Joking aside, isn’t it time we understand UFO reports?

On the morning of May 16, a man on his way to work in Belen saw “a big silver metal sphere in the sky not moving.” He pulled over to take pictures. “I could see it clear as day,” he said. The object didn’t rotate or move. He continued on to work but an hour later asked his girlfriend to see if it was still there. It wasn’t.

On May 14 in the early evening, a Los Alamos resident spotted a “bright gold ball low in the sky” just above the trees moving slowly in a straight line from east to west. Suddenly it was gone. The resident didn’t think it was a satellite because it was so big and so low and made no sound.

These are the two most recent New Mexico reports at this writing from the website of The National UFO Reporting Center (http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/ndxlNM.html), which is “Dedicated to the Collection and Dissemination of Objective UFO Data.” The site allows people around the world to post what they’ve seen. The center’s volunteer operators do their best to flag satellite sightings – Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites are the source of many reports – and sift out crank calls, but they admit their increasing workload doesn’t allow them to check out each report.

When it comes to UFOs, we think of Roswell, but New Mexico’s reports come from around the state. A year ago, a Hobbs man recorded a flying object accompanied by streaks of light that he posted on YouTube. And a Carlsbad resident saw a light that was too bright to be a star moving slowly across the sky until it disappeared.

More:UFO sightings date back to the first Americans. How does New Mexico stack up?

Granted, some sightings can be explained as satellites or weather balloons, but not all. Recently the Navy issued a report about unexplained phenomena witnessed by its pilots. Officials said they have no evidence the objects are UFOs but said they’re not U. S. government technology. An insider said it could be Chinese or Russian technology. But nobody can explain the objects’ acceleration, ability to change direction, and sudden disappearance. The military doesn’t rule out alien spacecraft.

The final report, according to news accounts, will have a classified index that’s not available for public consumption. This only fuels more speculation.

The Pentagon has collected reports since 2007 through its Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, now called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, including radar data, video footage and eye-witness accounts of Navy pilots and senior officers. Military brass say they want to identify threats to national security and encourage service members to report without fear of stigma.

Sen. Martin Heinrich recently told news outlet TMZ: “I think we need to get to the bottom of it. It’s pretty intriguing. I don’t know what it is, but anytime you have legitimate pilots describing something that doesn’t seem to conform to the laws of physics that govern aviation and is in the U. S. air space, I think it’s something we need to get to the bottom of.”

Heinrich, an engineer by training, is a no-nonsense kind of guy. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, New Mexico’s senior senator supported a provision in the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal 2021 calling for the task force and the Office of Naval Intelligence to standardize the collection and reporting of UFO data. It also called for the unclassified report, due out this month.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and former Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, probably don’t agree on much, but both support more UFO research.

I’ve bought my share of funny merchandise in Roswell but credit the International UFO Museum and Research Center with a serious presentation. Wouldn’t it be nice to stop joking and learn more about what’s in our skies?

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Carlsbad Current Argus can be found here ***