NewsNation presents ‘Hunting UFOs: The Desert Sky Mystery’

(NewsNation) — A Border Patrol whistleblower spoke out for the first time about strange sightings in the Arizona sky, raising the alarm about what the anomalies mean for national security and sharing a never-before-seen video of one such object.

Border Patrol agents and Air Force pilots, including Bob Thompson, have reported encounters they haven’t been able to explain. 

Thompson is an Army veteran who spent 14 years with the Border Patrol, where he helped coordinate airspace along the border.

That’s where he first encountered a video of a strange object with a shape similar to a rubber duck.

The ‘Rubber Duck’ UFO video

The video was taken in November 2019 on an infrared camera by an RC-26B aircraft in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Area. 

The surveillance aircraft was being used to track a group of people who had crossed the border illegally. The pilots were struck by the fact that the object’s shape and thermal signature didn’t match known planes or drones.

“They seemed to think it was searching for something,” Thompson said.

It’s not the only strange video Thompson has seen. Another, known as “La Bruja,” was shot in the Tohono O’odham Nation reservation in May of 2021, with a shape that almost appeared humanoid.

After Border Patrol higher-ups seemed uninterested in the rubber duck video, Thompson turned to UFO investigators in his search for answers. 

Strange encounters in the Arizona skies

UFO researchers point to anomalies in the videos that seem to defy conventional explanation. Neither the rubber duck nor La Bruja videos read as hot on thermal sensors the way a drone would.

Pilots also reported the rubber duck object was going against the wind, ruling out the common UAP explanation of balloons. 

But could those objects be connected to a famous sighting in Arizona, one with up to 20,000 witnesses? 

Portals in the sky

In 1997, the “Phoenix Lights” incident stunned thousands of witnesses who reported seeing hundreds of anomalous objects in the sky. The sightings ranged from moving lights to boomerang or triangular-shaped craft.

The official explanation for the lights was that they were flares set off during a military operation, and the government downplayed the sightings.

Dr. Lynne Kitei was a witness to the lights. She notes that Indigenous Americans in the area have a history of believing in vortexes of energy in the sky that act as interdimensional portals.

Those portals are part of a verbal history passed down from generation to generation, discussing what are called holy people or gods who came to impart knowledge. Paranormal investigator John Dover points to ancient petroglyphs as possible evidence of nonhuman intelligence.

According to Thompson, some border agents also report seeing portals, as do others across the state.

Cigar video taken by border agents

While the idea of interdimensional portals seems far-fetched, believers point to the history of sightings in Arizona along with stories of military activity occurring in proximity to UFOs.

Thompson shared a new video with NewsNation, taken by a Customs and Border Patrol reconnaissance plane in the same vicinity where the rubber duck video was taken.

It shows a short, cylindrical object moving quickly without any visible wings or propellers, nicknamed “The Cigar.”

Thompson and UFO investigators who have examined the video say that, for now, the object in the video remains a mystery.