Tucson UFO Sighting: Event witnessed by many remains a mystery
Sunday, September 26th, 2010On the night of September 23rd, residents of Tucson saw strange lights in the sky. Various eyewitnesses reported 3 -5 lights in a line, while others reported an object with a triangular shape.
Reports of malfunctions started at the same time as the object flew overhead in a northwesterly path. Reports of interrupted satellite television transmissions were reported as the object flew over homes. Traffic lights were seen flickering at an intersection near Star Pass Blvd as the object passed overhead. A report of an elevator malfunction was reported.
All just a coincidence? Maybe.
One eyewitness tried to document the object on video camera, only to realize that his batteries were dead.
Calls began to flood the newsroom about the strange sight, which witnesses insist was not a plane. This is a city that sees planes and helicopters so many times a day that the residents are immune to them, barring the noise they make. The Tucson airspace is shared between the busy Tucson International Airport and the active Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Law enforcement takes to the air, as well as medical personnel on life saving flights to and from local hospitals. Tucson residents are all too familiar with the sight of planes, helicopters and military flares.
News anchor Dan Marries was quick to begin collecting eyewitness accounts. He used Twitter to spread the news, as well as his Facebook page and the KOLD Facebook page, to document real-time eyewitness accounts. Calls about the object kept pouring in to the newsroom at the same time. KOLD staffers began to call everyone from Davis-Monthan to the Department of Public Safety to get answers, which no one seemed to have.
At the same time, Tucsonan Sheila Martin was immune to the news of the UFO, as she sat outside of her apartment to document any objects in the night sky. This is a long-time nightly hobby for Martin, who knows what planes, helicopters and flares look like, as well.
By 10:00 pm, Dan Marries and meteorologist “Chief” Chuck George discussed the incident, which Chief Chuck said was not a weather anomaly.
With the exception of Sheila Martin’s video, no other videos have publicly surfaced at this time to document the object witnessed by so many. Martin’s video of the night sky indicates an object, which many eyewitnesses say does not match what they saw. However, some of the witnesses looked beyond the object. They noticed an orange light or two in the background that do seem to match.
It should be noted that Martin did not submit the video to local news agencies. Instead, the link was taken from her YouTube page, as the time of her video was shot matched the time of the event.
A photo circulating around the UFO community as the UFO should be discounted. While checking on the original photo on a local woman’s Facebook page, it was noted in the comment section that the photo uploaded on September 23rd was a shot of the moon. Only later was there a light-hearted note in the comment section that the photo was taken on the same night of the Tucson UFO sighting. Somehow, the photo began to circulate as a photo of the UFO.
Ironically, the event occurred a week after posting my helpful article about what to do if you see a UFO. My readership is largely non-Tucson based.
With a lack of submitted photo and video evidence at this time, there are only the eyewitness accounts to go on. There are many full eyewitness accounts, which have been pieced together on my computer to create a detailed time line of events.
I have, for now, pieced together a brief synopsis of the evening’s events, as new accounts are still coming in:
The object was spotted early in the evening, with the earliest eyewitness account coming from the Green Valley area. If others saw it south of there, they haven’t come forward yet. It was seen in southwest Tucson with most of the reports coming from that region (Pima College West, Starr Pass, the intersection of Ajo and Kinney), before it continued north toward rural Marana. Accounts varied between either a line of 3 to 8 lights, or triangular-shaped craft, depending on the vantage point and proximity. By the time it reached rural Marana, there were reports of military planes in the vicinity of the lights, as if the military were involved an exercise, or perhaps they were investigating the lights. The military has not verified these accounts and also denied flights in the area. The air traffic eventually cleared from the area with two military helicopters circling the lights in the sky.
Perhaps a military exercise is all that it was.
It should be noted, at this point, that not one eyewitness has made the correlation between the object and extraterrestrials. A UFO is a flying object that is viewed by a witness or witnesses, who cannot positively identify the object as something like a plane, kite, flare, planet, helicopter, etc.
Witnesses stated that it was not identifiable as any of those things. If it was one of those things, no one has come forward yet with proof that it was one of those things. It is a UFO until it can be identified as something concrete.
It’s probably one of those things that will remain a mystery.
Did you see the object in the sky on the evening of September 23rd? Comment below, email me, or make a detailed report with any evidence to MUFON.
