NUFORC Sighting 143505

Occurred: 2018-09-30 21:15 Local
Reported: 2018-10-16 10:45 Pacific
Duration: 1 minute
No of observers: 2

Location: Ghost Ranch, NM, USA

Shape: Changing
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object

Large, circular, gauzy light moved in unison with our vehicle, changed shape into an oval, moved obliquely and, finally, straight down

To Whom It May Concern: On Sunday, September 30th, at roughly 9:15pm, my brother and I were driving south on US Highway 84 and were between the Echo Amphitheater campground pullout and the Ghost Ranch property entrance. We had already descended the long, gradual decline on US Highway 84 from the villages of Cebolla and Canjilon south to Echo Amphitheater and were on relatively level ground nearer to the Ghost Ranch entrance and approaching the northern reaches of Abiquiu Lake on our right.

My brother (who was driving) looked to his right (past me) and out the front, passenger’s side window and asked, “Is that the moon?” I looked out the same window in response to his query and remarked, “Well, if it isn’t we’re in big trouble.” We both looked intently at the object that was presently about 30° above the horizon and appeared as a very hazy, or gauzy, dim, and white light in the western night sky. We took a few seconds to make sense of what we were looking at and it appeared as the size and shape and color of the full moon behind very heavy cloud cover. Since whatever the light was traveled at the exact same speed as my brother’s vehicle, it was easy to have mistaken the light as the moon, a stationary light remaining static in the sky; however, what occurred next quickly dispelled our notion that the light we were observing was the light reflected from the moon on an otherwise clear night.

As soon as my brother and I had fully absorbed the nature of the hazy light and had agreed that we were both looking at the same object, the light simultaneously compressed into an ovoid shape (the same width as before, but reducing to roughly one-third of its former height) and moved very rapidly at a 45° angle down and to the right. The light traveled no more than one second in that right-hand, downward direction when it halted at a full stop then redirected at a horizontal angle and moved very rapidly straight to the left, parallel with the horizon, all the while retaining the same ovoid shape that it had just assumed. This motion took, again, no more than one second to complete. Just as the light reached a full stop it again changed shape from a horizontally-aligned ovoid shape to a vertically-aligned ovoid shape and sped straight downward for, again, no more than one second. It disappeared from view and we looked for it to reappear, however, it never did and we lost sight of it from that point forward.

I fully anticipated the light to move in our direction and across our field of view again, but it didn’t reappear for the duration of our drive. After the episode, which lasted no more than one minute from the time my brother observed it stationary in the western sky until it disappeared from view, we came to an agreement about two things: that the light was most certainly not the moon and the light had seemingly become aware of our observation of it.

Since we were traveling south on US Highway 84 on a Sunday night a week after the end of the usually heavy summer camping season, there were very few vehicles on the road with us, traveling either south or north. After the light disappeared we did not encounter another vehicle for another two minutes as we traveled at roughly 60 miles per hour. There were no other vehicles traveling southbound behind us, either.

My brother and I then went through a series of questions to each other as we attempted to make sense of what we had just seen. Since we had both observed the moon earlier in the day above Echo Amphitheater, in the daytime western sky as a waning half-moon, we knew that it could not have been a full moon that explained our sighting. We also questioned whether it could have been people with a high-power flashlight and quickly dispelled that idea, too, since we had seen no other cars parked along the roadside between the Echo Amphitheater pullout and where we witnessed the light. We also observed that the light appeared as a solitary light in the sky and no beam nor shaft of light led to or from the light object we viewed, nor were there any flashing or jumping lights that indicated a source of the light on the ground nearby. The object we saw was perfectly circular, then ovoid, and without any hint of alteration by the contours of terrain or cloud cover and lent further creden! ce to the idea that the object was the light source and not being created terrestrially and projected into the night sky.

I also noted that as soon as my brother and I recognized that we were looking at the same object in the sky, the object (whatever it was) seemed to have realized that we had spotted it. It was at this point that the light began to move rapidly, first to the right and downward, then to the left, horizontally, and, finally, straight down. It may be a stretch to project awareness of itself, but it seemed coincidental that the light was stationary at one moment and then in motion as soon as we locked our eyes on it.

Estimating the distance of the light from our position and ultimate size of the object remains difficult as an object of that size in the sky could possibly be thousands of miles away, however, judging from the rapidity of motion and understanding that the light simply disappeared from view between Lake Abiquiu and US Highway 84, I believe that it was no more than a quarter of a mile away and was, perhaps, 50 feet in diameter or less. That is, of course, a rough calculation.

My brother and I then traveled back to Santa Fe and quizzed each other about what we had just seen. We still remain in disbelief, but in complete agreement that we saw something highly unusual that Sunday night.

Posted 2018-10-18