SUBJECT: ARIZONA SIGHTING FILE: UFO3086 PART 1 Sent: 01 Dec 92 12:32:00 From: Steve Gresser Topic: Arizona Sighting Well, last night it happened - I _FINALLY_ saw something. It is strange mostly because there have been, apparantly, some sightings in the area. Beyond that, I would have an extremely difficult time accepting a prosaic explanation without a recreation of the event. It is, of course, possible. Background: I am in Scottsdale, Arizona, which borders (mostly) Phoenix's eastern side. I live in the northeastern end of Scottsdale. To the north are mountains, and there are houses obscuring portions of the horizon on all sides but the west. Several miles west of me is a hospital that has a helipad, so I regularly see helicopters. I am grateful that my walls are thick because I am nearly directly on the approach path to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, and a great number of the aircraft going towards Scottsdale Municipal Airpark also fly over my house, or nearly so. Until construction begins on the other two houses, I also have a mostly unobstructed view to the south, where I can see aircraft coming in for quite a long time before they turn to Phoenix. Also, I am a pilot. Suffice to say, my wife and I are familiar with aircraft lights, helicopter lights, military aircraft lighting on a general scale, stars, meteors (the sky is beautiful at night because we are slightly elevated above the smog), and a variety of other natural phenomenon that are highly visible over the Phoenix valley area. Report (well, it's about time!): Last night, at about 10:17pm MST, I was in the street in front of my house (E/W double cul-de-sac) w/no cross streets). I was going to tell my sister-in-law something in her van, so I walked E towards it, turned towards her (N) and spotted something out of the corner of my eye (W). I turned west and said, "What's that?", thinking that it was another aircraft coming in low with its lights towards me, a common sight but still pretty spectacular. She replied, "It's an airplane," which I beleived at first, but I still wanted to watch it. Then I realized that the object was not lighted like any aircraft I have ever seen, and the lights were flashing without a sequence that I could register (rotating beacons, position lights, etc. have a pattern to them - usually "flash, flash, flash" or "flash-flash, flash-flash, flash-flash" - but this had neither) and the lights were brighter than even the closest aircraft that I had seen - but VERY sharp. My wife was coming out of the house, and I was moving across the street to keep the object in view as it moved northward, closer than the hospital. I kept calling her over to see it but she was in the wrong position and nearly fell as I moved W down the street to keep in in view. I kept thinking, "This has got to be an aircraft!" But it never resolved itself into something my mind could recognize. It was pointed maybe thirty degrees down in the direction of movement, and it moved more quickly than a helicopter, and VERY smooth movement, but not as fast as, say, a low-flying jet. When my wife finally got it in to view, she said something that I had seen but not noticed - "That son-of-a-***** is ROTATING! What is that, Steve?" A series of colorful expletives followed. As my wife looked at it, it began to turn northeastwards, as if to go behind the mountains, and she decided to dash down to the van my sister-in-law was in and chase it. I was about to lose sight of it, so I ran down too (by this time I was at the intersection of my street), but we never got sight of it again. On first sight, it appeared to be an overly-lighted aircraft, kind of long, with many lights on it. But the lights looked more light arcing electricity than lights, and were exceptionally sharp and bright. This looked nothing like a helicopter with a search light, nor like any other lights I've seen on an aircraft. My wife and I were both wearing our glasses, and her sister does not wear glasses. The incident frightened her enough that she was scared to go home down Pima Road (the major N/S access road near the hospital). The incident was over by 10:19pm MST. The object appeard almost to be in three sections because of the lighting and was slowly rotating (if looking from above the object) in a counter-clockwise motion. I estimated its altitude to be between 1200 and 1500 feet, but my wife says it was below 1000 feet. The object itself was not clearly visible to me at all. So now I join the ranks of all the kooks and looneys who have seen these things before. All I can say is, all the years of dreaming and imagining what it would be like do not prepare you for the sense of the object being out of place that you get when you actually see one. It just looks ... strange. I welcome questions regarding this sighting and would appreciate no accusations of substance abuse or fabrication. I have had many oportunities to fabricate UFO stories before, but as someone who is sincerely interested in the phenomenon, I feel that particular action is equatable to rape. I no longer smoke, I almost never drink, I do not take drugs (but I inhale regularly ), and my prescription on my glasses is "plano" for a mild astigmatism (I'm not sure what "plano" is, but I bet SOMEONE knows). I thank you greatly for your time reading this. I know it is a long story. Thank you again, Steve ********************************************************************* * -------->>> THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo <<<------- * *********************************************************************