A listener writes “I was in Pioneertown, California for a photography workshop in April 2024, and one night around 11pm, a close friend and I stepped outside for a smoke break about 50 yards from the main cabin. We were overlooking the valley, watching the canyons and stars, talking about the schedule for the next day.
It was incredibly dark out. Neither of us had a flashlight or even our phone lights on because we were enjoying the quiet and the atmosphere.
As my friend was talking, I noticed what I assumed was a plane moving across the sky. But then it veered strangely and suddenly stopped altogether. It just hovered there above a canyon ridge several miles away. I interrupted her and asked, “Do you see that?” She looked up and immediately said, “Yeah… that’s really weird.”
We tried to keep talking, but neither of us could stop watching it.
Then it started moving toward us.
We had to confirm with each other that yes, it really was coming our way. The light looked strange almost difficult to focus on visually. The closest thing I can compare it to is static electricity, like it was shimmering or vibrating somehow.
At first we honestly thought we might be imagining things. We’d look away, then look back, and it would still be steadily moving closer through the valley. But then neighborhood dogs started barking as it passed overhead, and that’s when things stopped feeling explainable and started feeling genuinely frightening.
Afterward, we both admitted we’d had this intense sensation of being observed. The closer the light got, the stronger that feeling became. Combined with all the dogs barking and howling, it honestly felt like the opening scene of our own personal alien abduction movie.
We kept asking each other what we should do. By that point we couldn’t really pretend it wasn’t happening anymore, porch lights were coming on around the valley while the dogs absolutely lost their minds beneath this thing. When I looked back at it, the light had stopped moving.
It was still doing that strange static-like pulsing thing, but it had completely paused in the air. Then, almost casually, it started behaving like a normal plane again. It moved steadily back toward the canyon ridge, and once it reached the horizon line, it suddenly zipped out of sight behind the canyons.
We sat there frozen for several seconds before deciding our smoke break was absolutely over. We tried very hard not to sprint back to the cabin.
And yes before anyone asks we were literally there for a photography workshop. I did have my phone on me. But somehow it never even occurred to me to take a picture. The entire encounter probably lasted less than two minutes, though it felt much longer in the moment.
After hearing your guest talk about the lights over Utah, I thought you might at least enjoy reading it.”