SIGHTING: HEREFORD, ARIZONA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"Myself and my wife went outside our garage to have a cigarette and enjoy the evening sky between 11:00pm and 11:15pm. the outdoor lighting around the house was off so we had a very clear view of the night sky. we were taking in the view to the east, watching falling stars as we often do, and noticed a flash of white light to the north east. the flash of light caught our attention and we began to watch the area of the sky it came from. the white light blinked on again. it was not an abrupt flash but rather an increase in luminosity from nothing to slightly brighter than the surrounding stars then back to nothing again. at first we thought it might be a uas from fort huachuca or another aircraft but that proved quickly not to be the case. at first my wife and i thought it was a single object hopping back and forth a short distance in the night sky (less than 1 km), but it quickly became apparent that there were actually two objects. we ascertained this because we noticed that after the white light would die down, there was in fact, a faint red light remaining. the red light glowed constant and did not blink. we saw two faint red lights that would take turns glowing bright white for 1.5 to 2 seconds before fading back to a dim red. it was exceptionally hard to make out these red lights due to the distance and altitude. my guess is that they were only about as bright as the faintest stars visible to the naked eye. my wife and i had to stare off center (to avoid the night vision blind spot) to even catch where they were when they were not glowing the much brighter white. the objects must have been at extreme range and altitude given their position in the sky and relative brightness compared to the stars/planets in the sky. i would suspect the viewing distance exceeded 10 miles and whatever they were must have been at an altitude in the excess of 15,000 ft. msl. the objects remained visible for 4-5 minutes, then one of them shot off to the east at extreme speed (traversing 1/4 of the visible sky less than 2 seconds). the object vanished above the highest clouds and never returned. the second object moved west, at much slower speed, but my wife and i lost it due to light contamination over sierra vista. the dim red was very difficult to follow. overall, i was quite fascinated by the object, as was my wife. she is quite skeptical of ufo phenomenon, and i have never personally witnessed anything like it i could not explain. reasons i decided to report it: 1. the lighting pattern is inconsistent with aircraft lighting typically used by the faa in us airspace. 2. the objects were hovering at extreme altitude well beyond that expected of a helicopter or other rotary winged aircraft. 3. the acceleration of the object is inconsistent with known aircraft. 4. shooting stars don't hover. 5. flares don't burn out in less than 2 seconds, then remain in the same spot and re-ignite. "