The Chronicles Of Grant County

UFOs Seen In Grant County
Part Four
Hurley And San Lorenzo

A sunset in New Mexico. (The photograph was provided courtesy of Mary Alice Murphy.)

In the first three parts of this series of reports of UFOs Seen In Grant County, The Chronicles Of Grant County, detailed information about UFOs that were seen in the skies above Buckhorn, Cliff, Fort Bayard, and Gila. This news column details information about UFOs that were reported in the airspace above Hurley and San Lorenzo.

As noted previously, on January 12, 2023, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the United States Secretary of Defense, reported that it had submitted a classified report to the U S Congress detailing Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) in 2022. The Office also released an unclassified report to the general public.

"Unidentified aerial phenomena" is the term used by the U S Department of Defense for what Americans usually call "Unidentified Flying Objects" or "UFOs."

Also, as noted in the previous parts of this news series, according to unclassified report from the Federal government, no alien life from locales beyond the Earth was found in the U S in 2022. The unclassified report does not detail any specific incidents of a UAP being seen in New Mexico in 2022.

The National UFO Reporting Center, a private entity unrelated to the Federal government, publishes a database of reports from people who have reported seeing unidentified flying objects.

This database of self-reported sightings includes a number of reports of UFOs seen in the skies above Grant County in recent years. Please note that the reports listed here were lightly edited for spelling and punctuation for publication. In some cases, the National UFO Reporting Center indicated in notes that the sightings were actually of or possibly of specific military activities or scientific events.

On November 7, 2015, for about 5 minutes, an individual saw a UFO above Hurley. According to this individual, "there was an aura or haze around the object."

"Driving down Route 180 from Deming, New Mexico, towards Hurley, on the side of the road, in a field, I noticed this light in the middle of darkness," the individual reported. "The sky was clear, I could see stars, but this round light was on the ground, and it was just there."

The individual concluded by stating that "I stopped the car and [took]…a pic, but all you can see is the halo."

There was a note on this report: "U S Navy missile launch. PD."

For about 10 to 15 minutes on February 6, 2008, a UFO was reported to be in the skies above San Lorenzo. The individual reporting this incident stated that "there were lights on the object. There was an aura or haze around the object. The object emitted beams. Large bright aircraft with two distinct beams of light separated into large bifurcated gaseous cloud over southern New Mexico tonight."

"My husband and I saw a large bright aircraft in the southern New Mexico sky near San Lorenzo tonight, traveling east at around 7:20 PM," the individual continued. "It was bright enough to be moonlight, but the moon was not up yet. It looked about the size of Saturn when it is closest to the earth, but it kept increasing in size, then we noticed two sections of lights on either side that looked like searchlights on a VERY high-flying plane."

"We continued watching, then suddenly it shifted into something that looked like a rocket that had separated from its fuel source, then it 'bloomed' into a large gaseous cloud that had two distinct sections that emerged out of the areas where the 'searchlights' had been," she said. "The gaseous cloud grew to occupy a large section of the southern sky, then merged into one big balloon shape preceded by two distinct horizontal stripes of light as it reached the southeastern horizon."

She continued by stating that "as the gaseous cloud faded, two of our neighbors came up and said they had also seen the whole event, from the bright light with 'searchlight' beams of light emitting from it, through the visual separation into two sections, to the 'blooming of the gas cloud' and its subsequent disappearance in the east, preceded by two stripes of light."

This individual herself noted a possible Earthly reason for the UFO: "Did Space X fall out of the sky tonight????"

"My husband has been an astronomy professor for the past 30 years and has never seen anything like this in the night sky," the individual explained. "This is how he described it to his colleagues when he inquired if they had seen it: There was a strange elongated bright light to the west near Fomalhaut [a star in the sky] at about 7:30 PM. As it got closer it drifted to the south and then fired (?) rockets for a few minutes then they shut off."

"At first the rocket plumes (reflected sunlight, I assumed) were short and out to the side of its travel," she continued quoting the explanation from her husband. "I interpreted these as some sort of lateral thruster or azimuth control. Then the rear engines lit off and created a huge plume (20-30 degrees) across the southern sky (in Eridanus [a constellation in the sky] mostly so pretty far south even from here). Very bright, fan shaped, and very pretty. After a while the plume disconnected from the bright point at its apex and then faded slowly away. The bright point…continued in a southeasterly direction and was lost below the southern hills from our house. I assume it was trying for a safe place to land. I hope it did not hit anyone.

She concluded her report with a request: "Please let me know if this was plausibly Space X."

There was a note on this report: "Possible result of launch of Space X rocket from Cape Kennedy [the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida]? PD."

Additional reports of UFO sightings in the skies over Mimbres, Pinos Altos, and Silver City will be detailed in the next editions of The Chronicles Of Grant County.

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