Arizona still seeing UFOs: Seven recent sightings

Today is the day after the 17^th anniversary of the famous Phoenix Lights UFO sightings. On the evening of March 13, 1997, thousand of people witnessed strange lights in the Arizona skies, all the way from Bullhead City to Tucson, the most reports coming from the Phoenix area. To this day, Arizona continues to get UFO reports, and remains a hotspot for anomalous aerial activity.

Last year the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) received 261 UFO sighting reports for Arizona, putting it in 8^th place for the states with the most sightings. When you look at it per capita, Arizona is third. Last month alone, MUFON received 21 reports for Arizona, putting it in 5^th place.

I decided to take a look at some of the recent reports MUFON is receiving in Arizona, and when I queried their system to see how many sightings they have received in the last 7 days, I found as many reports. Two out of the seven included UFO photo submissions.

Submitted for your approval, here are those sighting reports. Are they misidentifications, extraterrestrials spacecraft, or something even more mysterious? Consider this. Just perhaps, when you enter the desert state of Arizona, you are actually walking directly into…The Twilight Zone. Dun dun dun.

AZ UFO Case #1

Not all of the reports submitted in the last week took place during that time frame. One week ago, on March 7, there were two reports submitted. The first sighting was not seen by a human at all, but rather by the electronic eye of a digital camera.

This witness writes that on February 2, 2014 he was in Sedona, Arizona taking long exposures of the Sedona night sky. When the witness looked at the pictures later, there was one in particular that had captured something unusual. The witness says the picture was taken at 10:30 pm.

The witness writes:

I was taking long exposures of the Arizona night sky in Sedona. I was shooting for about an hour. Some of my shots included commercial aircraft and they were easy to point out. But one of my photos had a light that I myself could not explain. I don’t believe it was camera movement because the tree in frame is not blurry. It almost looks as if something was tracing constellations in the sky. I could not see this object with my naked eye. It only showed up on my camera. It doesn’t look like any flight pattern I am familiar with.

There are stars with slight trails behind them, but there is no way what we are seeing was movement of camera or stars. It would of happened with all the stars as well as the tree.

There was a small light source which lit up the tree that is in the frame.

My camera specs are: Canon 60D 30.0 sec at f/3.5 18mm ISO 400. No Flash

The entire image can be seen here, and the report can be found here.

AZ UFO Case #2

The second report submitted on March 7 was a sighting that took place on that same day. A man and his wife witnessed something strange during their hike in Northern Scottsdale.

The witness writes:

My wife and I were approximately a quarter mile from the Brown’s Ranch Trailhead ( On Alma School PKWY.) hiking on Upper Ranch Trail when I looked up to catch a glimpse of a nearby hawk overhead. While trying to observe the hawk I noticed a small strange looking object very stationary in the sky almost directly overhead. I grabbed my 10x binoculars to get a better look. The object appeared circular with a red colored bottom and a somewhat silver-gray border around it’s edge. I would estimate that it was about 15,000 feet up but it was hard to say for certain. We observed the object for about 15 minutes during which time it showed absolutely no movement. We thought possibly a weather balloon but didn’t think a balloon could stay that stationary or possibly some type of drone. We continued our hike for about another 10 minutes and the object remained in position. By the time we got to the parking lot (another 15 minutes or so) we could no longer locate the object. There was a civilian type helicopter that had been making repeated flights back and forth over the area about and hour before the sighting.

This report can be found here.

AZ UFO Case #3

This case was submitted on March 9, and actually took place many years ago in 1978 in Tuba City on the Hopi reservation.

The witness writes:

We were at the Hopi reservation to see the Snake dance the next morning. There were no hotel openings. We stayed on the roof of a Native American’s home with his young grandson. The boy and my adopted son (20 years old) were both asleep. The village, Shongopavi, was on top of a mesa. You could see several miles out in the valley. I couldn’t sleep. As far out as I could see, I noticed an oval shape moving toward us. It was a solid oval light, like when you shine a flashlight on the ground, only large from very far away. I kept watching the ground as the oval came closer until I could see the source of the light on the ground. I woke up both kids and said “I’m sorry to wake you up but nobody is going to believe this. I want you to see it. It was an oval object that came about 500 to 1,000 feet away from us and I think about 500 feet in the air. It made no sound. It looked like a thick piece of smoked glass or acrylic, 300-600 feet long on top of which were looked like skyscrapers, also looking like smoked glass or acrylic. They each appeared to be 20-40 stories high, with the middle one the tallest. It appeared to be an elevator shaft because one of the multiple white light (that looked like lots of little Christmas lights, only larger, moved up from the floor to the top. It moved in a straight line, making no noise and there was no smoke or fire – it just silently glided along. All three of us watched it. We could see no signs of life on it, but there might have been. It took a few minutes to pass by us and kept moving.

I came back to the reservation and saw the Hopi boy about 5 years later. I asked him if he ever saw it again. He said it came by every night for about 30 days and that it landed in his uncle’s field. He and his mother pointed where it had landed. He said that it left 3 large circular black spots where it landed. I have talked to other Hopi who said they see other unknown objects at Hopi regularly. It scares them so they try to ignore them. I can provide the names of all 3 of us who saw the object. It was not scary, just amazing. I do know of another man who saw the same or similar thing in daylight not far from where we saw it.

This report can be found here.

AZ UFO Case #4

This report was submitted on March 10, the same day of the sighting. It came from the town of Sahuarita, and the witness said this was not the first time this object had been seen. This was the first of two sightings of this object in the last week. This sighting took place at approximately 6:05 am. The witness described the object as “Bright, lit from within with light rays emitting from all around, tall cylinder shape no appendages.”

The witness writes:

I was in my backyard having a cigarette and watching the sky lighten up from the sunrise, which was on the front side of my house which faces East. I am always out there looking at the sky at all hours of the day and night, seeing the stars and looking at them through my binoculars has become something I really enjoy, I have also witnessed many many strange things, especially at night and it seems I am coming into another active period of strange sightings, but I will focus on this one first. As I was looking South I noticed a vibrant bright, slightly yellowish light that sparkled like an enormous diamond. It was coming from the South West moving at probably 15 – 20 mph, straight toward the Northeast, absolutely silent and without any visible engine, wings, tail or nose, it resembled a tall narrow bell jar with a plate shaped bottom. At that point it was about 1/4 mile from me and approximately 500 feet in the air. As the object moved over the top of the house I ran through to the front to see if the rising sun would back light the object enough to view if it was an airplane or helicopter, or something else recognizable, but no, I could also see through my binoculars that there was no visible structure to it, just pure light with a  plate shaped bottom, no dark center where one would think a cockpit might be…..exactly the same craft/object I witnessed on September 12th and 14th of 2012. The sighting on the 12th involved an Air force jet from Davis Monthan AFB in South Tucson, which is about 9 miles North of where I live. As the object went over the houses it shifted slightly to the North-North East and I continued watching through the binoculars until it disappeared out of sight due to distance. I didn’t have any unnatural feelings during this sighting, I was excited to see it return and I’ll be watching to see if it comes around again! I will also keep my camera handy for photographic proof. I will submit another report on my previous sightings in 2012. At the time I was afraid of getting a visit from someone from the Air force.

This report can be found here.

AZ UFO Case #5

This report was submitted on March 12 for a sighting that took place the previous evening at approximately 7:40 pm. The witness did not indicate the town the sighting took place in, just that it was in Arizona.

The witness wrote:

Very bright white and red lights x 2 in a westerly direction from my home. Disappeared then reappeared then vanished. Almost looked like a very bright flare. However it is just open desert all the way to California and no military installations in that direction.

This report can be found here.

AZ UFO Case #6

This sighting was submitted on March 13, and took place the previous morning at 6:05 am. It was apparently submitted by the same witness as Case #4 above. It also took place in the town of Sahuarita. She describes the object as a “glowing vertical cylinder.”

The witness writes:

I was in my backyard anticipating this object to return, I witnessed this on 3/10/14, Mufon report #54564. The sun was just rising and the sky was clear and light blue. I had seen this object in 2012 on 2 occasions; 2 days apart and just knew it would be coming back around. The object came from the West, no evidence of an engine, wings, nose, tail or rotors. It’s a vertical cylinder shape with what I can only describe as rays of light poking out of it, it moved silently and smoothly at approximately 15 mph. As it came into full view I attempted to take pictures and as soon as I shot the first one, the object started ascending rapidly, seemed like it was trying to move away from me….sounds crazy I know. I had set the zoom on my camera at its maximum and was only able to use the screen on back to view through and had a difficult time locating it due to the narrow window of view with the maximum zoom. I could see it with my naked eye but couldn’t get it to “lock on” the view screen. At the same time the object started to ascend, it also changed direction from heading East to Northeast. I was able to finally take a picture but the camera was reading the background as black and the object turned out small. I am unable to transmit the picture since I am using an Ipad but could email it to someone through my Husbands’ computer if there’s any interest. As the object moved further away to the Northeast it got smaller due to the distance and then it just disappeared.

I am hoping that it will come back maybe one more time but since it’s behavior is exactly like my sightings 2 years ago I doubt that will happen, but I will be ready with the camera!

This report can be found here.

AZ UFO Case #7

The following report was submitted on March 13, and took place on March 6. Several interesting image were captured of a disk shaped object that looks very much like a cloud. However, the movement the witness describes does not fit that of a cloud.

While on vacation in Sedona, Arizona my husband and I parked on the side of a park area and while he was watching the sunset I was looking down using my cell phone. He said there’s a UFO, I remarked yeah right and didn’t look up. He said no really there’s a UFO. I looked up and was shocked to see it. I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures. It hovered, moved slowly ascended behind the clouds then it “materialized” (lack of a better word) out of nowhere only lower. Then it hovered then disappeared. I have about 6 photos of it.

The witness writes that she does not want the photos to be “reproduced in any form, sold, reprinted, published, or used in any way without my prior knowledge and written consent.” We do not have her contact information, and will honor her request. However, five of them can be seen on the MUFON database. You can view them by clicking the following links: Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3, Picture 4, and Picture 5. The written report can be found here.