NUFORC Sighting 68961

Occurred: 1997-03-14 22:30 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2009-02-26 15:08 Pacific
Duration: 10 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Colorado Springs, CO, USA

Shape: Triangle
Characteristics: Lights on object

Triangular light formation in Colorado.

I recently watched a documentary (UFOs Seeing is Believing) hosted by Peter Jennings on the National Geographic Channel, which prompted me to report after all this time, something I saw when living in Colorado Springs over 10 years ago. The particular discussion on the type of objects seen in and around Phoenix, AZ at roughly the same time made me think there was something more to what I saw.

After returning home from a friend’s house on the evening of the 13th or 14th of March, 1997 at approximately 10:30pm (I remember it was around this time as I had returned from a vacation shortly before, but can’t remember if it was a Thursday or Friday), I went out on my back deck to look at the Hale-Bopp comet which was clearly visible with my small binoculars in the North-Western sky. At that time I was and still am a Financial Analyst, but have always loved backyard astronomy since I was in Jr. High School and had an issue of Sky & Telescope which told me where to see it.

While looking at the comet for several minutes with the binoculars, I saw a distinct flash of light, which caused me to lower them and look to see what had cause it. For about 10 seconds or so, I saw 5 lights in what seemed to be a triangular formation move quickly from South to North from my perspective. It moved very fast to the North until it was out of sight, but it was visible long enough to see that the triangular "V" formation was kept throughout. There was no noise or contrail(s) visible (I expected to hear jet noises thinking it was a formation of fighter planes, but there was none). Unfortunately, it moved too fast for me to determine if it was a solid object.

This obviously was quite exciting and unusual. After spending a few more minutes trying in vain to see the object(s) again, I thought this was peculiar enough to report to someone. I looked in the phonebook for someone to call and eventually spoke briefly to a person (whose name I cannot remember) at the local MUFON contact number and gave him the description of what I had seen. As it was quite late, I agreed to call back the next day to go over the sighting in more detail, but I did not call again. After thinking it over and keeping in mind that the simplest explanation is most often the right one, I determined that it had to be a formation of fighter planes or maybe a stealth fighter which sort of has that shape.

After seeing this documentary and subsequently researching the so-called Phoenix Lights on-line, what I saw and especially the time I saw it is a little too coincidental. I have never seen anything like that before or since, but due to the similarities with what was seen in Arizona, I thought it was time to report what I saw.

NUFORC Note:

Source of report indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD

Posted 2009-03-19