All cases / Rectangles / Clyde Tombaugh's lights

Clyde Tombaugh's lights

August 20, 1949, night
Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA

Explanation proposed
Representative drawing from the Rectangles page, not this specific sighting.
"rectangular lights"The witness's own shape words

What happened

Tombaugh reported a group of six to eight rectangles of light moving silently across the sky in a fixed arrangement. Some accounts say he took them for lit windows on a dark body he could not see. Tombaugh's standing as an astronomer made it one of the most quoted early sightings. Skeptics have proposed lights reflecting off a flock of birds or a thin haze layer.

Witnesses

Clyde Tombaugh, astronomer and discoverer of Pluto, with his wife and mother-in-law

Explanation

Explanation proposed

None accepted; reflected light (proposed by skeptics).

Sources

  1. stylist.co.ukstylist.co.uk
  2. Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org