The Lights Over Yuma - My UFO Sighting

AOTP EP:5 Decades ago, over the Summer, midnight skies of Yuma, Arizona; an unbelievable sight was witnessed. And tonight, I'm sharing that story.

If you have an account to share and would like to be a guest on the show, email me at show@accountsoftheparanormal.com and tell me what you saw!

Accounts of the Paranormal -

Creator/Producer/Host: Gino Barreto

WEBSITE: https://accountsoftheparanormal.com/ 

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9zKn4LcW3VJROe1-l9EAcQ 

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/accountsoftheparanormal/ 

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578228277599 

X: https://www.x.com/aotparapodcast

Accounts of the Paranormal (theme song) 

Written by: Gino Barreto / Produced by: Kobe Ofei

All music produced by: 

Kobe Ofei https://www.fiverr.com/kobeofei 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Welcome to the show. Tonight I'll be sharing my account of a UFO sighting I had decades ago over the midnight skies of Yuma, Arizona. This sighting happened when I was a young man. It was the summer of 1994. And I was a young guy needing work that summer, and a family friend of ours, of my parents, had offered me to come out and work in his plant where he manufactured those plastic gallon milk jugs that everybody uses and gets from the store. He had a small warehouse there with the machine, the injection molding, I think if I remember right, uh blow molding that makes those little jugs. And I said, sure. So I ended up going out there and um started working for him in Yuma. And Yuma, uh, it's a well, I was living in Southern California at the time, and I would drive out there on Sunday nights, and I think I'd come back home on the weekends. The drive was probably three, three and a half hours, if I remember. And that was okay with me. I was a young guy, and I got to drive my car and listen to my favorite CDs as loud as I wanted to for a few hours, so that was just fine by me. But I went there early in the summer and uh I was staying in his house in Yuma. I don't recall the population, but it wasn't a small town, but it wasn't a large city either. If I had to guess looking back, I would say the population maybe 50,000. I could be wrong, but around there. So I would take the eight, the highway, I think it was the I-8, uh, somewhere, I think, in El Centro. I would take some like back highways, and somewhere around maybe El Centro, and I I can't remember exactly, but um, I would catch the eight into Yuma, heading uh east into Yuma, and then I would exit. And the main drag that went through Yuma was the I-8 uh business loop. It was like the main road that went through town, and um in the middle of town was the airport, and it I think it doubled as the airbase, like an army airbase or something. So it was both. And the house I was staying in with this family friend was a couple of blocks from the eight business loop. So when I would leave uh in the afternoons, I think I ended up ultimately working like um 12-hour shifts. I was doing like I think 12 to 12, 12 afternoon to 12 midnight. And I would leave in the afternoon. I'd open the front door and um I'd get blasted by the heat. If you if you've never stayed in Arizona in the summertime, um you uh don't know what heat is. That was opening that door in the afternoon is like opening the oven that's been on bake at 450 for like 45 minutes. That was heat. So I mean, if you've never experienced the Arizona summer heat or maybe the heats of the deserts of the Middle East, I would imagine. Uh yeah, you don't know heat. That was hot, but I'd leave in the afternoon and it was a couple blocks, like I said, from the the business loop eight. I would head down and I remember I'd stop at the light and I'd make a left to catch the the eight loop business loop heading east, just outside of town where the plant was. I don't remember the the length of the drive, it was maybe like five minutes, maybe a little more, um, straight out on the eight, and I'd make a left off the shoulder of the dirt, drive maybe a couple hundred yards, and there was this little warehouse. And but when I would get to that light on the eight, the I could the airport was there along the eight in the middle of town, um, and I would see it just to the right. And once in a while, if I was lucky enough, like maybe before going to work or heading to work, I would see I'd be stopped at that light, or I'd be driving by the the airport, and I would see the the jumper jets, the harriers. Like if I was lucky, I'd see one floating there just off the ground. And it's just I remember that was just the coolest sight to see one of these huge you know fighter jets floating, like still off, you know, maybe 40, 50 feet off the ground. It was just a sight to see, and it was the coolest thing. And during that summer there, I probably saw maybe a handful of times, maybe less, but I I just I never forgot that. It was just really cool seeing those planes float like that. And so yeah, I would drive out, I'd make a left onto the eight and head out to the plant. And it's a straight shot, flat. You know, I I'd had the the city of Yuma in my rear view mirror the whole time. And so one night um I left the plant and I got in my car. It was midnight, it was a warm night. This is probably, I want to say September, maybe mid-September, maybe late September, somewhere around there, because I wasn't there much much longer than that. So that's how I remember this. This happened close to that time. And so it was a warm night, it was very warm. It was midnight, but it was still very warm. I remember it'd be midnight and it'd still be 100 degrees out in the middle of summer. Again, it was pretty it was intense heat. And I got my car and I was rolling down the gravel drive to make my way to the eight, turn right onto the eight, and head west straight into the city. And um when I would I'd get to the highway and there was never a car on it, I would literally wouldn't even have to stop. I'd just roll right on, make a right onto the eight, and start heading into town. And this particular night, I got on the eight, I'm heading west, and when I was looking straight out ahead, on under the road, straight out into the horizon, the city, I could see the city lights, and I saw about half a dozen, I want to say six or seven, small, well, from my distance, white lights, like kind of in a group, I mean straight out in front of me, what would have been above the airport. Um, when I say above, I mean off the gro hovering off the ground. And if I had to estimate, I would say they were maybe 50, 60, 70 feet in the air. In a group, they weren't in a straight line. They were kind of staggered, like there'd be one, and the one to the right would be maybe a little higher than the other one, and the one to the right of that might have been a little lower than the other one, but they were kind of in it clustered together, just not in any uniform um position. And like I said, there was about six or seven of them lights. And as soon as I saw them, my first thought was, oh, the you know, the jumper jets are you know doing their maneuvers tonight. And had I thought about it for I didn't question it, because what else? What else would they be, right? But the one thing about those, I only ever saw them during the day um doing anything. And it was a f a few times, like I said, maybe less than a handful of times that I saw, and when I did, I only saw one. I never saw more than one of these harriers floating or flying or anything. It was always just one. So when I saw these six or seven, I it was it was unusual had I thought about it for a second, but I didn't. I just I didn't question it. I saw a few, like I said, six or seven lights hovering just above what would have been maybe the tops of the hangars, the buildings at the airport. And I just assumed that's what they were. So I thought, oh, the jumpers are doing something tonight. And and again, it would have been strange because the neighborhood, you know, was just a couple blocks away, was a neighborhood full of houses, so the noise would have been insane. They just wouldn't have been doing that. And I observed these lights, I'm driving straight west, going towards them into town, and I'm looking at them, and it was maybe a minute or two. It wasn't much more than that. And all of a sudden, one of these lights shot from still stationary position. They they never moved, they were they were in the same uh positions idle in the air the entire time I I was uh observing them. And then all of a sudden, one of them shot at about maybe 55, 60 degree angle, just straight up and out to you know up toward the right, like I said, maybe around 50, 55 degrees, just up out into space. It just just shot like from zero to ludicrous speed in a second. I mean, it was insane. And uh like I said, about a second or two, maybe a second a little more after that, the next one, uh the second one did the exact same thing. It shot out in the that same trajectory straight up and out at the same angle up into space.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

And one at a time, each of these lights followed just one, two, three, four about that that exact uh spacing. They just shot out straight up into the like the stars, the space.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Uh there was no smoke, there was no sound, there was nothing. They just like I said, zero to I don't know how many uh thousands of uh how many miles per hour they went, but like I like I said, for all the spaceball fans out there, just ludicrous speed. It was insane. When maybe the fourth or fifth one went up, I I I drove, I veered off the highway onto the dirt shoulder, and I just came to this abrupt stop. I remember I hit the brakes and I remember the dust you know plume coming up around the car, enveloping the car as I came to a stop and I leaned forward to look up because I literally that's how they went so high. And it was a beautiful night. It was clear, I could see the stars, but I had to lean against my steering wheel and look straight up to see where they went, that the the position that they went. And as I did, as I remember, as I leaned forward and looked up, my jaw dropped in amazement and in just shock. And when I say it dropped, I don't mean that I opened my mouth and was going, ah. It literally was uncontrollable. It was and it was the first time and it was the only time in my life that has ever happened. I had seen like, you know, I didn't and I didn't know that was a thing. I remember, you know, watching the cartoons when I was a kid, you know, and you'd see, you know, one of the characters, you know, standing there and something happens and his jaw like you know exaggeratingly hits the ground or something. I didn't I didn't know that was a real thing, but it is. And it was the only time it ever happened in my life, and it never happened since. But it dropped open uncontrollably, and I I could not raise my jaw back up for five to ten seconds. It was the weirdest sensation, and I I still remember it to this day because it was so strange. But yeah, I was in such um amazement, in such shock at what I just saw that it made my jaw drop open. And I'm leaning against the steering wheel and I'm looking straight up and to where they went, and I remember thinking that they became the stars. That's the only way I could describe it was all these lights that shot up whatever these things were from a total uh standstill in about a second or two literally went up into space and just became the stars. I just I couldn't see them. They went that fast and that far into the heavens. It was absolutely insane. I've never seen anything like that, I'd never seen anything like that since. And I remember when I was able to um regain the sensation and bring like slowly like bring my jaw back up. I again, that was the weirdest thing. And it is a thing, it can happen. And I I don't, you know, you know, you see crazy things in your life, you're like, wow, but it has to be something so absolutely incredible, something that's just mind-blowing that you you're not believing what you're witnessing to cut to make that happen. And that's why I don't I don't ever expect uh that to happen again. It was strange, but it is a thing. It can happen, it's beyond your control. Your jaw will drop open, you will not be able to raise it back up for several seconds. It's a crazy sensation. But I was finally able to um uh bring my jaw back and and kind of gather myself. And I remember I just kept looking up into the sky, like waiting, expecting, or maybe hoping to like see them, like to see these lights, what they were gonna do, if they were gonna come back, or anything. I was just watching. I would remember I remember laying up against my steering wheel, looking straight up. I remember I was even looking at my the moon roof, uh, it to see anything, and there was nothing. I didn't see anything, I didn't see them again. Um they just they went up and they disappeared into space. It was it was absolutely remarkable. And I remember I gathered myself and I was able to, I backed up, straightened out, got back on the highway, and started heading back into town. And there was no more lights over uh the city, uh over the airport where they were. There's nothing in the sky. That was it. They were just gone. And then you immediately started to you know question what I just witnessed. I remember, okay, what you know, maybe it was spotlights or something. That's what you do, like when you when you see something like that, when you witness something like that, you you go into like this denial. You just you don't you you question what it was. I mean, my I didn't want to go straight to this you know the UFO thing. I'm like, okay, was it were they you know spotlights and they maybe they turned them into the sky for a second, even though I knew that that was not what I saw, but that's that's just what you do. You try to you know, you know, be rational about it. It had to been something, you know, of this earth, something explainable, I guess, is the way to say it, but it was not that. It was it was not uh the hairy, a jumper jet, it was not a helicopter, it was there was nothing on this earth that could do what these things did. Period. Period, the end. I can't even imagine the force, the G's that would have been inflicted on someone that would have been, you know, maybe a passenger and whatever these were. I mean, it it would have just destroyed you, the the speed, um, going from zero to that speed, that fast. I can't imagine anyone surviving that force. It was insane. And so, like I said, I tried to come up with something that they they might have been if it had just been one, it would I don't I don't know if I'd have thought any differently about it, but how crazy was that was that many? And I thought, okay, maybe tomorrow. Now this was uh 1994. This was before the internet, or the internet might have been in its infancy at that time. But there was no internet, you know, people had, um very few people even had cell phones. So I mean, you were gonna get news. If you were gonna get it, you're gonna have to turn on your TV or your radio. So I immediately thought, okay, the tomorrow, you know, I'll hear some best story or something, you know, in the local news, and it'll it'll tell what they were, and then I'll have the answer. I mean, because then I thought, well, I couldn't have been the only one to see these things. But this this was Yuma, and I do remember that that city went to sleep like eight, nine o'clock at night. I mean, if there was something happening, um, I didn't know about it, that's for sure. And this was like probably in the middle of the week. I was only out there during the weekdays, so especially, you know, during the week. This wasn't not a Friday or Saturday night. It was midnight in the middle of the week, you know, in a relatively small, small city out in the desert, you know. So there was nothing going on. But I still find it hard to believe that I might have been the you know the only person on the road, somewhere in that town or the city that that that would have seen these things. I had someone else had to have seen them. That's what I thought. So I was sure I'd probably hear something on the news. And I did not. I nothing. There was not a word about nobody mentioned anything. I heard nothing on the news, I saw nothing in the news, and I just it chalked up to a very crazy sighting, but I didn't talk to anybody about it, I didn't tell anybody about it for a long time because it was just so unbelievable. I I had a hard time believing it myself until some years later, and I was talking to someone, and they brought up uh a UFO sighting that they had they saw, and I said, let me tell you about something that I saw, and then I finally started talking about it, but I've told very few people about this over the years because it's just so it's just so unbelievable. It's it's ridiculous, actually, um on what what these things might have been, what they might have been, where they might have been from, what they might have been doing, why were they there? I have so many questions. Um But as far as I know, there's nothing on Earth, especially in that time, that there's no machine, there's no airplanes, no that could do what these things did, move at the speed that these things did at that angle, straight up into space, and no smoke trails, no sound, no nothing. It was fluid, just one after another, boom, boom, boom, all of them out from just above the ground to outer space in a second or two. And then when the internet did come around, I remember um you know, Googling it. Like I remember Googling, because I thought, well, maybe eventually someone's gonna write about it, you know, um, and I'll be able to find out. So I somewhere probably late 90s, maybe, um early 2000s, I remember Googling, you know, uh 1994 summer, um, strange lights over Yuma, um, you know, lights over Yuma shooting into outer space. Nothing. Um, I got nothing, nothing even close to what I saw. And I every few years I would Google it, look it up, hoping that maybe someday it'll be someone will talk about it, someone else who may have seen these, and I'll finally have an answer, whatever, whatever they were, whatever it was. And still all these years, all these decades later, nothing. Um, so it's it's crazy. And I I kind of at the point where I feel like I'll probably know if I if I don't know, you know, 30 over 30 years later now, um, I'm probably never gonna know. I'm never gonna have an answer. Um, and I've seen a lot of UFO testimonies. I've heard a lot of people talk about sightings they've had of crafts floating you know just above the ground, they're observing it, and then all of a sudden it shoots up into space at ridiculous speed. And I I've heard plenty of that of one object, but I've never heard multiple. Like I saw a six or seven at a standstill above the ground, and then one after another darting up into space in about a second or two. I've never heard anyone else talk about that or s or or or say that. So that makes it even more difficult like to understand. And um whatever these things were, it was it this was an airbase. It's just crazy. I don't even want to want to think about like it's hard to to think about uh the idea of that. Of could this be otherworldly beings that were there and communicating with the military? It's just it's so ridiculous, even to me. I I saw it and it's ridiculous. And when I think about it and try to put the story together, it's just like wow. But who knows, maybe some someday someone might hear this and say, Oh, I know I saw something similar, or I and I would love I'd love to hear that. Um it's not a question of, well, you know, did you did you see what you what you saw? Or oh, maybe it was the that's not even the question. I know what I saw. It's exactly as I just described. So the question is, what were they? What were they? What were they doing there? Where were they from? It's that that's the question. Because it absolutely happened. It was absolutely unreal. It was unbelievable. It was such a shock, it made it literally made my jaw drop open uncontrollably. I I was in that much shock at what I had witnessed. So it was real and it happened, and it was unbelievable. It's it was hard for me to even ab absorb that. But that's my sighting. That was the the what I call the lights over Yuma. And if anyone ever listens to this and uh has a similar sighting or that they witnessed or heard about, I would love for them to reach out and uh tell me about it. That would be really cool, really interesting to hear someone else uh describe something very similar. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you being here. You can catch this show wherever you listen to podcasts, as well as our website, accounts of the paranormal.com, where you can access full episodes, as well as links to all our socials and our YouTube channel, where you can listen and watch along with visual images. And if you're a fan of what you heard here, please like, share, follow, subscribe. I appreciate the support. And if you have an account to share and you'd like to be on the show, email me at show at accountswortheparanormal.com and tell me what you saw. I'll see you next time.