NUFORC Sighting 82124

Occurred: 2011-07-03 21:45 Local
Reported: 2011-07-04 01:35 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 5

Location: Kelso, WA, USA

Shape: Cylinder
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object

Bright lantern shaped object hovered for awhile then darted across the sky.

My wife and I had decided to take our two boys out bowling in Kelso, Wa. We bowled a few games and hung out for about an hour and a half. It was getting near closing time so we decided to head home. We live in Winlock, Wa so we had to get on I-5 South. Within a minute and a half of getting on the freeway, there were fireworks blowing off all along the highway and I was telling the kids to check it out.

As we were driving along, there were a ton of fireworks going off to our left. My wife and I were watching out the window when we saw it. I’m not sure which one of us noticed it first, but my wife and I, as well as the kids all became very aware of what we were seeing. There was an object, amber in color, almost red that was shaped similar to a lantern, hovering above where the fireworks were going off.

What caught my attention was the size of it. At first, I thought it was a firework about to go off and I thought in my head, this is going to be a really cool one. Suddenly my wife says, "Do you see that?" and pointed at the object. It was literally hovering in the sky, when all of the sudden it shoots over the trees in an extremely quick motion. It looked like a giant glowing lantern. We slowed down to almost 25 mph on the freeway and were watching this thing for a good minute. As soon as it got out of site, we sped to the nearest exit and turned around to go back and see it. My wife had our camera out at this point too.

When we got back on the freeway, we could see the object crossing the highway at what appeared to be no more than five hundred feet in the sky. It made it’s way to the opposite side of the freeway and then moved very fast toward the hills before it was out of site. We tried to follow it, but it was too fast and our kids were becoming very scared.

I’ve seen a lot of aircraft, but nothing like this before. It had no conventional shape. It hovered for at least fifteen seconds and the moved horizontally across the sky. When we regained view of it, it was much too fast to keep up with.

Posted 2011-07-04