1997-07-04 - Phoenix, AZ - Other

Object like uprooted tree drifting over Arizona desert

I am reporting this event that occurred 18 years ago, only because it was so highly unusual. I am sure of the date and time, as it was the 4th of July, and my brother and I were living in Phoenix at the time. We had decided to go to a small desert park near Camelback Mountain, climb some rocks and watch the fireworks in the city below.

We parked at a dead end street and were walking toward the desert when I noticed an odd thing in the sky, moving rather slowly. It was nearing dusk and the sky was cloudless. The item was dark and had an irregular shape.

I pointed it out to my brother and he quickly went back to his truck to get a pair of binoculars that he always carried with him. We estimated that it was about 800 feet above the ground, and it was moving south to north, very smoothly, as if propelled in some manner (not moving erratically or intermittently as a balloon might do). If it was at the estimated height of 800 feet then we guessed that it might have! been from 10 to 12 feet in diameter.

We each got a good look at it in the binoculars, and it appeared to be nothing so much as an uprooted tree with roots dangling below. There was some kind of rotating platform on the upper portion of the “tree roots,” and some kind of a weird-looking appendage that stuck out of the top of the rotating platform. The appendage was very thin and slightly curved, and appeared to be dangling something over the side of the rotating platform.

Astonished, we stopped two passers-by who were also heading into the rock formations and pointed out the bizarre thing in the sky. They took a look at it through the binoculars as well, made a comment about how odd it was (I guess!) and then strolled off.

We stood and watched the thing disappear over the mountains into the darkening sky, total time of sighting was approximately 10 minutes. There were no lights on it, and it made no sound.

Later that night my brother and I agreed to separately draw what we had seen and compare the pictures. It was clear that we did see the same thing. We have no idea what it was. My brother has since passed on but he was an astronomy major in college, and I had spent six years in the military. We were both over 40 years old at the time of the sighting.

We considered all possibilities, but could not even venture a guess as to how such a thing could be hoaxed. Since that time, I’ve heard about the “jellyfish” UFOs and have wondered if that is what it was.

Since we expected to be spending time in the dark outside, we had no camera with us and this was long before the cell phone age, unfortunately.

I just wanted to mention this event which we did not report at the time, in case anyone else has seen something similar and would like to know if others have had the experience.


((ADDENDUM FROM WITNESS))

Hello Mr. Davenport,

thank you so much for noticing my report. My brother who was with me at the time passed on in Florida in 2009 and many of his effects were boxed and given to friends, so I don't have his original drawing, and I have moved so many times since then, that I'm sure I have no idea where mine went. I could certainly re-draw it, however. It's not a thing I'm ever going to forget.

I've been a Coast listener for many years, but it never occurred to me to report my sighting, until I recently heard you mention that you were interested in past reports, as well as new ones.

I was visiting your site for the first time this past weekend and reading mostly about the Washington reports since I live here now. I went to Arizona's listings too and checked around the date of my sighting and saw there were some reports from that date in Arizona, but nothing very similar to mine.

Interesting that you mentioned Mars, by the way -- I've always been particularly fascinated by that planet and have been following Curiosity's progress toward Mt. Sharp over the last few years. I also spend a lot of time on Google Mars just roaming around to see what they will allow us to see, and I never get tired of that. I can't wait until we have Google Venus and Google Saturn, etc.!

I was impressed to find that the dates of your collected reports went back so far. What a great resource for researchers. Now that I'm familiar with your site, I'll check it often, and be sure to add my own sightings, should I have any more in the future. Kudos for all the very hard work you must do to keep it organized and available to everybody.

Again, I'll be glad to redraw the UFO I saw. I do have a cell phone available so I can send a pic through email or as a phone message attachment, or I can just snail-mail it to you if you like. Let me know how you'd prefer to receive it.

Thank you, once more for all that you do and especially how you share it so freely with all of us.

Sincerely, ((name deleted))

((END ADDENDUM))