NUFORC Sighting 64616

Occurred: 2008-07-16 23:00 Local
Reported: 2008-07-17 16:05 Pacific
Duration: at least 2 1/2 hours
No of observers: 2

Location: Clarkston, WA, USA

Shape: Changing
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Emitted beams, Changed Colo

A number of objects with flashing lights moving erratically.

My friend and I drove to a remote area last night called Granite Rock, which is a 30 minute drive from Clarkston, Washington. While star gazing we witnessed some unusual lights in the sky that were unlike any that we’d seen before. We felt that it was unusual enough to report, and we also hoped to learn of anyone else who may have seen this.

Granite Rock is a rock formation found on the shore of the Clearwater River. The moon was full and very bright, but many stars were very visible being so far from city lights. Hills surrounding the area created an echo effect. We heard the usual sounds like crickets, bats, and fish splashing in the water, but it was otherwise very quiet. We were leaning back in our chairs looking at the stars when we began to hear something that didn’t sound as if it belonged way out there. It was a low pitched mechanical humming or buzzing that emitted different tones. The sounds were faint but easily audible. We wondered about it, but didn’t think it strange enough to dwell on, because it stopped a few minutes after it began. Several minutes went by, when we were startled by what appeared to be stars in motion. We were looking in different parts of the sky. One of us saw two stars that aligned vertically and of similar brightness. The lower of the two stars slowly descended behind the horizon of the hills. Flashing lights were just visible beyond the hill the object went behind. They appeared to be distant, not just over the hill.

At the same time, the other of us saw what appeared at first to be a very twinkly bright star, but it began to move in erratic patterns. The twinkling seemed to be coming from a bar of alternately flashing red, green and white lights. We both alerted the other to what we were seeing. We resisted the impulse to cut and run, as our curiosity was stronger than our fear. We looked all around then and saw a lot of other activity.

There were several other “stars” that looked like and were behaving in the same way as the moving, flashing object. They seemed to be spinning and tilting as they would go slowly to one direction, maybe suddenly freefall then move quickly in another direction. They were moving in loops and straight lines, back and forth, hovering, moving up and down, but never straying outside of their immediate area. They appeared to be different distances away as some appeared fainter and smaller or larger and brighter, easier to see and more visibly detailed. One or two of the closer ones seemed to have moving shadows just behind the lights. The shadows changed shape, as if when it moved in different angles it would appear to have different shapes.

We kept an eye on the horizon over which the other “star” descended. The object dipped behind the hill and glowed blue and white and then reappeared without the flashing lights and left a dimmer silhouette which glowed green. It then glided very quickly away from us still glowing green. We looked away to watch some of the other flashing objects, and once when we looked back at it, it was flashing blue and white lights above the horizon, dipped behind again and reappeared in the distance with the green glow again. It remained there, dim but visible floating back and forth just over the horizon. It didn’t move like the other objects. It just floated slowly and steadily back and forth and up and down just above the horizon in the glow. We noticed at one point that it had risen back up almost to the level of the star that it was below initially.

It should be noted here that the moon and identifiable planets and constellations were also clearly visible. They were stationary in contrast to the moving objects. Over the 2 ½ hours that we watched, the moon and stars moved across the sky as they should, slowly and steadily, but the flashing objects never moved out of their initial territories and never stopped moving within them.

We tested each other to see if we were seeing the same things. One of us would describe the different movements of the objects (for example: “It’s moving left, left, up, left, real quick to the right….”), and we would find that we were indeed seeing the same movements. We also made it a point to stop often and rest our eyes and walk around to avoid eyestrain “hallucinations”.

Before all the action, we had opportunity to see an airplane fly over, so we had that image to compare to the flashing objects. They did not look like airplanes. They did not move like helicopters or like anything else we could know about. We observed them for quite a long time, but left while they were still there, and that was at 1:30 am.

Posted 2008-08-12

© 2023 National UFO Reporting Center. All rights reserved. Use or reproduction within any application without written consent is prohibited.