NUFORC Sighting 48701

Occurred: 2006-01-05 18:45 Local
Reported: 2006-01-13 00:21 Pacific
Duration: 1 second
No of observers: 1

Location: Roswell, NM, USA

Shape: Flash

Unknown flash of light, High altitude

I have been working nights almost my entire career, more to the point It has been in the aviation field. As of late I have been watching what I would call flashes in the night sky. The first time I saw this I thought it was strobes from an aircraft. But after several moments I understood that it wasn't. Approximately ten seconds later there was another flash in the same part of the night sky. The time was approximately 6:45 PM sometime in early January, then again on the 9th of January. The first sighting was between the constellations of Booties and Orion. The second sighting was later somewhere around 7:30 8:00 PM. this time it was below booties by about 5 degrees. I thought that it might be a satellite. They sometimes will light up as the sun shines through a mountain peak in the west, these flashes were extremely bright nor were there any signs of a satellite. Anyone else see this? Got any ideas? Perhaps a meteor skipping off the atmosphere like a stone skipping across the water? Like I said, I have done a lot of night sky viewing and over the years i have learned to explain most of what I see in the night sky. This however has me scratching my head.

Posted 2006-02-14