NUFORC Sighting 48796

Occurred: 1996-10-03 20:05 Local
Reported: 2006-01-22 01:04 Pacific
Duration: 30 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Crestone, CO, USA

Shape: Light

Four balls of light travelling in sky, also see possible related New Mexico report for 10/3/96.

I'm reporting this event that I witnessed nine years ago after reading a seemingly related report from the same date for New Mexico. Shortly after this event, I provided an in person report to a well-known ufo author. On this (Oct. 3, 1996 evening people across the west saw what was reported through many news sources as a meteor. I didn't believe what I saw to be such an object, although it occurred at the same time as the meteor. Deductive reasoning concludes that I either a) witnessed the meteor event and have somehow interpreted it as something else b) witnessed something that was totally unrelated to the meteor event yet uncannily coincidental in the timing of it c) experts were wrong in that the reported meteor event was something else and that is what I saw. There are probably other explanations but those are the three logical ones I can think of.

While car camping at a friend's property just outside of Crestone, Colorado, I saw four balls of light traveling in a southwest to northeast direction approximately 10-15 degrees above the horizon at about 8:15 pm, I was looking southeast. The balls of light were equally spaced, had no sound, no streaking, no change of speed or direction of travel. To me at first it appeared to be an airplane, but then I realized there was no sound associated with it and for the speed it was traveling and the distance away it appeared to be and altitude, there would have been. After about 30 seconds, these lights disappeared behind the crest of the Sangre de Cristo range which was about five miles from where I was. I listened to radio accounts that evening of people throughout the west who witnessed what was reported as a meteor at roughly the same time. They reported seeing color in the meteor, what I saw was white. Whether these objects were just behind the ridge or outside the earth's atmosphere I couldn't say, although I felt as though they were just behind the ridge.

Posted 2006-02-14