NUFORC Sighting 16454

Occurred: 2000-07-04 23:30 Local
Reported: 2001-02-13 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 1 1/2 to 2 hrs
No of observers: 3

Location: Roslyn, WA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Changed Color, Aircraft nearby

Bright light sighted for 1 1/2 to 2 hours bouncing eratically in a specific area of the sky.

The object was sighted while camping with 2 friends. It was quite high up, and appeared to be a bright star. But, the object darted back and forth, keeping in the same general area of the sky. It being July 4th, we initially dismissed it as some sort of fireworks, but the object remained, nearly straight above us for at least an hour and a half. It continued it's behavior of darting back and forth for the duration of the sighting. It appeared to make some subtle color changes (orangish to reddish to purplish) but we can't be sure. We could have been staring at it for a long time causing our eyes to play tricks on us (I'm a natural skeptic) but if I was forced to answer; I say it did. The sky was cloudless and there was no wind, and no sound emitted. I recorded it on my video camera but with the absence of background stars it gives almost no evidence of it's behavior. It only shows a light in the sky. Also, after an hour of observing, we heard the sound of jet aircraft but none were sighted. They (or it)were probably under the treeline (we were in a heavily wooded campground) out of our line of sight. My campmate claims he saw something eject from the object, but I did not witness that.

NUFORC Note:

The report is reminiscent of the sighting of a celestial body, but that is only a guess. NUFORC received multiple reports of a peculiar red light, sighted from Tacoma, WA, which is reported to have hovered over Puget Sound for an estimated 7 minutes, and which then was seen to suddenly accelerate and disappear over the mountains to the east in a matter of a few seconds. PD

Posted 2001-02-18