1988-06-01 - Albuquerque, NM - Sphere

Silent sphere with multicolored lights floats slowly over Albuquerque then shoots north then west out of sight.

I don't remember the exact year or month but it was in the summer of '87 or '88. I parked my car in front of my parent's house in NE Albuquerque and got out when I spotted a spherical object with different colored lights flashing randomly. It appeared to be about 50' in diameter and moving from east to west approximately 300' above the ground. I'm a pilot and am pretty good at identifying aircraft, altitudes and distances. The object was moving slowly, maybe 40mph, and was silent. My first thought was this was a weather balloon and someone had rigged it with Christmas tree lights and a battery as a hoax. I couldn't tell if the orb was tumbling randomly or if the lights just made it appear so.

When the object had gone about 2 miles west of me it shot north (maybe 15 miles?) and immediately west and upward until it disappeared in the distance. It did this in less than a second or two and made the 90 turn from north to west without slowing or arcing. This was NOT a weather balloon nor am I aware of any aircraft that can move that quickly or perform an immediate change in direction like I witnessed.

I was stunned in amazement at what I'd just seen. I saw a man and a woman who were at a park about 4 houses up the street and asked them if they saw it. They said they did and asked me what it was. I asked them if they saw it shoot north and west and they had. I wish now that I had talked with them more to compare our observations regarding size, shape, distance and speed.