[AZ-Observing] Re: West Phoenix Tonight

On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 22:01:15 EST, PHXJeff@xxxxxxx wrote:

> 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. :-)

How about a crop duster.

I've seen them fly at night back when SAC observed from Buckeye-Hills.  It
can take numerous repetitions of the flight pattern before the brain
recognizes what it's seeing.  I remember watching for 15+ minutes before
what I was seeing actually registered with what was happening.  And from
Buckeye-Hills, we were looking north and down into the Gila River valley.

Alternatively, isn't there an air show this month?  I know this is down at
Williams Gateway Airport, but the military participants could be staying
and practicing at Luke.

        -Paul

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