NUFORC Sighting 44019

Occurred: 2005-05-18 19:30 Local
Reported: 2005-05-19 01:32 Pacific
Duration: appx 1 hr 10 min.
No of observers: 2

Location: Santa Rosa, NM, USA

Shape: Sphere

Stationary Spherical Light 1 Hour Duration over Santa Rosa NM

My friend and I are currently on vacation. We are from Ohio and have been travelling cross country.

On May 18th, 2005 we spent the day in New Mexico taking pictures. At approximately 7:30 p.m. in the evening we were driving on Route 40 towards Santa Rosa, New Mexico and both witnessed an unusually bright object in the Southeast sky.

Out of a burning curiosity, we drove towards the object and eventually pulled over to photograph it. We took several still photos with a Nikon CoolPix 8700 camera. Initially, my friend insisted that it must be Venus, but upon further observation we determined that it was too large, too bright, and not where Venus should have been.

The object looked much like an extremely large, bright star. It remained stationary for about an hour and then seemed to "fade away," or possibly was covered by clouds.

We inspected the photos we had taken and then blew them up in photoshop. The enlarged images reveal an object that was split in two-- or, possibly, two spherical objects.

We have looked all over the internet in an attempt to discover what we just witnessed and have found similar sightings. Unfortunately, no one seems to know what it is. Hopefully, someone out there will be kind enough to enlighten us-- if that is possible. We will post our photos to this site.

NUFORC Note:

Possible high-altitude balloon. Please see other reports from the southwestern U.S. for this time and date. PD

Posted 2005-05-24