2013-11-11 - San Tan Valley, AZ - Light

Bright white light hovering in southern Arizona night sky

On November 5th, 2013, I saw a bright white light to the south. It was around 5pm, dusk with a few scattered clouds (a storm was coming in). The light had a haze about it and I thought it was a really bright star at first or an airplane. So I watched it for a 3-4 more minutes to see if it was a plane. But it began to move erratically, it's behavior nothing like that of a plane nor star. It appeared to be hovering, bobbing up and down. Then it would fly up to the left, hover then float back down farther to the right. (distance was hard to tell, though it appeared to be far, but at the same time it almost seemed like it was right above the San Tan Mountains.) After witnessing the strange behavior, I went inside to get out my astronomy binoculars, ruling out a plane, star or satellite. Looking through the binoculars showed me the object was spherical, with bright gold lights encompassing the entire object and the lights appeared to be moving clockwise, which I suppose suggests the object was rotating, revolving as it hovered. We would periodically check on the light every 30 minutes or so and still no change. At around 8pm the object (while viewed from the astronomy binoculars) appeared to turn towards the south and fly off. The light became dimmer and smaller until it completely disappeared. Thinking that was strange and still not knowing what it could be, I dismissed it as nothing, perhaps the military or the coming storm was responsible. But, I have now seen this object in the sky every night around the same time. I am really curious as to what this could be. The behavior is always the same, always in the same spot and staying there for 2-3 hours.