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Weird lights over ABQ Saturday night?

Did anyone else saw the weird lights over ABQ Saturday night? They were towards the mountains and pretty low? They looked like very bright stars (white). They traveled south for about 20 degrees in about a minute, shifting a bit in relation to each other, then disappeared.

There were of a bunch of us at a party (pig roast! near the uptown Trader Joe's) who saw this and none of us have a clue as to what it could have been. It lasted too long to be any fireworks that I know of (and looked more like 10 -12 bright stars anyway). There were too many and too close to be planes (plus they didn't look like planes, which we saw a few of at other times) unless it was some unusual formation exercise over over the city from Kirtland.

Anyone have any clue what we saw?

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Permalink Reply by Aly Sanchez on July 12, 2010 at 7:11pm

Oh and since meteors may come up, I suppose that may be the best explanation, however it wasn't like showers I've seen. No tails, all white, moving slow for meteors, and with no noticable fall to the path (just seemed horizontal).

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Permalink Reply by Donny Ozmund on July 12, 2010 at 11:38pm

Hikers on the peak with powerful lights?

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Permalink Reply by Lahjik on July 13, 2010 at 7:02pm

Mass hallucination brought on by the smell of tasty roasting pig?

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Permalink Reply by RiderJohn on July 13, 2010 at 10:35pm

Could have been a search and rescue team or firefighters with bright spot lights? Else, I say it was probably a KAFB-related formation. From a distance, what appears to be lights situated too close to one another to be aircraft can actually be aircraft that are not unreasonably close to one another. Distance really impacts perception.

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Permalink Reply by Aly Sanchez on July 14, 2010 at 8:37am

I think KAFB is probably the correct answer. Individually they certainly didn't look like commercial plane lights but military seems reasonable. And since we were sitting, we may have had an angle that made behind-mountain look like in-city.

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Permalink Reply by Martin on July 14, 2010 at 9:33am

We saw what could have been two planes flying VERY close to each other near Taylor Ranch Saturday morning about 11. Seems like I saw, heard or read a news story that it had something to do with Kirtland. But I can't find that story thru Google News.

And I said "could" have been planes. The shapes were vague and they were very shiny. One was flying straight and toward the west, the other was behind and moving up and down quickly.

I also have the urge to go to Devil's Peak but I don't know why.

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Permalink Reply by RiderJohn on July 14, 2010 at 8:21pm

I was on my bike coming down the Bosque Trail Saturday around 11-11:30 AM or so, and I looked up and saw a large military jet - a cargo plane or bomber of some kind trailed closely by four jet fighters and trailed by another large cargo or bomber. I have not seen such activity in a long time so who knows. It really stood out. So perhaps that too was related and maybe there was a series of exercises going on throughout the day/evening.