Long shot because it was late at night/super early this morning. A little background, I drive a lot at night and I’m used to all types of aerial light sources from various aircraft, events, fireworks, military drills skydivers involving flares. I’m not a skeptic of UFOs, I’ve scanned at the skies while driving at night for over 20 years hoping to see another. I’ll write about that at a later time.
In the meantime, my girlfriend and I left Maricopa at 12:47AM this morning to try to catch the tail end of the aurora. While driving northeast on the 347 connecting to Chandler, I saw a bright white light in the sky above the i17 area. At first, I thought it was a shooting star… It faded in, stuck around in place for a few seconds, then faded out. I asked my girlfriend if she saw it, but she didn’t.
Then I saw it again, in the same area. Faded in, bright white (pure white, like vantawhite), stuck in place for a few seconds, then faded out. I asked her again, and she didn’t see it.
Then I saw it AGAIN. This time, over the Mesa area while I was on the 202 east heading toward Gilbert. I texted a friend that was off i17 finishing up his photos of the aurora. I told him I felt like I was losing it, but described it anyway, and he saw nothing. He thought I might be referring to a light pillar, I was not. My girlfriend saw it this time.
What I saw was like looking at a circular spotlight, in the sky. It was high enough in the sky that I could see it way past South Mountain, and large enough that I could tell it wasn’t a plane, helicopter, or flare. It also didn’t flicker/twinkle like a flare, and it had a clearly defined end to the circular light source – not like a flare from a distance that just looks like a shimmering bright spot.
When I say it “faded”, what I’m describing is the light closing in on itself and then vanishing. Think of it like if you painted one side of a quarter black and one side white. You’re looking at the white side, and you spin it 180° along the y-axis (so, horizontally), now you’re looking at the black side, right? Well, that’s not what happened. It was more like 180° turn along the X-AXIS so it looked like it was closing like a camera lens.
And it was large. I’m pretty familiar with how aircraft look in the sky, I used to live a few miles from the PHX airport. This was at landing approach altitude but way bigger and brighter than any airplane. There were no blinking indicator lights on wings or rudders or tails… Just a big circle of light that would fade in, hang around, then disappear.
Then I SAW IT AGAIN. Driving down Baseline east due to the US60 closure, but this time it was east of us above Queen Creek. Same appearing, lingering, disappearing interval. That was the last time I saw it.
I saw and commented on a tiktok video earlier, posted from someone in TUCSON today that saw the exact same thing. I’ll see if I can find it and post a link.
Did anyone else see this thing?
Edit: found the video https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLVpjDy8/
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