NUFORC Sighting 144008

Occurred: 2018-12-08 21:12 Local
Reported: 2018-12-09 02:20 Pacific
Duration: 30 seconds
No of observers: 7

Location: Ganado, AZ, USA

Shape: Formation


A formation of up to twenty lights was seen by multiple observers and even posted on Facebook.

Approximately 2112 hours on Saturday, December 8, 2018, I was at work as an ER Physician (also 23 years experience USAF Flight Surgeon in helo operations Combat Search and Rescue) in the Sage Memorial Hospital ER in Ganado, AZ, about 65 miles west of Gallup NM, roughly at the intersection of Highway 191 and 264, when co-workers told me that they were seeing lights outside in the clear cold black night sky. They said they had first seen them when they called a patient to the nurse’s station, and the family said the patient was outside looking at lights.

I immediately went outside and saw about 20 small lights about the size of a bright star, white in color, slowly blinking about 0.5 seconds on and 1 seconds off, independently, without co-ordination, in a loose long cluster estimated to be 0.25 to 0.5 miles long, moving together at varied, but maintained altitudes, at 25 to 30 degrees above the horizon at a distance of about 4 miles. They were roughly moving from Southeast to Northwest. Distance is only roughly estimated as there were very few objects for any frame of reference.

Other people were standing close by, (and I tried to collect their impressions) and one person pulled up and hopped out his car and said he had seen them slowly headed this way for the last 5 to 10 minutes as he drove from Gallup, New Mexico, on Highway 264, west to Ganado, AZ. There was no discernable shape to any of the objects, as the objects were too far away to make out any details, and the hospital compound lights interfered with good visibility – think orangish halogen or mercury-vapor lamps.

The objects passed behind the gym, a two-story structure about 100 yards away, at quite a distance behind the gym, more than one mile, for sure, and then headed North by Northwest with an inferred slight course change to the North. The objects could have been easily between 4 and 20 miles away, and distance estimation is unreliable due to night sky and! lack of any shape or moonlight. The lights looked independen! t in movement, blinking independently and similarly, and moving together, as in a formation. There was no noise, odor, or any other unusual phenomenon noted with their passage.

They disappeared over the last 10 seconds of the sighting, quickly to the north, growing dimmer. The entire episode for me lasted 30 seconds. I have seen Air Force, Marine and Army helicopters do the same, but not in these numbers at night, nor in this remote location, and the objects passed silently. I would think a large formation of helicopters at night would be readily identified by their noise signature.

About 2400 hours, one of the ER Techs noted that someone had posted info on Facebook of a similar sighting in the area around Chuska Mountain, NM, about 38 miles from Ganado, and that this sighting had occurred about 2100 hours, for a flight time of 12 min, resulting in a speed calculation of 190 miles an hour. This speed is much more in the range of military helicopters.

The Facebook reference also has video attached, and the reference is: Facebook, Road Conditions Navajo Reservation Wide, D... C......: 3 hours ago, "Yooo anyone see all those blinking lights going over Chuska Mountain from Red Valley?" Scroll down to video posted by R...... D.... and this was what I saw.

IF this was a military op, then it should be easy to verify.


((

NUFORC Note:

Possible military exercise?? PD

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25380/conga-lines-of-usaf-airlifters-filled-the-night-sky-across-u-s-for-joint-forcible-entry-drill

END NOTE))


Posted 2018-12-14

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