NUFORC Sighting 24303

Occurred: 2002-08-09 02:22 Local
Reported: 2002-08-09 02:59 Pacific
Duration: 90 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Shape: Diamond

Large diamond-shaped UFO with four round projections silently glides over downtown Seattle.

At 2:20am, still not able to fall asleep after a night of shooting a documentary about my ((personal URL)) website, I decided to poke my head out the window to look for stray Persieds. After just two minutes of looking out into space (facing generally up and to the north), a large, very slow moving object caught my eye, emerging from the limb of a building rooftop to the NNE. It was a dark grey in color, appeared to be more or less diamond-shaped, and it had four lighter colored spheres or disks on its underside. The object was approximately the size of my thumbnail held at arm's length, so it was quite large and easily seen & tracked even though it did not have any lights on it. It was moving very slowly from roughly NNE to SSW, curving slowly to the W as it passed nearly overhead and then headed out away from the city.

It displayed a slow oscillating motion; appearing to twist back and forth but with its movements limited to perhaps 10°, so the leading edge never became the trailing edge or vice versa. The movements were very regular, like a cam on a slow-turning gearhead motor. It did not appear to emit any light of its own, nor did it emit any sounds that I could hear. At first I thought I might have been witnessing a stealth aircraft of some type, but the very slow forward travel and the slight but noticeable oscillating motion ruled that out pretty quickly. Birds in flight were also ruled out due to the very slow forward speed and the lack of flapping wings, which would have been visible on something of the same apparent size as what I saw.

After viewing the object for perhaps 20 seconds, I stumbled into the next room and grabbed a pair of 10X50 binoculars, then went back to the window and tried to zoom in on it. I lost 15-20 seconds of possible viewing time in getting the binoculars. By the time I had finally got myself up to the window and located the object again, it had dimmed substantially and moved out over Elliot Bay; and I didn't see any more detail on it than I originally did with the naked eye. After viewing the object in and out of binoculars for an addition 50-60 seconds, it faded from view; though only due to lack of illumination as it flew away from the downtown Seattle core and out over water. It was still plenty large enough in the sky to see with the naked eye had there been more light.

The color of the object body appeared to be a dark grey; and the color of the four circular devices or projections on its underside appeared white or light grey; the only source of light striking it was the sodium vapor lights reflected off the streets of Seattle. Shape was that of a slightly elongated diamond with significantly rounded edges; and the round or spherical projections were positioned just inside each apex of the diamond. Of several unidentifieds I have witnessed in Seattle, this one had, by far, the largest apparent size of them all. Its longer axis was more or less aligned with its plane of travel at all times.

Actual size and altitude are difficult to determine as there are no clouds or other objects to use as a reference. I would have to estimate the altitude to be 1,000 to 2,000 feet, and the object's size to be approximately 20' long by 15' wide.

I'll try to depict what I saw in Photoshop and then email it to you.

NUFORC Note:

Simulation provided. PD

Posted 2002-08-16