NUFORC Sighting 19826

Occurred: 1997-07-07 20:45 Local
Reported: 2001-10-12 12:43 Pacific
Duration: 30 minutes
No of observers: 0

Location: Las Cruces, NM, USA

Shape: Changing
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Changed Colo

It was never anything I have seen before.

Upon leaving work I was heading home. On the horseshoe of Nike Ave. I saw against the mountains ( north of the artillary range area) what looked like fire. The year before we had fires in the same area and this caught my eye. But this orange ball of fire moved from upper part of the mountains downward onto the White Sands Missle Range where I work. This ball then moved horizontally northward and then eastward in my direction. I was driving westward towards the object. The horeshoe is just a curve in the road on Nike Ave. and after the curve it is a straight road for about 9-10 miles. As I drove towards the objest ( about 5 miles ) it also came towards me. It traveled about total 8-10 miles (not sure this distance) from mountain top to middle of the missle range where I stopped my car midway down Nike Ave.

The object in its travel changed color from fire orange and circular to a luminous white. It was about a block away in the desert. It looked like a huge lightbulb desending from a height of about 30 feet to where I thought it might touch down on the ground but it did not. It kicked up a little desert dust for only a second then huvered in one spot about 10 feet off the ground. It did not wobble or drift in any direction from the first time I obsevved it to the time I later lost site of it. It traveled like it was programmed to follow a digital course or never made any course corrections as it moved. I figure it took about less than 5 minutes to travel from the mountain top to the middle of the road or the 8 mile trip.

When I stopped my car on the road I stopped delibertly to have my headlights facing the thing. It did not land but stopped and did not move in any direction. It just stayed put and it did not rotate or pitch. It looked like a lightbulb about 6 feet across and about 10 feet tall. glass end up.

it had a dark socket underneith....just like a litebulb. I thought it might be a hot air balloon but it was incondesently bright. If people were in it they would have to be in the glass section the bottom socket section was too small. There was no ropes between sections. The two sections were connected directlly together. I then saw the thing turn its light off and I told myself don't blink and watch to see if this thing would turn on again. I was thinking if it was a hot airballoon I would see the delay of small fire ignition to maximum turn on of full throttle propane burn.

Well, I did not blink and I thought I could see beyond the thing (like it became transparent for a second) then it turn to full brillancy instantly (like you turn on a lightbulb). There was no flutter of flame as a hot airballoon does and the thing never changed altitude. I thought that if anyone was in the thing they would have had there night vision obsured for the high intensity of the light that came from within. I couldn't see anything inside if it even had a inside. All I saw was a giant lightbulb flying in the air. Next I decided to flash my headlights on and off to see if anything would happened. At that point the thing started back the same way it had came back the exact course traveled before up to the mountain top. As it was heading back I followed down the road in its direction but it was faster than my car. Then it went over the mountain top and I lost site of it for a few moments. About 10 minutes later it came over another mountain top and it looked like two car lights coming over the mountain top (above the mountain). Each light came north together then flew away from each other (one east and the other west like synchonized swimming and then flew back to the mountain to be lost from site. I also absorved a flashing red lite that looked like the light on a helicopter above the mountain right where the two lights flew. Also this object didn't make any sound as it travel or stopped in the air. When the object first came down along the mountain it lit up the mountain with its orange glow. If this was balloonist they were flying in an are forbidden to fly (White Sands Missle Range artillary range) and they would be flying over very trecherous and dangerous mountain at night. When the object flew back over the mountain it remained luminous white. I don't know if it turned into two headlight at the end of the trip but these two lights were alot smaller in size and the flashing red light would be a third light . All three lites were three seperate units. The red lite stayed motionless over the mountain top while the white lites were moving in two different directions to each other. All three came to the same are on the far side of the mountain and that is where I could not see them anymore.

It was the one day in my life I wish I has had a camera. ((name deleted)).

Posted 2001-10-12