NUFORC Sighting 178268

Occurred: 2023-09-13 19:39 Local
Reported: 2023-09-14 08:43 Pacific
Duration: 15 minutes overall
No of observers: 2

Location: Vail (near Tucson), AZ, USA
Location details: 3310 Mescalero Dr. Vail AZ 85641

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Changed Colo

Bright variable light moving high rate of speed, jinking sideways at times

My son and I were out with the dogs about 7:35 and it was very clear after the rain that moved through. The Milky way was very clear/visible. I was looking for Andromeda (in the wrong spot it turned out) facing north and looking near the zenith when to the left/west of where I was looking a bright light appeared and then accelerated moving the length of my pinky finger held at arms length in a fraction of a second. The glow faded though I could still see the object and it seemed to stop or slowed greatly. Then it flared bright and moved again about the same amount in a similar amount of time. There was no sound. After this second movement, I was able to get my wits about me, to call my son's attention to it. We watched it do this brightening and accelerating, dimming and flaring bright with attendant acceleration and occasionally juking to the north. The juking happened during the dim phase, about every other movement. There was another 6-7 or so evolutions. It then fully disappeared. We both began scanning the sky in all directions and after about a minute or so I saw the object reappear in the vicinity of where I last saw it. It became very bright and zoomed the length of the Santa Catalina mountains in a second or so, from west to east, where it had been moving to the NNW. It became visible near the north, big end of the big dipper in the west.
It was gone before I could call my son's attention to it. There was no tail but it was bright enough that time that it left a retinal glow/smear for a few seconds similar to what you'd get from watching a welding arc from across the room. It appeared to be in space and was moving at an apparent rate of speed well in excess of any conventional aircraft. We continued looking and saw several obvious satellites, C130, A10, some commercial air traffic and even a meteor. The meteor moved from south to northwest, moving slower (maybe 1/3 the speed) than the first object(s) we saw, had a tail and sparks with the brightest part being a large flare right before it went dark. Normal stuff. My son called it out and I was able to turn my head and watch it burn out. When the object went from west to east it happened so fast I couldn't call it out before it was essentially gone, therefore my din missed seeing that evolution. During the period of looking we also saw some satellites but then saw 2 additional objects tracking directly North with a red orange color. These did not pulse or juke but they looked very different than satellites, which normally go east to west or on a diagonal NNW to SSE and moving across the sky perhaps 2 times faster. While they did not pulse or flare in brightness, they also did not fade as satellites do and moved approximately 2x as fast They were there traversing the sky one moment, then just disappeared. None of the major planets were in the night sky and I know what they look like. I'm familiar with many aircraft types. These objects moved unlike airplanes I've ever experienced and much faster. Nor were they moving like conventional satellites. I've tracked observed the ISS and the shuttle, even both at the same time on one of the very last shuttle missions. Also witnessed Starlink strings and rocket launches. I lived on the Gulf Coast of Florida and watched shuttle launches at night, traverse the sky. This sighting was very different than any of those things, much brighter and moved at apparent speeds well in excess of what I've witnessed with aviation, satellites, spacecraft, and meteors.

Posted 2023-10-28