Kevin's Watch

Less than an hour ago Phyllis heard the dog barking, snarling, then whimpering. We went outside to call her, but she did not come for a while.
I turned my head and saw, in the southern part of the sky a bright object that looked like Jupiter at it brightest or a dim venus. I thought, "Gee it almost looks like it's moving..." I looked closer and after a moment I realized it WAS moving, almost too slow to notice. I hollered to Phyllis to see this thing, but she was in the ravine with a flashlight. It covered about ten or fifteen degrees, moving northward, then began to get more reddish and fade. It seemed almost bluish when it vanished. I have no idea how long I saw it but it was not a star, meteor, aircraft, or drone. It was my most remarkable sighting of late. Everything else I've seen thus far COULD have been something else. This was definately a UFO.

See...this is why we need each other's phone numbers-

yeah, actually when I went to Santa Fe I thought, why didn't I bring your phone number so I could swing by on the way back.

Might have been a satellite.

Exnihilotto2 wrote:Might have been a satellite.

that moves in a south/north trajectory, is brighter and much slower than the ISS, and changes color, vanishing?
I thought it might be a high altitude aircraft until it shifted colors and vanished, and it may be; perhaps a test of some strange cloaking device?
This is New Mexico, after all.
Not a satelite-- a very remarkable object of unknown origin.

So should I be glad for you? Or are you worried?

Satellites look like stars that move in straight lines at steady speeds. No flashing, no turning, no color changing.

The strangest thing we've seen (my wife actually saw it while I was asleep in the tent next to her) was a light that "hovered" in one spot for a while, then switched to a slightly different spot to hover some more, then changed again. It did this for over an hour. That's obviously not a plane, or a satellite. It could have been a helicopter, but it was WAY up. No sound whatsoever. No flashing lights. Just one solid, continuous light. It could have been a drone, though I have no idea why there would be drones spying out Daniel Boone National forest at night. And if it was a drone, meant to be spying surreptitiously, then why would it have a light on it to give it away?

It sounds like it was moving steadily Z. I dunno. The color changing to reddish and disappearing sounds like it was reflecting the sun as it set past its orbital horizon. The time would be the key, but it sounds like a reflective satellite on a polar orbit to me.

Zarathustra wrote:Satellites look like stars that move in straight lines at steady speeds. No flashing, no turning, no color changing.

The strangest thing we've seen (my wife actually saw it while I was asleep in the tent next to her) was a light that "hovered" in one spot for a while, then switched to a slightly different spot to hover some more, then changed again. It did this for over an hour. That's obviously not a plane, or a satellite. It could have been a helicopter, but it was WAY up. No sound whatsoever. No flashing lights. Just one solid, continuous light. It could have been a drone, though I have no idea why there would be drones spying out Daniel Boone National forest at night. And if it was a drone, meant to be spying surreptitiously, then why would it have a light on it to give it away?

To attempt to provoke fear and/or wonder?

Exnihilotto2 wrote:It sounds like it was moving steadily Z. I dunno. The color changing to reddish and disappearing sounds like it was reflecting the sun as it set past its orbital horizon. The time would be the key, but it sounds like a reflective satellite on a polar orbit to me.

Negative; it had been dark more than an hour, I've seen the ISS too, I know a sat when I see one. during fire season, many effects like you described were seen due to smoke particles.

Only you know what you saw but the time makes me more suspicious. Objects in orbit at a longitude that has recently gotten dark will be within the line of sight of the rays of the sun for some period of time after sunset occurred on the ground, until they pass through the shadow of the earth. As they approach the edge of the shadow the sunlight becomes progressively more red and dim. Once in the shadow obviously the object would no longer reflect sunlight and would go dark. By the way, it could still be a reflective UFO on a polar orbit, though that does seem less likely than a satellite.

Well nothing in orbit could travel that slow unless it was geosynchronous, and I'm not ruling out your explanation, but I have been making observations of all kinds of object for years, including an impressive occultation of saturn by the moon. The apparent magnitude of this object shifted along with the spectrum, until it had altogether vanished and it was the brightest object in the sky at the time (moon and venus followed shortly). Could be an experimental aircraft using some cloaking device-- we recently spotted an infrared drone going into blackout and thought THAT was a UFO, but this was slow moving and very bright, and the way it changed colors and vanished defies everything I know about optics.
AND this is New Mexico, after all... white sands missle range, los alamos, etc.,

wow! totally cool!

I am very skeptical in general about UFOs, but in the New Mexico desert one night almost 30 years ago, I definitely saw something that was NOT a satellite or any kind of flying thing known at that time. My friend who was 300 miles away in California saw it too, at the same time. So I'm with you, LZ. I have to be.

What we saw was a bright light moving slowly-- it could have been a satellite, but there was an arc of light moving ahead of it; like if you move your hand through water. I watched for perhaps 20 minutes before it descended behind some hills to the south.

deer of the dawn wrote:... t in the New Mexico desert one night almost 30 years ago, I definitely saw something that was NOT a satellite or any kind of flying thing known at that time. My friend who was 300 miles away in California saw it too, at the same time.

That's not possible. California is an hour behind New Mexico.