2007-06-13 - Canyon, TX - Light

Large white light spotted over Texas panhandle.

My wife and I were at the park near our house at 11:15pm and on our way home, when I noticed a really bright light in the sky. It was a bright white light (with a slight yellow tint). I thought it was an approaching aircraft with its landing lights on, so we parked and watched it for a while. The light didn’t move as expected, instead it just hung in there in the sky so we decided to drive in it's direction. The light seemed to go from very bright to dim and back again. This wasn't the normal 'twinkle' of a star, it was much slower, and the light was not pulsing in a normal interval.

We drove west towards the light. While driving we started thinking that it was Mars, but this thing was too big to be a planet. When we parked, I found a tower with red lights about a mile away to use as a point of reference, and the light we had been tracking was much higher than the top red light of the tower. Over the course of 30 minutes, the white light moved lower and lower (We could not see the light moving, but comparing it to the point of reference, we could tell it had moved). It would get so faint that it would 'disappear' from our sight and then seconds later be back at full brightness. We saw a plane go by and when the plane got near the light, the light completely vanished. About 45 seconds later the light was back. By 12:00am, the light was below the lowest light on the tower (there were 4 lights). It seemed like it was getting further away, flying in a West NorthWest direction. All of the sudden, it was gone. It came back, as small as a pinprick and it could hardly be seen. Then, it was gone, for good this time. We waited a few more minutes and didn't see it so we drove home.