Sighting: Unidentified Aerial Objects

Thus far, Michel and I have witnessed two bizarre aerial objects on this very trip. Oddly enough, both instances occurred in remote locations at major earthworks, i.e. Smithson's Spiral Jetty and Heizer's Double Negative. We captured this photograph on the evening of the 17th.


If you look closely, you can just make out the profile of Spiral Jetty. We first noticed a vertical orange streak in the sky, as if an object with a straight trajectory was leaving a trail of fire in its wake. For several minutes we analyzed what we were seeing, which seemed unique in comparison to the hazy trails left by airplanes. These condensation trails (contrails) appeared to be parallel to the landscape, while this fiery streak was purely vertical. We finally snapped this photograph (above) as the burning streak dimmed, dissipating in a smoky haze.

("Faux" Photographic Recreation of Said Object)

Even more impressive were the strange lights we watched in the distance from Double Negative. As the sun went down we watched a fantastic array of shooting stars and meteors (evidently the area was experiencing a shower that evening). The lights of a few planes blinked in the distance. Then, around 9:00pm, just above the horizon, two tiny white lights (about the same scale as airplanes at that distance) appeared at equal distances apart and moved rapidly toward one another from the east and the west. Just before crossing one another due north, they both suddenly stopped and hovered. Simultaneously they lit up about three times larger than their initial size, glowing a fierce white in the center with a green and red aura on the fringes. They remained in this state for about a minute, then once again dimmed to their original state and retreated to their point of origin. They simultaneously disappeared.

Two explanations for our experiences exist, they don't help with plausibility. The nearest town to Spiral Jetty, Corinne UT is home to a rocket-motor test facility. The Thiokol Promontory Complex, a facility that builds shuttles for NASA, is also situated in Ogden, UT. As for anomalous aerial objects observed at Double Negative, one has to wonder if we witnessed some sort of aerial test performed on the infamous Nellis Air Force Complex, located about fifty miles from us. Nellis is also home to the rumored facility Area 51.