Location of Sighting: Rio Rico, Arizona
Date of Sighting: May 17, 2018
Time of Sighting: 9 PM MST
Description: Two of us spotted four blinking lights far to the west, at high elevation above commercial airline altitude I believe. They were relatively close together and flashing at what appeared to be random patterns. They were very white lights. For several minutes after seeing them they seemed to be hovering. They began moving slowly. Two moved towards the west and two towards the east. They moved around a little bit in their areas and then all four lined up horizontally, evenly spaced apart. Seconds after lining up the lights became very bright as if they turned on their high beams. The lights came on from left to right (west to east) one at a time. Once the eastern light went on high beam they held for about three seconds then the high beams were turned off. The high beams were a very white light as well. A minute or so after they shut down the bright lights the two in the west headed west and one of the eastern ones headed east, although not as far east as the western one traveled west. One stayed in relatively the same area while the other ventured east. The furthest one west then picked up speed and traveled what I can only guess, about 200 or so miles (I don’t know their altitude so that’s a pure guess) to position itself just under the moon, by my perspective. The second western light then traveled at a much slower rate towards the other. At the same moment three of them came back towards the original sighted location although they moved about quite a bit more than when originally spotted. The fourth one was obscured, we lost sight of it for a few minutes. This one repeatedly became obscured for the remainder of the time we watched. We were able to watch them for approximately a half an hour. Towards the end of the time I realized that the lights blinking that I saw as random wasn’t. While they continually blinked in a random pattern at times I noticed that they appeared to be blinking in response to each other. One would blink, then another and them another. Without paying close attention I never would have noticed this. For perspective, I am in the hills of Rio Rico, Arizona and this was all happening in the northwestern sky. They were at about a ten o’clock position, vertically above the ridge-line and appeared to be at least as far away as Phoenix. When the western light traveled west to locate under the moon it went from about 12:00 to 8:00 horizontally in about 3 to 4 seconds. Neither my friend or I can come up with any “reasonable” explanation of what these lights could have been. The flight patterns, speeds, hovering and altitude defies anything I know of. Unfortunately the time that I specified is a guess. We didn’t check and only estimated when we talked the next day. Note to Commenters: If you are reporting a sighting, be sure to include the location (city, state, country), date and time of your sighting. Be detailed in your description. You may also use our report form to report your sighting. Comments will only be published if they are in "good taste" and not inflammatory. Also the name that you list in the comment will be posted. Use abbreviations or aliases if you don't want your name listed.