NUFORC Sighting 24430

Occurred: 2002-08-10 21:30 Local
Reported: 2002-08-13 19:32 Pacific
Duration: Half hour
No of observers: 1

Location: Buena Vista (None around for miles), CO, USA

Shape: Cylinder
Characteristics: Lights on object

Several red/green randomly flashing lights bouncing in and out of an area with bright flashes (without lightning bolts or thunder).

Camping at 12,000 foot Cumberland Pass, San Juan Mts. continental divide, Colorado; GPS coordinates: 38.41 by 106.39, nearest little town with more than 100 people would be Buena Vista, off Hwy 24. Over 40 miles of extremely bad dirt road to get there. First I saw numerous flashes for over an hour, that looked like lightning, but not really because there were no bolts or anything, at GPS coordinates: 38.42 by 106.22. At first I thought that was UFO activity. Then after adventuring all day in the area, I camped there again the next night. Both nights had no clouds, no pollution, and no moon or planets (Venus I think) making light after they both set an hour beforehand. So I was in the best stargazing conditions possible - the highest elevation I ever camped at by 700 feet. When I camped there the next night (after scouring the whole area all day looking for a place to camp with a better view of that area so I could see it again, which there wasn't any because the stupid forest people closed all the dirt roads, so there was no way other than mountian climbing to get a better view of this - probably why they chose that area to do their thing so obviously), I saw thunderheads in a lower valley in the same area, so now I'm attributing the flashes to lightning far away in a much lower valley close to Buena Vista. They were also having some kind of celebration in Buena Vista, so they may have been doing fireworks (but why fireworks on Friday night and then none on Staruday? And that was only 12 miles away, and I think fireworks go higher than 10,00 feet, so I would have seen them clearly if that what it was). Anyway, I concluded that the flashes were lightning, even though not once did I hear any thunder, and it's weird that clouds would all be so low - all under 9,000 feet. All that time, while there were bright flashes every ten seconds, in the completely clear, pollution-free, cloudless sky, there were these UFOs going in and out of the area of the flashes. They randomly flashed red and green lights, not p! eriodic like regular planes (and car turn signals). They went into the area with the flashes, and then right after a flash, they came back up. Extremely high speeds - thousdands of MPH with no noise or acceleration time. It looked like the same ones I saw chasing a storm cloud from a commercial airliner in the Sierras in CA July 2001. Several times it looked like one would go and touch another one that was just hovering after it got hit ny lightning. It looked to me that they were sucking up lightning from the storm, then feeding it to ships that were more stationary. This went on for so long that I tried to take pictures. They were moving way too fast to see with binoculars. As soon as I got out the camera, they disappeared. Also, maybe this was just a conincidence since it was almost peak annual meteor shower time, but several shooting stars came from space and disappeared into the same area. They looked like normal shooting stars, but they burnt out and disappeared right where all of the action was. In my opinion, they saw that I got my camera out, and then disappeared. There were a couple of UFOs that didn't look like the gatherers (all you could see where the randomly flashing red and green lights), it was too dark and they didn't emit enough light to see them well enough to describe them. I did manage to get some shots, but I doubt they came out (I have yet to take the film in to get developed.). Got bored and went to sleep. I went back and camped the next night a little higher, 12,200 ft. on the west side of the dirt road so I could get a better view in case it happened again, but absolutely nothing happened, even the thunderheads in the valley, that I couldn't see before, produced no lightning or thunder. Lots of shooting stars, but none that headed into that area again. One of the most obvious and flagrant display of UFO activity I've ever seen, and I see a lot because I camp at high elevations and look about twice a month all over the U.S. I think they didn't care because the only area I know of with l! ess peop le is Canyonlands Nat'l Park, Utah. I need a camera that will record this stuff!!!

NUFORC Note:

One of three reports from same source for locations in Arizona and Colorado. PD

Posted 2002-08-16