NUFORC Sighting 117331

Occurred: 1997-03-13 20:00 Local
Reported: 2015-02-15 16:41 Pacific
Duration: 45
No of observers: 1

Location: Scottsdale, AZ, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object

Not the Phoenix Lights, but the Scottsdale Lights.

My journey started near Greenway road and 56th street at around 8pm. It was dark outside on March 13, 1997. I needed to head out to CompUSA which was located near Scottsdale Road and Shea Blvd. I was heading north on 56th street and I made a left on Shea Blvd which had me heading east towards Scottsdale road. As I was driving east on Shea, when I got to about 60th Place, I noticed a couple lights coming around on the east side of the McDowell mountains on my left. They were higher the peak of the mountain which is 3,900 feet, my estimate would be somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 feet.

As I drove to about 64th street, I noticed about 4 lights spaced at what I would estimate about a 1 or 2 blocks apart. My immediate thoughts were these are some military helicopters because the speed they were travel was way to slow compared to airplanes. Scottsdale Airpark is right in the same area and I’ve seen hundreds of planes coming in and out of that airport and none ever flown in that formation. And I would not say commercial airplanes because none have every flown in that direction either.

I kept looking out to the left out my window and counted about 7 lights now. All evenly spaces and was in kind of an arch, like the arch of an old fashion bow. Totally strange to me because I have never seen any lights like this before, so I was excited to think it was a convoy of military helicopters.

When I made it to my destination and got out of my car, I looked up and watched the lights come and pass right over me. 2 of the 7 lights went right over my head. When they went over, I heard ZERO sounds. Just a light that sputtered and it was completely black around the lights. I watched as the 3 light went over and in my head, I said this is really strange because I hear NOTHING. The lights traveled very slowly. I waited more than 5 minutes in the parking lot for the first light to travel over and then probably 3 to 5 minutes for the second light.

I headed into the store and did my shopping. Never once did I think of it as a UFO. I used to watch XFiles at that time and didn’t think of taking a picture. I was thinking they were silent helicopters that ran about a mile or more in length. After about 20 to 30 minutes in the store, I came out and the lights were gone.

It wasn’t for a day or two later when I heard the news and it made me think different about what I saw. The strange part, these lights were in northeast Scottsdale. Not southwest Phoenix like the Phoenix lights were reported and known for.

This event, these lights are burned into my memory like it was yesterday.

Posted 2015-02-20

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