Witness photo cropped and enlarged. MUFON image.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: We will have story updates as they come in; but it appears the witnesses in this case may have seen and photographed a weather balloon. Stay tuned. RM, May 18, 2009, 8 p.m. CST. El Pasoans see UFO in Sunday night sky
New Mexico MUFON Director Donald Burleson has checked in today to say that a field investigator is looking into this one and will get back to us. In the meantime, Mystery solved: Object in sky identified. The original story follows. RM, May 19.
Word got out in this New Mexico town that something glowing orange was hanging in the sky on May 17. One witness grabbed her Nikon D40 and shot several images.
She first described the object as "a big bright ball of fire or a bright orange ball, not sure which." Later after examining and enlarging some of the photos, she said that "in some of the pictures it looked like an orange cigar shaped object."
When you review the witness photos, if this object was shot at the correct angle, it could appear as a ball, but in this shot pictured at the top of the page, it looks as though the object turned - where she was able to photograph its length.
Please keep in mind that most UFO reports can be explained as something natural or manmade. If New Mexico MUFON investigates and reports back on this case, I will update this page. You can read my selected cases by type of UFO report at the UFO Traffic Report index page.
The following report and its headline is unedited.
NM, May 17, 2009 - Saw a bright orange object hovering in the sky behind my house to the West.
I was on myspace when a friend said he saw something in the sky to the West, and it did not look like a star. I have always been interested in UFO's so I went outside to see for myself, at first I could not see it. Then my boyfriend came outside to look also. I was about to give up when he said look over there behind that tree you can see something glowing. He is much taller than I am so he was able to see it, when I could not.
I went out towards the alley behind my house and could see it clearer. I was not sure what it was I was seeing all I knew was that it was not a star, or a plane, or anything I have ever seen before.
Image: Witness photo. The object is the tiny dot to the right of the large tree. MUFON image.
I then went inside my house to get my camera which is a Nikon D40. I went to take pictures then I discovered I did not have my SD card in my camera so I had to go back inside and get it.
I then ran back outside toward the vacant lot behind the alley. I took numerous pictures, the object in the pictures does not fully show what I saw.
It was hanging in the sky to the West, it looked like a big bright ball of fire or a bright orange ball not sure which. The object seemed to stay and hover in the same spot.
I was scared, and kind of excited I couldn't believe it. I continued to take pictures until the light started to fade out then fully disappeared leaving no trace behind.
When I looked at the pictures on my computer I noticed when I blew them up 100% that in some of the pictures it looked like an orange cigar shaped object.
Image: Witness photo, cropped and enlarged to show how the object looked like a ball of light in the sky. MUFON image.
Comments
Wy wife and I saw this samer object in the sky yesterday (5-17-09) driving along I-40 W-bound between Tucumcari and about half-way to Abuquerque in the SW sky from approx. 12PM to 1:30PM. We joked it was probably a UFO hovering above Roswell. It was so intriguing that we pulled off and bought binoculars in Santa Rosa to see what the object was. It was (seriously) just a big weather balloon. It's so far up in the atmosphere, I assume that the "cigar shape" it took was because photographers were just blurring the photos by inadvertantly shaking their cameras with excitement. I tried to take photos with my 5MP Nikon camera and it was very difficult to zoom on the object (3X optical) with a consumer-level camera without distortion. It's orange because where it's at that far up in the sky, it's still reflecting the setting sun while the ground appears that it has set just like with the moon.
If the photographer did not use a tripod to steady the camera, all bets as to the apparent "shape" of the object are off. You can make a point light source look any shape you want by moving the camera during a short time exposure, such as these shots at dusk.
I was watering my lawn north of Las Cruces, NM and saw the bright object to the northeast. I got some binoculars and judged the object to be a weather balloon. My wife and grandson looked at it and they thought it looked like a balloon. It was about sundown in southern NM.
Hi Roger. We watched this with another couple for about an hour here in Roswell, looking west, and he broke out a telescope. It really was a weather balloon! We could make out it's inverted teardrop shape with the scope. This is the third one of these I've seen here, and told them right off what it was. Watching as long as we did sighting it against houses, trees, etc, you could discern that it very slowly moved to the right over time. Before sundown it looked solid white for most of the hour btw, and I told them it would dim out once the sun went down. Once the sun had set here it turned orange (reflecting the dimming sunlight), then got smaller and disappeared, much like watching an old style tv set power down. I had no idea it could be seen so far away though! Here's a news report from El Paso, so you can see it's not Roswellians pre-disposed to call such objects weather balloons, ha ha kdbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=10380915&nav=menu608_2_3
Do people still use weather balloons? With Doppler Radar and satellites plus the weather channel, are they still needed?
I saw it all the way in los lunas i was joking with a friend that if someone calls weather balloon it must be a UFO. lol well i suppose if you are all saying it was balloons we had aliens last night.
Inconclusive. If it really was a weather balloon that's easy enough to check with the folks who launch them; they must have logs and specifics or there is no sense in launching them in the first place.
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