Did you hear about the American Airlines flight that had a close encounter of the unidentified flying object kind over the skies of New Mexico? It happened on February 21, and it’s still not clear what exactly the pilot saw that day.

“Do you have any targets up here?” the pilot asks air traffic controllers in the communication recorded by Steve Douglass, who writes the Deep Black Horizon blog. “We just had something go right over the top of us, that, I hate to say this, looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast that went right over the top of us."

While many sightings and encounters of unidentified things in the sky are usually explained away as this, that, or the other, this particular incident, which took place around 400 miles from White Sands Missile Range, has yet to be discredited by a single government entity.

Like the popular meme says, I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens. What else could it be? Everyone knows the entire state of New Mexico is some kind of alien spacecraft portal.

And because of proximity, El Paso sees the occasional sighting as well. Nowhere near the numbers our neighbors in the Land of Enchantment report, but people around here have seen some strange things in the night sky. Put on your tinfoil hat and let me tell you about them.

Lights over Northeast El Paso - 1/17/20

In January of 2020, a grouping of bright lights captured on cell phones hovering in the night sky over Northeast El Paso caused a flood of inquiries on social media, many wondering if it was a fleet of spacecrafts from a galaxy far, far away.

And unlike the month before when a glowing orb spotted over the Franklin Mountains turned out to be a weather balloon, our local National Weather Service office denied they were connected in any way to the January sighting, telling a local news station weather balloons are not lit up, descend rapidly, are only launched between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., and never in groups.

Then there are these sightings reported to the National UFO Reporting Center in 2020

Enter your number to get our free mobile app

Occurred: 11/25/2020 04:45

I was traveling on the 375 freeway in El Paso, south bound when I saw the formation appearing to hover in the south east direction. At first glance it appeared a line formation, as I stared closely and tried to focus, the formation had a slight bend at end. The approx 15 separate lights in the formation had a light amber glow to them. The formation itself appeared in a diagonal direction and they seemed to be moving away from my line of sight and the lights slowly faded into the darkness of the sky

Occurred: 8/11/2020 23:35

Strange bright light in the El Paso sky over Horizon City that blinks out and returns. I stepped out onto my upstairs deck and noticed a bright light hovering over the water tower. It stayed in the same spot for approximately 20 minutes and as I was keeping a close watch on it it all of a sudden disappeared or blinked out.


Occurred: 5/9/2020 20:30

Black sphere with flame light seen over loop 375 El Paso, Texas. I was driving home and noticed what appeared to be a red flame about 300 yards in the sky. The flame (reddish/orange in color) light, traveling north over loop 375 looked a little blurry so I parked and continued to observe. The flame light appeared to fade out as the light turned west, then noticed the large dark (black) sphere shape appear with the reflection of the city lights. The sphere was about the size of a large two story house. The sphere did not have lights or sound to indicate it was a plane.

Occurred: 5/11/2020 22:00

Small triangular pattern of three white lights hovering very high over the west side of El Paso, TX. Our home is on the east side of El Paso, very close to the El Paso International Airport. So, we were viewing the lights from east to west over the tops of the Mount Franklin mountain range. The three lights would flash / twinkle randomly and occasionally remain solid. The three lights did not separate from the triangular pattern and after about 30 minutes they completely disappeared.

READ ON: Weird, wild UFO sightings from throughout history