NUFORC Sighting 38185

Occurred: 2004-07-06 03:30 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2004-07-18 00:24 Pacific
Duration: 4 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Kenmore, WA, USA

Shape: Triangle
Characteristics: Lights on object

Object was very large, very high, and very fast.

I believed, initially, that it was one craft but at the end it may have actually been 3. On that particular night I had stayed up to see the ISS passover, it was due at 4:30 AM, and when I went out at 3:29 AM to have a cigarette, I was looking in the sky in the direction the ISS would be coming from, SSW and almost immediately saw 3 white lights in a triangular shape moving from that direction towards me. I looked inside at the clock, because I thought maybe I was mistaken as to the time, and saw that it was 3:30 AM. I came back to the railing and watched the 3 lights. 2 of the lights were on what I presumed was the front with one light trailing behind but centered on the other 2. There appeared to be about a 1/2 degree separation between the 2 lead lights and the other trailed about 1 to 1 1/2 degrees behind. The object appeared to be moving across the sky at about the same rate that the ISS appears to be moving whenever I see it. As I continued to watch it, I realized that it would be passing directly over my head. I noticed that any stars which it seemed to pass in front of would disappear until after it had passed that position in the sky. After a couple of minutes I further realized that the object was not getting any larger, as a plane would if it were approaching, which meant that it had to be extremely high for that to happen. I watch planes on a regular basis and even when they are flying at 20,000 to 30,000 feet I can still notice a change in size as they come closer. Therefore, whatever this was it had to be very, very large. I never heard any sound or saw any other lights on or around it. Just before it got over my head, one of the lead lights suddenly started pulling away from the other 2 at a tremendous rate which made me think that maybe this was not one craft but three. However, I remembered from earlier when it had passed in front of the stars that it had seemed to be solid. Now, suddenly, one of the lights was pulling away very quickly. At this point I had to question w! hether it was 1, 2 or 3 objects I was actually seeing and, if it was more than one object, then why did the stars get blotted out "behind" it. As it disappeared, I live on the second floor of a 3 story condo building, pass the edge of the roof, the light which had begun pulling away from the other 2 now had about a full degree of seperation from the light which it had earlier had only about a 1/2 degree of seperation from earlier, and the other lead light and trailing light had not changed position relative to one another. Since then I have been puzzling out in my mind how it could have blotted out the stars if it were actually 3 objects instead of one. My conclusion is that it must have been one object, but somehow maybe launched something that was at that one point, that it was extremely high flying (possibly suborbital or even in orbit), was travelling extremely fast for the altitude and was very large because if it was at an altitude of 100 miles up in orbit, it would have had to be miles long. I can hear jets fly over at altitudes up to about 40,000 feet so since I could not hear it it had to be at least that high, and at even 50,000 feet, given it's apparent size, it would have been thousands of feet long to take up that big a slice of sky.

NUFORC Note:

Date is approximate. PD

Posted 2004-07-25