NUFORC Sighting 35340

Occurred: 2004-02-29 23:20 Local
Reported: 2004-03-01 02:28 Pacific
Duration: 55Min+
No of observers: 2

Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Shape: Unknown
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Changed Colo

Three rapidly sparkling objects hovering over Seattle to the West, Southwest, two left after short time, one remained.

While taking a walk on Capitol Hill overlooking Downtown Seattle toward the waterfront on a cloudy night, we noticed a rapidly sparkling object in the sky about 23:20 hours. At first we thought it was a helicopter hovering but it was really high in the sky, too high for most helicopters and it had no FAA strobe pattern. It was sparkling at a rapid pace changing colors all the while and it would momentarily "dim out" during this sparkling action. It would change colors from a bright white to yellow, blue, bright red, and green could be seen just before it dimmed. The colors listed are not necessarily in order of display as it sparkled but all would be regularly present. We watched it for almost an hour hoping it would move or do something but all it did was hover in the same spot. No starfield was visible this night and it was too close and bright to be a star but higher than most helicopters would be seen at. No way to tell how close it was but used a streetlight pole to determine that it wasn't moving from the position it was in the sky. The moon would move position slightly in the sky during the hour that we watched the object but the object did not move. Finally, we were cold from standing still so long and since it was not moving or doing anything decided to go back in and stopped observing the object at aprox 00:10 hours.

I must say that we saw two other objects that matched description of the main object but the two other ones were further away and disappeared from view. Not sure if they flew away in the opposite direction to us or if they literally disappeared. The were in a row stretching out to the west. The one in the middle appeared to be more faint than the one on the far (west most) end. All sparkled the same so as to appear to be the same type. Could not tell precisely what the shape of the objects were but if we had to guess we would say it was disc shaped. As far as duration of sighting on these other two objects, the faint one in the middle was observed only briefly and we got the sense it was further away the west most was observed for at least ten minutes. The main one that remained was in the sky southwest toward West Seattle and more west than southwest. If straight up was 12 O'Clock in the sky and one assigned the value of 6 O'Clock to the horizon then the persistant object is estimated to have been at about the 4:45 level.

NUFORC Note:

We suspect a star may have been the cause of the sighting. PD

Posted 2004-03-02