds. These clouds where pretty high.

Posted 2008-02-14