On the evening of December 25, 1978, while camping about six miles east of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, I experienced something that defies conventional explanation. At around 9:30 PM Pacific Standard Time, looking north towards the mountains less than two miles away, I noticed a brilliant glow hovering roughly 2,000 feet above the peaks. Instinctively, I thought a 747 had exploded, but I quickly realized this was something extraordinary.
The glow was enormous—perhaps 100 to 300 feet in length—and resembled a fireball with an elliptical shape. Within its glowing orange core were two smaller, intensely bright white ellipses, positioned symmetrically. Though some nearby observers speculated there were two separate objects, I was certain it was a single colossal structure. The two bright lights within the glow remained perfectly parallel as the entire formation slowly descended at about a 35-degree angle toward the ocean.
As I shouted to wake fellow campers to witness this surreal event, a friend’s mother and sister pushed their children back into their VW bus, startled. One woman dared to call it a “flying saucer,” a notion I hadn’t allowed myself to entertain until that moment.
I observed the object for nearly a minute to a minute and a half, watching it fade gradually as it descended behind a large rock formation known locally as Cabo Falso, roughly three-quarters of a mile away. Remarkably, as it neared the sea, the brightness diminished almost as if the glow was burning out, but without any sparks or fragments.
The following day, my curiosity led me to inquire with others around Cabo. To my surprise, several people at an outdoor beach bar confirmed seeing the same glowing light disappearing into the ocean. They, like I, were educators enjoying a Christmas vacation.
Years later, I spoke to a woman named Elsa, who recounted that her late husband Harvey had witnessed something similar: a large saucer hovering near brush close to the campsite, then ascending over the same mountains where I first saw it. This saucer apparently caused the brush underneath to turn brown and scorched—a tangible aftermath of the encounter.
Throughout the night, despite the eerie spectacle, the environment seemed natural. The only sounds audible were distant coyotes howling a mile or more away beneath the glow. There was no sense of fear or surrealism, just the undeniable experience of witnessing an inexplicable aerial phenomenon.
Looking back, I’ve often thought that such encounters might be more common than we realize, perhaps only needing the right conditions and the willingness to be outdoors under the night sky to witness them. Though I’ve seen other strange lights since, none have come as close or been as vivid.
This fireball over Cabo San Lucas remains the most memorable and haunting experience of my life—a testament to the mysteries still lurking in our skies.