2012-12-20 - Tumacacori, AZ - Light

Bright & Big Stationary Pale Amber Light Just North of Tumacacori AZ, Fades & Departs with Dim Red Lights

Sighting about 3 miles due East of the Tumacacori Mission in Southern Arizona, in a dark rural area. About 8 pm MST, I was outside walking the dogs and noticed a very bright and big light in the sky about 10 degrees to the West of true North from my vantage point, and about 15-20 degrees above the horizon. The color of the light was a very very pale amber, but I couldn't discern any clear shape. I would estimate it was two or three times the size of Venus at its biggest and brightest. I did not hear any aircraft or unusual noise.

The light continued very bright for a minute or two, and appeared to move very slowly straight upward (compared to fixed points on some telephone poles and nearby mountains) during this time. Then it faded to a small dot of the same color in about 8 seconds, but then grew bright and big again. It stayed bright for about another minute, then again faded into a small dot that this time vanished entirely.

However, I could make out one or two very dim red lights in the same place, and these lights began to move smoothly faster, at a speed that one might expect or a small aircraft or helicopter, heading due West at the same altitude, in between the clouds.

I lost sight of the lights when the headlights of a car came around a bend in the road.

The temperature was about 48 degrees, wind was very calm, the moon was bright enough that it was easy to see shadows and objects. There were a few low, thin clouds in the sky and the light seemed to be in the midst of them.

The object lacked any flashing lights and made no noise that I could detect. This area has mountain ranges to both the east and west, and it's easy to hear planes or helicopters flying between them at low altitudes, even from some distance, as the noise reverberates.

This is my third sighting of a potential UFO in this area; the other two sightings were in the fall of 2010. I go outside with the dogs two or three times a night, and, since 2010, always look carefully for anything out of place in the sky.

Since 2010, I've only seen one other oddity until tonight, and that was a bright but not extraordinarily bright object that hung in the sky in apparently fixed position for about 10 minutes, but then I heard what sounded like a sudden loud jet noise and saw a jet with flashing lights nearly pass over my house at low altitude and head due South. I wondered at the time if that particular jet might be a Harrier-like aircraft doing reconnaissance for the Defense Department or Border Patrol, given this area is close to the border with Mexico. Tonight's object was much, much bigger and brighter, and I never heard any noise, or saw anything that resembled a jet, airplane, or a helicopter.