NUFORC Sighting 57514

Occurred: 2003-08-01 22:00 Local
Reported: 2007-07-07 20:39 Pacific
Duration: 90 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Granite Falls, WA, USA

Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Lights on object, Emitted other objects, Changed Colo

Strange lights near Mt. Pugh.

I was hiking alone in the Cascade Mountains of Western Washington. After hiking a good part of the day I reached the summit of Mount Pugh where I set up camp for the night.

Later in the evening I took advantage of the opportunity to observe the stars since I was away from the city lights. It was about 22:00 I saw three points of light. They were mostly red but also had some white in them. They were below the horizon. I was looking down on them from a point several thousand feet above them while they were only 50 or 100 feet above the foothills below me. I could see a faint illumination that they cast on the trees below them. They were bobbing and weaving in a strange kind of dance and they were all doing it in perfect synchronization with each other, almost as if they were physically linked.

It didn't take me long to realize I was seeing something very strange and at that instant I had one of those "Oh Sh%*&" moments. I felt very uneasy as I was completely alone, at night, in the middle of nowhere.

Two of them dropped below a ridge and were out of sight. They reappeared occasionally, sometimes from a completely different direction. This was mountainous terrain and there were literally scores of ridges and peaks surrounding me in all directions. I was looking southwest initially. Sometimes I saw them to the North or East and they would drop back down below a ridge in that direction. The other remained in sight continuously. They seemed to be playing hide and seek with me and I was constantly scanning in all directions, looking for them.

After a few minutes I saw a fourth UFO. It was just slightly below the horizon to the Northwest and was more distant, maybe several miles. It's apparent size was about that of a pea held at arms length. It was more or less round. It was usually red, sometimes green or white. It's color and luminosity reminded me of a neon light. It would suddenly appear then the light would rapidly fade out in about 2 seconds. Then a little later it would reappear and fade out again the same way. It was always at the same location in the sky. What was really strange was that after I watched it fade I would keep my eyes fixed at that spot waiting for it to reappear but it never did while I was looking there. After maybe 30 seconds I would look away to locate the other 3 UFOs, then just at the exact moment when I looked back at that spot again it reappeared and faded. It was as if it knew the exact moment when I returned my gaze to that spot. This happened several times and it was creeping me out. A few times gold or yellow sparkling lights sprayed out of it. It looked exactly like a fireworks display.

I know this sounds like too much but there was a fourth UFO that appeared briefly. It was a white point of light in the valley immediately below the peak I was on. It appeared to be no more than 100 feet off the ground. It slowly meandered northward up the heavily wooded valley. I could see a few points of light among the trees below that were the lanterns at some drive in camp sites. The UFO came pretty close to some of those. I estimate it was traveling about 30 mph. I'm certain it wasn't a helicopter either. There was no sound and it traveled in a kind of tight weaving pattern similar to what the red lights were doing.

With so much going on I felt like I was watching a circus. It was really too much and I just wanted them to go away. After watching for about an hour and a half the 3 red lights were much further away and the fourth one was appearing infrequently. I was tired and it gets cold at night at 7200 feet, even in August. So I climbed into my tent and eventually went to sleep hoping I wasn't going to be a guest on an alien mother ship during the night.

I always felt comfortable camping alone in the wilderness but now I will have a nagging fear in the back of my mind that I will have another experience like that. If some other people had been with me it would have been an exciting and interesting experience. As I was alone it was just plain scary.

Two weeks later I went back to the same peak with a buddy (no way was I going back alone!). One or two of the red lights described above appeared again but they were more distant and they didn't dance around like the last time. They just slowly meandered around in the distance. I pointed them out to my friend but he dismissed them at first. After they continued to hang around I pressed the point with him and got him to admitt they weren't airplanes. I could see it made him uneasy. He went inside his tent and went to bed. End of story.

Posted 2007-08-07