NUFORC Sighting 20728

Occurred: 2001-12-06 19:40 Local
Reported: 2001-12-07 09:46 Pacific
Duration: 5 min
No of observers: 2

Location: Pueblo, CO, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

Stange cluster of lights in SouthWestern Sky of Pueblo Colorado

2 of us were on Mountain Bikes riding with night lights West of Pueblo near the Pueblo Motorsports Park (a recreational area set aside for motocross, mountain biking, hiking and such). It was dark and about 7:40 PM MST. Our exact location was near the water tower on the bluff overlooking the Pueblo Resevoir area, on the eastern edge of Pueblo West. My friend and I had stopped for a moment and I walked behind a tree to relieve myself. As I started to walk back I noticed 3 bright lights which I thought were flares. These lights were about 15-20 degrees off of the horizon in the SouthWest portion of the sky over the area of Wetmore Colorado (25-30 miles Southwest). When the lights disappeared I walked back to my bicycle and asked observer #2 is she had seen the lights? She saw them too because they reappeared about then. We looked to see if they might be landing lights of a plane disappearing and reapperaing behind the clouds, but there were no clouds. We saw the blinking light of a plane in the same general area but saw no association between it and these lights. The sky was star filled. We got a reference to the mountain range that sits below and they were definitely above the mountains. We wondered if they might be distress flares from someone in the mountains, but the lights never moved downward like flares do. They just stayed in the same spot, disappearing and reappearing. Each appearance lasted 20-40 seconds for about 4 times. There were always 3 lights. They were always in the same position but their positioning was not symetrical. They each had about the same intensity of light and were of the same size (about 1/4" in diameter on the scale we were viewing). One was slightly higher than the others and slightly to the West. The other two were closer together with the lower one slightly East of the center one. They disappeared after about 4 or 5 minutes. We do not know what these lights were. Perhaps someone else from Colorado saw them too?

Posted 2002-01-11