NUFORC Sighting 20455

Occurred: 2001-11-18 02:30 Local
Reported: 2001-11-18 05:15 Pacific
Duration: 90 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Shape: Circle

Two yellow-amber spheres; one disappeared slowly, the other changed direction, stopped, & vanished.

While observing the meteor storm, and about ten minutes after sighting a large, crescent shaped object (see previous report), I spotted a yellow-amber colored sphere or circular oject flying slowly from east to west. There were no apparent lights on it, so at first I figured it must have been a balloon or a plastic bag caught up in a breeze. It flew slowly in a straight line, and slowly disappeared as it flew out over the water. Plastic bags usually don't do this and aircraft normally have lights on them (this did not), so I shot at it with a 11.6 milliwatt 632nm (green) DPSS laser while it was moving away from my position, but did not see any light reflected back.

Since I can see the beam from this laser slicing through the sky at night, targeting was not an issue; it simply didn't reflect any of my green light back to me.

About a minute later, I saw another, smaller one; going in approximately the same direction at approximately the same speed and in approximately the same flight path as the first.

I shot this one with the laser as it was moving off as well, and *did* manage to hit it several times as I saw the green dot light up on what I believe to be its underside. After I'd hit it four or five times, it slowed down to almost a stop, abruptly turned to the north, and started moving again; only more slowly. I half expected the thing to start shooting back at me; but instead, it slowed down again and came to a complete stop. By this time I'd thrown the laser to the floor and kicked it under the bed. Then the UFO just hung there stationary like a one of several of the other stars visible near its position.

After observing it stationary in the sky for 25-30 seconds, it simply winked out as if somebody kicked the plug out of the wall.

There were no visible light sources on them (they appear to have been illuminated solely by reflected light from below), no sound was detectable, and no moving parts were visible. Their color was sodium yellow; so they may have actually been white or light grey in color; and reflecting light from the sodium vapor lamps illuminating the streets in this area. And both objects had a slow and rock steady flight; not fluttering, rocking, wavering, rotating, or changing speed/direction except as noted earlier.

The size of the first one was approximately that of a small dress shirt button held at arm's length; the second one appeared to be about half that size.

The laser I used has an effective range of only a few thousand feet with this amount of light pollution in the area, so the altitude of the object I actually hit had to be ~3,000 feet or below for me to be able to easily see the spot on it.

Both objects traversed about 50° worth of sky (a mile or two if they were at this low an altitude) before disappearing.

I attempted to take pictures, but neither object was large or bright enough to show up on my cheap digital camera. The pictures came out as just digital noise.

I watched the meteor storm & the sky intently for approximately another 90 minutes after this sighting, and did not see anything else out of the ordinary.

I am a full-time museum curator & product evaluator, I do not use drugs, and I haven't consumed any alcoholic beverages since mid-September. And I know I wasn't just seeing things.

Posted 2001-11-20