NUFORC Sighting 52537

Occurred: 1986-07-15 19:30 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2006-09-19 09:11 Pacific
Duration: 5 min.
No of observers: 2

Location: Albuquerque, NM, USA

Shape: Chevron
Characteristics: Lights on object, Emitted beams

My friend and I were relaxing in a park during the summer of 1986 not far from a friends house where we had left about a half hour earlier. We weren't quite ready to go home yet or call it day. I was reclined under a nearby tree in the park while my friend sat leaning against the same tree. The park was about 2 miles north/northwest of Kirtland Air Force Base not far from a local trailer park. I looked up through the sparse tree limbs and leaves at the stars in the sky above and it was a fairly clear night with a few sparse and thin clouds above but probably 90-95% clear skies.

Suddenly, I began to hear a faint hum off in the distance and the sound seemed to be coming from in front of us but it was hard to determine exactly where it was coming from. The sound became a bit louder probably no more than 40 or 50 decibels. Finally as the sound seemed to be right over us it rose in level to about 60 to 70 decibels. At that time I noticed that the stars directly above me seemed to disappear one by one. My friend and I became aware that a large dark object was now passing overhead.

The object was jet black, and appeared smooth and was shaped rather like chevron but more rounded at the edges rather than square. In appearance it was almost like balsa wood sanded smooth with a coat of jet black paint applied to it. It was approximately 100 meters (possibly more) in length from wingtip to wingtip. The width was difficult to determine but I would say about 100 ft at its widest point. The height I could not determine. It had a row of lights along the leading edge, dim and white and a similar row of lights along the back edge. On each wing tip it had one large bright white light which seemed to be almost yellow at times. Near its front, it emitted a floodlight like light which shone down in front of it onto the ground covering an area probably as large as two football fields or perhaps more. Except for the constant hum it made no other sound as it glided overhead about 1200 ft. off the ground.

It seemed to climb higher and higher as it travelled on a northwesterly course finally changing its direction to northeast and rising higher and higher as it went. The front floodlight seemed to turn off but the other lights were still visible and it finally disappeared over the Manzano mountain range after about 5 minutes. I would estimate the speed as very slow probably 80-100 mph maybe less as it passed overhead. It seemed to move almost like a blimp but more silently and it was certainly nothing like an airplane or a hot air balloon.




NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that the date of the event is approximate. PD


Posted 2006-10-30

© 2023 National UFO Reporting Center. All rights reserved. Use or reproduction within any application without written consent is prohibited.