NUFORC Sighting 131853

Occurred: 2016-12-27 21:30 Local
Reported: 2016-12-28 12:38 Pacific
Duration: 1-2 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Lights on object, Changed Colo

Unusual lighted maneuvering object in the sky in NW Las Vegas

I was driving north in the vicinity of Buffalo and Grand Teton and looked out my window towards the west and saw a rather bright reddish orange light traveling either towards the southeast or it was rapidly climbing. I pulled over and got out of my car and continued to watch as it got higher in the western sky, it remained reddish orange and appeared to vary in intensity like a fire or flare that flickers, sort of like seeing a campfire at a great distance.

Then the object slowed and appeared to hover and meander a bit in it's position. Then it slowly reversed course and headed back towards the west-northwest, and at the same time it changed course it also dimmed greatly and became hard to see, and now appeared whitish and very dim, slowly fading to where I could no longer see it. I tried to get in on video but it had already turned NW and cant see it on the video.

Its initial direction of travel was about 130 degrees, after it changed course it appeared to head about 310 degrees.

My direction of travel was about 360 degrees, and I initially saw the object at about a 270 degrees, directly towards the Spring Mountains.

It reminded me of a high altitude rocket, Ive seen a lot of rockets out of Vandenberg when I was younger. But this object varied in speed and direction, unlike any rocket I've seen.

I saw something like this about a year ago, in the same general area but it was out farther northwest of Las Vegas towards the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.

Posted 2016-12-30