Mystery Lights Captured on Camera over Mesa, Arizona

A still image showing the brightly lit objects falling from the glowing orb. (Doug Maier / Facebook) — A still image showing the brightly lit objects falling from the glowing orb. *(Doug Maier / Facebook)*

Warning: This article displays a video containing strong language which may not be suitable for all ages.

Mesa, Arizona couple Doug Maier and Kerri Burnett captured a strange glowing object on video over their home last Sunday, December 8th, at around 9 p.m.

Maier posted the video to his Facebook page the same evening.

“I was in shock,” he explained in the accompanying caption. “My iPhone camera does absolutely no justice…The video makes it look like it’s far away but it isn’t. I’ve never seen anything like this. This video is only 36 seconds long because I had to switch to livestream it.”

"It was pretty bright, it was about straight up over here, and it went straight that way, stopped, and it didn't seem like it was too far," Maier told ABC15.

The object seemed to come out of the southeast, said the couple.

"It started moving kind of diagonal across, I was trying to figure out which way it was heading, and that's when we noticed it started dropping things from it," said Burnett.

The object, which appeared to be a glowing orb dropping bright, orange orbs towards the ground, was also seen by their neighbors, according to Maier and Burnett.

"And it wasn't just us, our neighbors next door they were out, they weren't even filming. They were more in amazement, like statues, just watching it," said Maier.

Skeptical speculation regarding the nature of the object includes a Chinese lantern spilling flaming fuel—although historical weather data shows calm conditions with no wind at the time of the sighting—and military or other aircraft dropping parachute flares.

Many have been suspicious of military flares as an explanation for UFOs since the famous Phoenix Lights incident.

The Phoenix Lights were a mass UFO sighting that occurred on Thursday, March 13th, 1997, and stretched from Phoenix, Arizona to Sonora, Mexico. Witnesses reported a triangular formation of lights that passed over the state, and a series of stationary lights in the Phoenix area. The events were witnessed by thousands of people between 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. that evening.

The event was explained away as a military training exercise, but eyewitnesses argued that what they saw was inconsistent with the appearance and behavior of flares.

Maier doesn’t believe what he witnessed was any terrestrial aircraft.

"There were no navigation lights. Even the military has to have navigation lights on. That's an FAA rule," he said. "I know what I saw, and I don't think it was from here, and I think it was definitely something else.”

While the Outlaw Military Operations Area is near where the object was seen, neither the Federal Aviation Administration, Luke Air Force Base, nor the Army National Guard could explain what the objects were.

So far, they remain unexplained.

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