possible explanation for strange sights around Nellis AFB 3/30/01This eeally doesn't qualify so much as a UFO report as a possible explanation for a report filed a couple of days ago by someone in las vegas. I used to live about 2 miles south of nellis AFB (foe about ten years) and saw large night maneuvers such as he described...with as many as thirty aircraft, and supporting aircraft such as refuelers, AWACS type aircraft, and cargo planes taking off at late evening hours and returning a short time later. Of course, some of these instances may be simply explained as one group of pilots leaving for their homes, and another group timed to arrive shortly thereafter. I have also witnessed the "winking lights" scenario described, though only once and it was here in the Pahrump valley, anout fifteen years ago. I saw a similar glowing ball of orangeish light, above the mountain range that sperates Pahrump valley from Death Valley area, it pulsed a total of three times that I witnessed, and in those pulses it appeared to travel some twenty or so miles northward . I saw NO chase airxraft as the other gentlrman described, and had two witnesses with me. I at first argued that it must have been a series of beacons on radio relay towers or something, but there are no towers along that range. No sound, ball was about the size of a pencil eraser on end at arms length. It would start as an amber dim glow, increasing in intensity over about five seconds, then flash out and reappear some five miles uprange. Whew! All of that said, I only have one more thought to add before I tell about my sighting. Because of the job Ihave, I have occasion to drive seventy miles at night five nights a week, and have noticed that lights can easily be seen thirty miles or so most of the time, and aircraft lights approaching MCCarran can be easily seen 50 miles away. You would never hear them, but you would see them, and a more inexperienced viewer might feel they are much closer, and therefor should make noise. Also, I have seen flares dropped by evading aircraft, and the orange lights are NOT at all the same, flares slowly fall to earth, start brightly and then dim. Now to my sighting. Its about 9 PM, I am in a hurry to get inside to watch something on TV, and as I walk westward to my door, I hear a low throb in the air. There is a small helicopter service that sometimes flys at night here, and the air-rescue helicopters from Vegas, each with their distinct sounds, and it was neither. Sometimes jets heading to MCCarran will throttle back over the Pahrump valley and the change in pitch as it bounces of the mountain ranges, and its strange, so I pause for a moment in the dark, scanning the clear night sky for any unusual movements. About thirty seconds later a pair of red flashing lights appear over the range of mountains directly to my Northwest, the foot of the range is two miles from my home, and I beleive that the lights were two of the black helicopters stationed out at Nellis, you can usually see them at the extreme North end of the airstrip if you drive LVBL North to the Speedway racetrack. Anyway, these are the two prop jobs, which fits with my recollection of the sounds from Nellis when I lived there. The two lights followed the ridge of the mountain Northwest and at one point flew below the ridgeline, obscuring them from view and masking their sound almost completely. Since the Nellis training grounds lie mainly NE of the Pahrump valley, I can only guess what they were doing flying along the NW range of PV, unless it had some thing to do with sneaking into the training area by flying low and entering from the west instead of the south or southeast, as much traffic does. Well, that is all I have to say, and I am not a debunker or anything, but I have lived near airbases since I was 8 years old. I'm 40 now, and worked nights for the last six years. The report from Las Vegas seems to be a description of night manuevers, with planes chasing the Agressor aircraft, and larger planes supplying intel to the pilots, whose jobs are much more dangerous at night in a dogfight situation. The flashes could be flares, and the excersise could probably be seen if it was held in the southern end of the Nellis range and the subject lived on the side of "sunrise"(frenchman?) mountain, say near the intersection of Lake Mead and Hollywood, which affords an excellent view at night of Nellis AFB airstrip and views some forty miles northward. I would also guess that my helicopters were involved in a similar night action, perhaps practicing recovering a pilot downed at night. Sorry to go on so long, I just thought it would be fair to give a litlle explanation of the manuevers around Nellis AFB, since a lot of people would think military air traffic at night as strange, but at Nellis, its fairly commonplace!((NUFORC Note: We agree with the contibutor's assessment of lights in the night sky. They can be very difficult to identify positively. PD))