Unknown over Tucson, AZ

The report, as filed

On November 11, 2019, at approximately 18:55. My family and I, along with a 14 year-old neighbor kid were enjoying the evening in the back yard. We live in Tucson, Arizona. Our home is located about 2 miles north of the Tucson International Airport (TIA) and the Arizona Air National Guard base. As I was conversing with my wife, our 10-year-old son said, “What kind of plane is that?” He pointed to the west and I reluctantly looked because it is a constant question they would ask me. Just to shed some light on my background, I am a 23-year military veteran and former 10-year fire fighter, and 12-year law enforcement officer. I am very familiar with air traffic, types of aircraft, and I also have a bit of surveillance experience on looking for aircraft using binoculars, ground radar, thermal and night vision equipment. So back to my sighting. I told my wife, come look at this! She also watched in amazement and we could not believe what we were seeing. This line of lights was very long and did not appear to be an aircraft of any sorts and I could see it still entering the atmosphere. The object was very long and cruising at a very slow speed. It was entering from the north and traveling south. I would say, it was between the planet Saturn and the star Ras Alhague, slightly above them. As I held my hand out and measured It, it was about 5 inches in length as I looked towards the western sky. It was well above the horizon growing brighter. Each light was perfectly spaced apart, but some had distance between the middle lights. The middle lights seemed brighter, especially the one in the center. We were able to watch it for about a minute or so. It was not a meteor shower or a single meteorite. This was moving way to slow, kind of like watching a balloon float across the sky then it just disappeared out of the atmosphere as it neared just above Saturn. We all tried to take pictures and videos using our Iphones but they could not pick up the image. I have experienced unusual things in my career but nothing ever like this. I immediately called the Davis Monthan air force base operator and asked to be connected to Air Operations management. I got no answer and I hung up. I called a supervisor from the U.S. Border Patrol in Three Points, Arizona, to see if any of their guys reported anything over the radio. Of course, you can imagine I was laughed at! but I know how it is. These are things you just don’t talk about. I hope this description can give some valuable information on what we saw.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #150640). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.