Light over Patagonia, AZ

The report, as filed

On the evening of 3 June, 2019, 3 adults, a 10-year old and a 6-year old observed 4 craft hover and maneuver over the town of Patagonia, Arizona, for 2 hours. The evening was dark (new moon), no haze and cloudless. You could see the streak of the Milky Way arcing through the sky. The sighting started at around 2030, my Mom and I were sitting in the back yard talking. All of a sudden, my Mom exclaimed, "Look at that Airliner!" I turned, and looking east-southeast towards Red Mountain, was a light traversing from left to right, about 30-degrees above the horizon. At first glance, it would be easily be mistaken for an aircraft strobe...but the flash pattern was too fast, almost flickering. As we looked, the craft slowed, stopped, and then started moving the exact opposite direction. I ran to the fence, and as I watched, it slowed and started hovering. Perfectly motionless. I called my Mom to go get my Cousins and to bring binoculars. About 30 seconds later, she arrived at the fence with my Older cousin, her two kids, aged 10 and 6, and the binoculars. Looking through the binoculars, I observed a large red ball-like light on the right with two flickering/strobing lights to left. While I was looking, the ball changed color from red to blue, and started moving straight up. All of us exclaimed in amazement. After moving up for 5 seconds, it moved left, stopped and hovered, and then started moving in random motions, frequently stopping to hover motionlessly for up to 30 seconds at a time. At this time, my 10-year old cousin yelled, "There's another one!". Looking to the left, there was another craft like the first one, moving towards the first. I then asked my older cousin to try and record with her phone camera. As the night was very dark, all she could pick up was the intense strobe. After about 30 minutes of the two craft maneuvering, 2 more appeared. These 4 craft moved all over the sky, stopping and hovering, moving in diagonals, and going straight up in the air to very high altitudes. They would cycle through many colors: Red, Blue, Orange, Green, White and Purple. My Mom observed a slight aura or haze around the objects, which I couldn't see. Object number #1 at times stopped, and the "colored" ball moved to the center of a ring of lights that flashed in sequential pattern, then reconfigured to the Ball left/flashing lights right pattern. There was no noise of jet engines or helicopter blades the entire time. At times, my 10-year old cousin actually sat in the grass to watch these things. These were not meteors, satellites, drones or aircraft (planes/helicopters). I am an IT specialist, US Army veteran with a hobby of photographing aircraft. These were not normal aircraft.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #146716). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.