Report: My wife, son and I were traveling home from Carlsbad Caverns on Friday, March 20, 2009 and around sunset my wife and son saw what appeared to be 4 lights hovering around 50 feet off of the ground, within a mile or so of the car (over some houses). My wife initially thought they were towers, but they all moved simultaneously vertically. These lights were pulsating (not at the same time). I immediately pulled to the shoulder of Hwy 285 and witnessed what was now 3 lights in a "V" formation (the 4th had disappeared). These lights rose vertically very slowly to a height of approximately 1000 feet in the air and after a brief pause began moving left (north) very slowly. It was getting close to sunset and as the lights got further away the 3rd light appeared to be going slighly slower than the other two. When the lights were in front of a lighted area, I could see what appeared to be physical form behind the lights (for the first time). Shortly thereafter a 4th light appeared in the middle of the other 3. The object(s) continued moving in the same direction then all 4 of them "flashed out" simultaneously. My wife, son and I tracked these object(s) from directly beside our vehicle to approximately 10 or so miles away (to the horizon) behind our vehicle. The flight pattern paralleled Hwy 285.

I grew up on various Air Force bases and can recognize any military or commercial aircraft by sight and what we witnessed is nothing I have ever seen before. This/these object(s) made no noise whatsoever at any point and were close enough at the point that the attached photo was taken that I would have been able to hear engine noise if there were any. Other than the point in which the 3rd (rearward) object appeard to slow somewhat, the 3 objects (and subsequently all 4) moved in total conjunction with each other.

We attempted to film this/these object(s) but the battery in our camera died in the middle of the filming, so the footage was unfortunately lost. The attached photo was taken with a 14 megapixel camera and has not been modified in any way other than being copied off of the camera and onto a pc. No editing software of any kind has been used. The lights in the picture are slightly brighter than they were in real-life, as the camera appears to have slightly overexposed the picture. The slight blurriness of the ground was due to holding focus on the objects while they were moving to the left (slowly). The lights below (at ground level) are houses approximately 1/2 mile from the road.