NUFORC Sighting 36521

Occurred: 1988-10-10 22:45 Local
Reported: 2004-04-25 12:20 Pacific
Duration: 2 sec.
No of observers: 2

Location: Seattle (Ballard area), WA, USA

Shape: Unknown

Two adult witnesses are stunned by the sound of an object that streaks above the home they are in.

I was hosting a friend from Alaska, who works there as a boat captain, and who had just arrived in Seattle on the bus earlier in the day. We were sitting in the living room of the home where I lived in Ballard, waiting for friends to come home. I seem to recall that they had gone to a movie.

Just minutes before they arrive back at the house, both I and my friend were shocked to hear some type of aerial object STREAK overhead, moving generally, we agreed, from southeast to northwest. It was the (angular) velocity of the object, and the THOROUGHLY BIZARRE nature of the sound, that captured our attention immediately, and left us both stunned, and staring at one another in disbelief. My friend, who admitted to me immediately after the incident that she had never believed in the possibility of UFO’s, turned to me and stated that THAT object was a UFO!! Her eyes were as big as tea cups as she said it, as she turned in my direction in a state of obvious shock and disbelief!

The sound that emanated from the object, in the opinion of both of us, consisted of two distinct, distinguishable sounds. One sound was a very high-pitched whining, buzzing, or perhaps even screeching tone, not too dissimilar from the sound of a high-speed hydraulic pump, running at very high speed. Another close equivalent to the high-pitched sound is the distinct "buzzing" sound that the human ear can detect from either a Boeing 747, or a DC-10, as it passes overhead at a high power setting. To my ear, the sound I am trying to describe here has a slightly "metallic" quality to it, combined with the peculiar "buzzing" sound one might expect to hear from a bee hive, or from a large swarm of bees in flight.

The other sound was a very low-pitched, "deep" rumbling sound. In mirth, I often equate it to the bubbling sound one would hear from a very large cauldron at a slow boil with four missionaries being boiled down into a thick gravy. Rather like a rapid "blub, blub, blub." I cannot emphasize enough with words how thoroughly bizarre, and unearthly, this sound was, and how it immediately commanded our attention. We heard it, I estimate, for not more than TWO SECONDS, as it streaked overhead at what seemed to me to be almost directly above us.

Now, the velocity of the source of the sound. The object was moving at a stunning angular velocity overhead. I estimate that the object making the sound passed through from 140 to 160 degrees of arc, again from southeast to northwest, in less than two seconds!! This object could not have been any kind of terrestrial aircraft that I am aware of! Given that there was absolutely no trace of the sound that would have been generated by a propeller, or from either the main- or tail-rotor of a helicopter, I conclude that the object could not have been either a fixed-wing or rotor-wing aircraft.

As to my credentials, I have held a commercial pilot rating for over a quarter century (Flight Instructor for 10 years), and I have been around aircraft all my life. My father worked in the airline industry for many decades, and I lived for a portion of my life with a family in the U. S. Air Force. I know what aircraft sound like, and I know what they are capable of doing. I cannot imagine that the object I heard on this particular Monday night could have been either built, or flown, by humans.

NUFORC Note:

Report submitted by Peter B. Davenport, Director, National UFO Reporting Center, Seattle, WA. This is one of several truly bizarre experiences, seemingly UFO-related, that I have had during my lifetime. PD

Posted 2004-04-27