Other over Las Vegas, NV

The report, as filed

I was sunning by the pool at our building in Las Vegas, at the start of a short holiday (because our choice resort in St. Martin was destroyed). I was looking up, mostly watching the helicopters and planes departing LAS. Then, I saw the first object. I saw a bright white UFO, moving slowly. Then I saw the second one. Then, the first dropped 3 objects from it. The 3 new UFOs looked like “stars”, except it was about noon, with a blazing sun, so stars wouldn't have been visible. I thought they might be weather balloons. But, then I realized that one of the larger objects, moved at a MUCH faster rate, than the UFO “mother” ship that dropped the three “stars”. So, they couldn't be balloons, or they would all be moving at about the same rate, in the same direction. Plus, they didn't look like balloons. They looked like “pyramids” and “stars”. When I saw the three objects falling from the mother ship, I thought it might be a plane, dropping jumpers. But, I realized, it was not a plane. As the first object got closer (more overhead), I could see it was sort of a pyramid shape, but the orientation changed, as the UFO “tumbled”. It did not stay in a constant orientation, like an airplane. The 3 dropped “stars”, moved slowly “below” the mother ship. They didn't drop quickly, like jumpers, which was another reason I realized they were not skydivers. Then, they stopped “dropping”, and moved along with the mother ship, in a roughly North-South orientation. The four UFOs moved slowly, in more or less the same North-South direction. The larger one was the “pyramid” shaped one, with the three “stars” following. Then, I noticed more of the “star” UFOs. I saw about 7-8 more. They were in a second group, behind the first four, but all moved about the same direction and roughly the same speed. Sometimes, some of the UFOs would stop, and be stationary for a while, but eventually they mostly moved off in the same North-South direction. After some minutes, one of the “star” UFOs suddenly moved at VERY high speed, in the opposite direction of the others, Northerly. During this whole UFO time period, I saw probably about 7 airplanes. That helped me judge the speed and behavior of the UFOs. Most of the UFOs were moving MUCH slower than the aircraft, except for the one “star” UFO that started moving the opposite direction. It was going about four times faster than any of the other aircraft I saw, and some of them were high-altitude jets moving at their normal speed. Another of the “star” UFOs was moving about 120 degrees away from the direction of the movement of the others (Northeasterly). As it moved away, it slowly turned as it moved, about 90 degrees to the left, so it ended up moving at about a 30 degree angle from the direction of the others (Southeasterly). Then I saw another group of around 8 “star” UFOs. They were largely moving right-to-left, North-South, as most of the previous UFOs had before. When one or more moved more overhead, again I could see the “pyramid” shape, with the continuously changing orientation. The rest looked like stars. They appeared to move to the South, in the direction of the Sun. I think that they were climbing, as well as moving roughly North-South, as they got close to the Sun. Later, one of the “star” UFOs moved off at about a 45 degree angle path away from the main direction of most of the UFOs, and disappeared moving in that direction (southeasterly). Then, I saw one of the “star” UFOs moving away from the track of the others: It looked like it was mostly climbing up, away from the path of the previous UFOs. But, this one was changing in visual intensity dramatically. Sometimes, it could barely be seen, but then it changed to very bright, much brighter than any of the other UFOs, then back to looking like a “star”, like most of the other UFOs. It was changing in brightness at random intervals, the whole time I saw this UFO. After this, I saw one more of the “star” UFOs. In total, the experience lasted about 45 minutes, and I saw about 20 UFO objects. They weren't weather balloons, airplanes or helicopters. They weren't drones or RC planes, and not anything publicly acknowledged in a current military inventory. Note: I was a USAF pilot, and am now an airline pilot.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #143442). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.