SIGHTING: WHITE SANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT

Witness Testimony

"I took my girlfriend to White Sands National Monument to go camping over the full moon on the evening of 05-11-2017 (note the true full moon was on the 10th but there was no camping that night due to a scheduled missile test at the White Sands Missile Range which surrounds the Park.) The only camping allowed at the park is one of the 10 primitive sites you have to reserve that are about a mile off the dune road so you have to truly backpack to camp at the monument. We had spot 10. We watched the sunset over the San Andres Mtns. to our west. About 30 minutes after sunset the full moon rose SSE over the Sacramento Mtns. At approximately 9:35pm I was startled to see a string of 7 lights suddently appear below the moon in the sky almost due South from us at this point. (The lights reminded me of signal lights (not flashing) on radio towers along a ridge that rises into the distance. There was no ridge where the lights were just open desert going south. As I let out my initial exclamation to the lights clicking on in the distance. Still south of us under the moon, and below the lights, just over the sand dunes, still in the distance appx 10-15 miles a fireball appeared I saw swirling flames my girlfriend says it was horizontal flames. It swirled on and swirled off in about 2 seconds. My girlfriend and I discussed what we saw meanwhile a second flame appeared in virtually the same spot. As I was trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing as quickly as the string of lights in the distance turned on they went off. We saw nothing else that night. We were sitting on a dune above our camp, my phone was charging about 15 feet from me I have been kicking myself for not getting it out. I have pictures of our view from the morning."