Is it a Bird or a Plane?

You’ve hiked, skied and rappelled Utah’s mountains; you’ve visited the museums, galleries and historic buildings; and you’ve dined in all the trendy and hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

But have you looked up?

You may or may not believe in flying saucers and little green men, but the possibility is worth exploring in a state that has been a hotbed of UFO activity in recent months.

Dave Rosenfeld, the founder and director of the Utah UFO Hunters Investigative Team, said he alone has seen two unidentified flying objects in just the last six months.

Last October, Rosenfeld stepped outside of work to have a cigarette.

“I looked out toward the east, toward the mountains, and I saw what looked like one of those kiddie swimming pools up in the sky, floating around and kind of wobbling,” he explained. “It was dark on the bottom and light on the top, and it was up in the clouds.”

He called out to one of his coworkers who saw it and asked, “What the hell is that?”

They watched it hover for about ten minutes above Sugar House until it disappeared into the clouds, Rosenfeld said. He attempted to capture a video recording with his phone but without a good zoom lens, it merely captured a tiny dot in the sky.

Just a couple weeks later, in early November, he was again in the Sugar House area to pay his phone bill.

When he looked up before entering the store, he saw what appeared to be two orbs circling each other.

“At first I thought it was balloons, but the wind was blowing pretty hard and the two objects were not moving at all with it,” Rosenfeld said. “I watched them for 15 minutes or so and took some video, then finally said, well they’re not going anywhere. I’ll just go in and pay my bill and come back out. And when I came back out they were gone.”

Over the years, Rosenfeld has seen dozens of unidentified objects in the sky, which he believes are piloted by aliens.

The tests performed at Dugway Proving Ground seem to attract UFOs, he said. “When they are doing tests out there, lights are glowing in the sky, or they’re having some kind of bombing runs, it seems to attract UFOs.” We wrote a story posing the question, “Is Dugway the new Area 51“. We thought we could debunk this myth but it turned out to be far more plausible the deeper we examined.

Rosenfeld reported that during 2002 tests at Dugway, five UFOs came down and watched then flew away.

“We have video and 35mm pictures of that and a lot of the pictures and video had green streaks in it,” he said. “We asked the developer what could cause those streaks in the photographs or video, and he said radiation or x-ray.”

Ufologists who looked at the event concluded that whatever was being fired there was going into space.

“And I think what attracted the UFOs was seeing something firing into space and they want to see what’s going on here, so they came down and watched,” he said. “I think we’re being babysat. I think the entire planet is being babysat by UFOs that have been here forever.

“These beings that visit us have their own agenda and I don’t think that right now they necessarily want to show or announce themselves. But they’ve been here for thousands of years and I think they’re keeping an eye on us.”

Interested in seeing if you can spot your own UFO? Grab a camera and something comfortable to sit on to pass the time.

“A whole lot of waiting is involved, and it’s kind of random; there’s been times we’ve gone out on sky watches and we didn’t see a dang thing. And there’s other times when we go out and ten minutes later, we see something.”

Rosenfeld recommends a good camera with an optical, rather than digital, zoom; a portable telescope with a camera adapter; and night vision equipment.

The best places in Utah to UFO watch is the Salt Lake Valley; Skinwalker Ranch, southeast of Ballard; and Dugway Proving Ground, aka “Area 52.”

“We try to limit our investigations to Utah, because we try to be on scene and visit the witnesses,” Rosenfeld said. “Salt Lake is pretty hot right at the moment.”

If you sight a UFO, Rosenfeld requests reporting it with any evidence you have, such as videos and pictures.

“That’s going to help us all in tracking this phenomena down and actually seeing if it’s the real phenomenon or if it’s some kind of military test. If you can include any evidence that you have, such as video or pictures, that’s going to help immensely as well,” he said.

For more information on Utah UFO watching, or to report a sighting, visit www.aliendave.com.