Don’t despair if your town put the kibosh on Fourth of July fireworks to discourage large gatherings. Colorado’s 142 UFO sightings in 2019 alone prove that mesmerizing entertainment fills our skies. But are the pretty lights just drones run amok? And, if they’re genuine extraterrestrial air shows, are they dangerous? We strapped on our tinfoil hats to investigate the veracity and terror level of some of the state’s most out-there alien sightings.

Political Intrigue

Fear factor: Low
Believability: Low
From the declassified documents of Project Blue Book, a federal investigation of UFOs from 1947 to 1969, emerged a 1955 report of a green-blue object shaped like a barrel in La Veta. The man blessed with the sighting? Former state Senator Sam T. Taylor, who said the ship looked “jellylike” and flew silently. We don’t want to call Taylor a crackpot—then again, he did lobby the state to build a hydrogen bomb factory.

5280 July 2020
More From The Issue

Holy Smokes

Fear factor: Low
Believability: High
“Ain’t no kind of aircraft, I’ll tell you that,” Tim Edwards says in the 1995 video he captured of a cigarlike object above his home in Salida. It darted around the sky quicker than any human plane, and a speck of light bounced off its surface like a ball ricocheting off an Atari Pong paddle. Sure, the video could have been doctored, but the gasps of Edwards’ daughter sound entirely unrehearsed.

Eyes on the Sky

Fear factor: Low
Believability: High
Multiple people saw three glowing orbs hovering over Breckenridge on October 3, 2014. The National UFO Reporting Center, a private organization that investigates UFO sightings and alien encounters, suggested the discs might have been high-altitude balloons—though it admitted that it had never seen ones so close together. A Denverite in the area told Richard Estep, writer of Colorado UFOs, that the crafts did not appear to be of this Earth.

We Cannot Stan

Fear factor: Medium
Believability: Low
Since 2000, Loveland resident Stan Romanek has spun stories of encounters and abductions, even starring in a documentary. But when ABC News requested an independent medical assessment of an implant he claimed aliens put in his leg (terrifying), Romanek said it suddenly disappeared (convenient). He also was found guilty in 2017 of possessing child pornography, which he insists detractors planted to ruin him.

Eerie Experiment

Fear factor: High
Believability: Medium
When a rancher discovered Lady (renamed “Snippy” by a reporter) on his San Luis Valley farm in 1967, the skin on the horse’s neck had been sliced away and, despite an intact skeleton, many organs were gone. Vets blamed wild animals or local kids. But eyewitnesses reported that the scene was bloodless and the flesh hot to the touch—obviously implicating aliens who, based on other livestock mutilations like this one, did not come in peace.

This article was originally published in 5280 July 2020.
Angela Ufheil
Angela Ufheil
Angela Ufheil is a Denver-based journalist and 5280's former digital senior associate editor.