Are humans alone in this vast universe? It’s a question as old as time — one that’s not easily answered.
People have long pondered the question of whether there is intelligent life inhabiting other parts of the galaxy. Given the sheer vastness of the space around us, it seems logical that more just than planet Earth would be capable of sustaining intelligent life in some form, but thus far, nobody is willing to confirm it. (Insert some junk about smart science people who believe in aliens.)
There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to back up that idea, though. Tales of visits by otherworldly creatures have been passed from generation to generation across the globe. Ask around and you may even find that your friends or family have stories about unexplained encounters to tell you. There’s even evidence that ancient civilizations believed in other life forms. Just take a look at the petroglyphs left behind in the Southwest for proof.
While we can’t answer the question of whether aliens are real, we can tell you that there’s an unusual phenomenon happening in the midst of this pandemic. There has been a significant uptick in reports of UFOs or unexplained phenomena since the start of the pandemic, according to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC). Looks like people aren’t just stuck indoors right now — they’re also outside, gazing up at the skies for signs of life.
NUFORC maintains records of reported UFO sightings across the United States, and according to their records, there was a significant uptick in reports during the first months of the pandemic. Those sightings have continued to grow through the end of 2020 and into 2021, furthering the question of whether there are other intelligent beings in the skies.
Don’t believe us? From unexplained crafts resembling mylar balloons to unexplained lights in the sky, the stories below are just a handful of the New Mexico and Colorado sightings reported to NUFORC over the last few months. Your guess is as good as ours, guys.
Lafayette, COJan. 14, 2021“I was driving down US-287 in Lafayette near the Baseline intersection and something shiny caught my eye in the sky. I continued trying to look at it, but (it) was difficult since I was driving, so I pulled over to get a better look and take the video. I saw a pill-shaped cylindrical craft that was silver and shining in the sun. The ends were dark, middle silver, and there was a small box or something hanging off, but it’s hard to point out what it is. It was moving much like a mylar balloon would. It was rotating in the sky, first doing a vertical flip and then precisely changing to a horizontal flip position and back and forth. I was almost positive it was a mylar balloon until I saw its abrupt motion in between flips. Something moves it. It does not follow the wind and is much too repetitive to be the wind picking something up. It’s more methodical than that. I have never been so freaked out in my life. I called my family in tears, just saying, “This is not possible.” I called the aviation center and the FAA couldn’t tell me much. I’m hoping you can. It was probably around 400-500ft in the sky when I spotted it and would go up and down roughly 1000-2000 ft or so. You can see a plane fly over in the beginning of the video and it does a good job of being able to tell how far out the craft was. It was much lower than a plane but much higher than a drone. The video does such a better job at explaining it. I really can’t believe I caught the video I did. I sent it to the FAA like I said, and they said they had several people look at it and they were unable to determine what it was. Any help would be so appreciated. I feel like I just discovered something and no one cares!”
Pueblo West, COJan. 12, 2021“Two-second flash of what appeared to be 5-8 orange lights in a row, really close together, like a craft and happened 2X within 2 minutes.”
Albuquerque, NMJan. 9, 2021“The object appeared in the east sky, above the silhouette of the mountains, north of where I was standing. There was a strand of white lights, approximately 5-10 lights, running horizontally. The object then quickly moved southward in an irregular pattern — it zigzagged a little and rotated, causing the lights to shift from running horizontally to vertically. The lights remained in the vertical pattern. The object moved to a point slightly south from where I was standing and stopped. It stayed in that position, still above the silhouette of the mountains. The object remained there for approximately a minute. The sun was starting to rise, so the lights were no longer visible. The event lasted between 1 to 2 minutes and there was no sound coming from object.”
Pueblo West, COJan. 4, 2020“5:30 or 5:40. Saw about 30 lights traveling from west to east. Evenly spaced across the entire visible night sky. Very high up, possibly in orbit.”
Truth or Consequences, NMDec. 27, 2020“Cigar shape object that changed shape to a fish-like object and others to appear to have landing legs. I saw an object hovering in the sky to the south while we were heading east on I-40 in New Mexico that was shaped like a cigar. Then it appeared to look like a fish and then changed shape again with something hanging off one end of it; then it went back to the cigar shape.”
Santa Fe, NMDec. 5, 2020“I was walking home and through the sky I noticed a diagonal stream of twenty or more slow moving orange-ish lights blinking quickly in a sequence of farthest down to highest up as they descended west and eventually over the horizon. Occasionally they would seem to blur together and flash brighter. I don’t know how long they were there before I saw them. Another man from my neighborhood came out into the street to get a closer look.”
Englewood, CODec. 4, 2020“I saw a few dozen or so single white lights flying slowly in a perfect straight line. Looked about 1,000 ft. in elevation and a few hundred feet apart. The movement was slow at about 20 mph with a heading of NE tracking over Centennial airport. All lights were white and about as bright as the stars in the sky. They made no noise and didn’t exhibit any movement besides the straight line track. I saw the trail end.”
Denver, CONov. 15, 2020“I had my front door open because my house was really warm from having the oven on. I saw some super bright white lights flying in the airplane landing path towards DIA. I thought that it was a very odd airplane because the lights were so bright, so I decided to go outside to get a better look. As soon as I stepped out on the porch the object changed direction and started heading directly at me. There was NO sound at all. At that point, I could see two super bright white lights that were rectangular (sorta looked like house speakers from a stereo) on the nose of this object that strobed one at a time. I then noticed two red lights on the left and two green lights on the right. I thought that they were lights on the wings, as I continued to believe that I was seeing an airplane. As the object got directly over me (about 1500-2000 ft above), I could clearly see that it had the body of an airplane, but it had no wings! NONE! Both the red and green lights were gone at this point, but there was a detached barrel-shaped object (light gray in color — the same as the main object) flying close to the right side of the main object. Then all the sudden, a helicopter (I don’t know if it was a news heli or a police heli, but it wasn’t a military heli) flying west to east comes out of nowhere. It looked like the heli was going to crash into the main object. The helicopter flew underneath the main object, but then the helicopter stopped, turned around as if it were going to chase the objects. But after turning around for just a few seconds and getting a look at it, the helicopter immediately turned back around and started flying east again. Almost to say, “Hey, let’s get out of here!” I tried to keep watching the object, but once it went over the neighborhood houses, it flew out of my view. I thought about grabbing my phone to record it, but I knew it would have been gone by the time I came back out to film it, so I elected to just keep watching it instead.”
Fort Collins, CONov. 2, 2020“At around 6pm my fiance and I were out having a smoke when several flying craft way, way, way up were interacting with one another, very large in size. They were camaflauged for the ski but you could clearly see the dark circular light sockets. The lights weren’t on but you could see the crafts underneaths. We are completely speechless. We star gazed well into the night hoping to see such a site again.”
Aurora, COOct. 26, 2020“At first glance I thought it was the tail of a shooting star. Then I notices it didn’t fall. It was a vertical line, and as I looked closer, there were a large numbers of lights and they were spinning and one light was brighter then all of them. It looked like a line of stars spinning in a clockwise direction. Continued east and went higher. A slow hover and then disappeared to the east into the sky.”
Denver, COSept. 30, 2020“Approximately 23:00, I went outside and looked at the moon. Noticed a cluster of lights west of the moon, thought they were stars. They started moving around, and I was in total shock and continued to watch them. All the same size, color of stars and all same size. They moved so fast, I first thought I saw a shooting star. I’d see 5 to 6 at a time, speeding around across the sky, mainly around the moon. They would accelerate at unbelievable speed, stop, turn quickly in other directions. Phoned a person across town. They went outside and observed the same thing. Been 3 hours and I can still see a few of them flying back and forth. Somebody somewhere knows something about these things.”
Angelica LeichtEditor, DGO Mag
