Strange lights in the sky reported by pilots around eastern Colorado on Thursday
Pilots on different routes that crossed the state Thursday night reported seeing strange lights in the sky above eastern Colorado, audio recordings of air traffic communications show.
One pilot of a Southwest flight traveling from Phoenix to Minneapolis told air traffic controllers around 11 p.m., he saw bright lights appear, move from left to right and disappear in the sky outside the plane.
The pilot of a United plane headed from New York to Las Vegas confirmed the sighting to controllers at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center, which manages flights in a region that includes eastern Colorado, western Kansas and southern Nebraska.
The Southwest pilot told controllers he saw the lights appear and disappear in the sky near the Big Dipper constellation. In another radio dispatch, which CPR News was alerted to by Daryl Orr, a storm-chaser who lives in Cheyenne, Wyo., the pilot told controllers the lights were white with a greenish tint.
“Now there’s two or three different lights, but they all disappear after about 15 seconds.”