[AZ-Observing] West Phoenix Tonight


Did anyone else see the following or know what was going on?

At about 7:30 PM tonight (Friday) I was set up in my observatory to take 
some comet pictures. As I was making adjustments what looked like a giant 
meteor headed down nearly due west. It was leaving a fiery trail. At 
spots it seemed to be exploding, almost like fireworks. Then just before 
hitting the ground it zoomed nearly straight up. This was going very fast 
and this side of the white mountains. Still leaving a fiery trail and 
what looked like explosions. Finally it faded. A few moments later 
another another one. This time it looked like it came from the ground. 
These may have been rockets from Luke. Then most strange of all another 
one took off did some gyrations like the others, but seemed to merge with 
something will flashing lights. Still moving at what would appear to be 
rocket speeds (way beyond what I have seen jets do, it seemed to slow and 
just the blinking lights remained. I watched this with binoculars (way to 
fast for the telescope) until it had traveled north for a couple of 
minutes. It then circled back slowly, acting like a normal plane at at 
normal plane sped, turned on a landing light and seemed to land. This was 
in the area of Luke AFB. I'm about 10 miles east and could not see much 
below tree level in the distance. My observatory is two story and I did 
get an excellent view. 

Did anyone else see this or have a clue what happened. It was very 
spectacular. I was thinking everything from a rocket attack to accident 
with missiles to the arrival of ET. :-)

This all happened between 7:30 and 7:45 tonight.

Jeff

                          Jeff Hopkins
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