Occurred: 2002-06-21 16:30 Local
Reported: 2002-07-22 01:47 Pacific
Duration: 2 hours
No of observers: 28

Location: Portland (Lake Oswego and Gresham), OR, USA

Shape: Orb
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Emitted other objects

The following 4 reports from Portland, Lake Oswego and Gresham appear to be the same object.

6/21/2002 5:45 p.m. Portland, OR. Sphere.

This witness reports seeing a chrome sphere.

Witness reports..."I had just stopped in a local tavern after work. Several individuals were going out and coming back looking at something in the sky they couldn't identify. I went out to take a look, and noticed a chrome sphere hanging in the SE sky at about 40 degrees from the SE horizon. It looked very high in the sky (jet level), but definitely in our atmosphere. The moon was clearly visible off the southern horizon, and the sky was absolutely clear. After watching the object for several minutes a small, brightly lit (glowing) red sphere appeared to the left of the chrome sphere. It flew to the right of the chrome sphere, then disappeared while moving quickly in a southern direction. The chrome sphere stayed visible for about 45 minutes, as other onlookers came and went. The object disappeared momentarily, and reappeared at about 30 degrees to the horizon, in a northeast direction. Holding my fist to the sky, it had traveled about four fist-lenghts. After that movement, the object appeared to be fading very slowly towards the SE horizon line. At approximately 18:45, a rice shaped object passed slowly across the sky directly in front of the chrome sphere. The oblong object left no contrail and had no warning lights. Shortly after this object (traveling from south to north) went out of sight, an airliner was visible traveling in the same approximate direction, but lower in altitude, leaving a contrail.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6/21/2002 5:15 p.m. Gresham, OR. Sphere...drawing submitted by mail.

This is the forth report of the June 21st sphere from Portland/Lake Oswego.

Two more reports to follow.

The OUFOR hotline received another call regarding this particular sighting and a formal report and drawing was submitted through the mail. This witness appeared to be at a vantage point using a telescope so as to better identify the object. This is the drawing that was submitted based on that observation.

The witness in this report writes..."It was slightly bulbous (i.e., not round, slightly bottom heavy) and did not seem to rotate because the positions of the dark lines which run from the top of the sphere to the middle of the sphere never changed. The projection at the top was actually at about the one o'clock position in the telescope. This round projection at the top would "light up", i.e., increase in brightness every few minutes to about ten times it's normal brightness." While there was no mention in this report about the dark orbs that were seen from other parts of Portland and Lake Oswego, this could have been due to when and where the object was viewed. It also could be attributed to the long duration time in all of these reports as witnesses were watching the object at different times.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6/21/2002 4:50 p.m. Lake Oswego, OR. (Not far from Portland) Circle.

This sighting appears to be the same object seen in Portland at 4:42, 5:15 and 5:45 p.m. The object is described as being a white sphere at around 6000 to 7000 feet. In this short sighting period it was described as being fixed, nailed in place and was the size of a BB held at arms length. The witness looked at the object with binoculars but were unable to determine any surface texture or tether should it be a wheather balloon. The witness called this sighting into the local radio show GroundZero that evening and two other sightings were soon called in to confirm, one with 5 witnesses.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6/21/2002 4:42 p.m. Portland OR. Object releases dark orbs...photographed.

Friday afternoon this witness reports getting out of his truck after getting home from work and seeing an object in the sky.

Witness writes..."I stood at the end of the drive and watched as it held it's position for 20 minutes. At that point I ran into the house and grabbed my digital camera. I ran back out to the end of the drive and it was still there in the same position. My neighbor across the street was out in her front yard and I called to her to come look at the object. I asked her if she saw something above the tree line. She replied "Yes!" and asked "What is that?" I replied "I have no idea but I am not going to miss an opportunity to photograph it!" I then proceeded to take the pictures I am sending you. My neighbor noticed that it was not round and that it looked like it had a wobble in it's movement or rotation. I started to take more pictures when my wife pulled in to the drive. I asked her if see saw the object and she said "Yes." She also asked what it was. At this time I looked back up at the object and it was starting to move, very slowly, to the East." The object moved to the east against the wind. There was no noise and as he was looking through the lens of his camera, he noticed the object was ejecting small black objects to the north west...seven total...and then it began to move again.

The couple went in the house and returned 45 minutes later to leave for dinner and watched the object from the car.

"As we drove across the hill towards Lake Oswego I noticed that I could still see the object and it still looked to be the same size. After dinner I made a quick scan of the sky and could not find the object" the witness wrote. It was estimated that the object was at around 10,000 feet because of scale to passing aircraft in the PDX pattern and angle to horizon.

Update: June 26, 2002...

OUFOR team member and investigator Cameron Johnson followed up this sighting with some phone calls to the NOAA in Portland regarding weather balloons as well as a local police department for other sighting reports. He found that standard weather balloons used in Oregon are 3 to 4 feet in diameter and are taupe (tan) or red in color. The only place that the balloons are released in Oregon is in Salem and, during daylight savings time are released between 4 and 5 p.m. The balloon telemetry recorded the drift being to the South East from Salem. When asked about the possibility of a balloon hanging at a fixed position for a long period of time, he said that it was not possible because the balloons are in a constant state of ascent and the telemetry corroborated his statement. He gave an official statement that it could not have been a NOAA balloon.

The attempt at finding other sighting reports from the police department yielded no results. Special thanks to OUFOR investigator Cameron Johnson for his follow up work on this sighting. To view the photographs and drawings, go to ... http://www.oregonuforeview.com/recent.html ... and go down to 6-21-02.

Note to Peter...you have permission to use any photos or drawings at the recent sightings page as you wish at NUFORC.




NUFORC Note:

We express our gratitude to Eric Byler and Skip Schultz, of Oregon UFO Research, for following up on the case, and sharing the information with NUFORC. PD


Posted 2002-07-26

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