(Original headline: UFO 'expert' speculates about strange lights )
GALLUP — Local UFO "expert" Robert Allen got noticeably excited when he got his first look at photos of the unexplained phenomenon that appeared over these skies last week.
"I'm getting goosebumps," he said, adding that these may be the clearest photos taken of a UFO in decades.
The photos were taken by Lyle Jeff, a 17-year-old student who lives in Standing Rock, a small Navajo community about 35 miles north of Gallup.
The photos show something but just what that something is will probably be talked about in UFO circles for years if not decades.
To Allen, they appear to be positive proof that a UFO wandered through these skies last week and may have crashed into a field near Standing Rock.
The photos show colors outlined in the night sky, bright yellows, and oranges and reds. They don't show a spaceship but according to Allen, they show the ship's erratic pattern through the skies and one, which looks like a giant V in glowing colors, shows the underside of the ship as it went overhead.
Allen said he observed the strange sight himself one night last week, seeing it from his home in Williams Acres.
The object appeared in the night sky going across his line of vision for more than 90 seconds.
"That's extremely rare for something to be on view that long," he said. Most sightings are for only a few seconds.
In this case, he watched as the object went west to east, disappearing at times and blinking its lights at other times.
Could it possibly be a helicopter?
"No," said Allen, pointing out that the object didn't make any noise when it went overhead. Also the light patterns were nothing like a helicopter.
Could it possibly be a weather balloon?
"No," said Allen. What kind of weather balloon, he said, goes in erratic patterns like the object he and apparently dozens of other people in this area saw last week.
That's another sign that this sighting may go down as one of the most significant sightings in recent UFO history the number of people who sighted it and were amazed by what they saw.
Jeff said he and others in his community had observed the object in the sky for five straight nights.
On Friday, he got a camera and took several shots of what he saw.
His mother, Stephanie, called The Independent on Monday, and said that other families were saying that the object appeared to have gone beyond a hill north of Standing Rock and landed.
To Allen, however, the only explanation of what he saw in the photos was a spaceship that was having some problems and had to make a forced landing.
On Monday, he called Lyle Jeff and quizzed him on what he saw and went and got directions to his house so he could make a detailed investigation of the area to see if something did in fact land in the fields near the Navajo community.
There have been other landings of alien spacecraft reported in UFO circles over the year and he said he knew what to look for scorched earth in the form of a circle, showing where the spacecraft landed and then took off. And signs of radiation that had been emitted from the spacecraft as it landed.
"Maybe it never did take off," he said. "Maybe it's possible that the craft is still there on the ground."
No matter what people saw and think they saw, Allen said the sightings deserved to be thoroughly investigated to try to determine its origins, not only for the sake of the people who looked up into the night sky last week and saw something strange, but because of the millions of people who will be hearing of this over the next week.
A Los Angeles radio station has already talked to Allen after hearing of these reports, and he said he will be interviewed on the station for an hour today on what was seen and how it may be greeted by UFO experts and fans in coming weeks, months and years.
But Allen said that if it was observed over several nights last week, it still may be around or others like it.
And to see them, all one has to do is something that Allen has been doing for years watch the night skies.
