Occurred: 2012-08-12 22:30 Local
Reported: 2012-08-14 10:29 Pacific
Duration: minute...minute and a hal
No of observers: 2

Location: Salem, OR, USA

Shape: Orb
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object

5 orange glowing objects cruise by swimming pool in densely populated neighborhood of NE Salem.

At 10:30 PM Sunday evening the 12th of August my wife ((name deleted)) (48 yrs old) and myself (49)were in the 16 foot illuminated (underwater light) pool surrounded by darkness and stars in the back yard for a half hour or so when I noticed a glowing round orange object flying north to south just west of our property, less than quarter mile away at about 500 feet up (fairly low altitude in the densely populated neighborhood we live in North East Salem). 5 minutes later, from the north, 5 orange balls of silent traveling light could be seen traversing over the neighborhood between my street (Siesta) and the street to the west of ours (Bonanza) at about 20 to 30 miles per hour, traveling against a 5 to 10 mile per hour wind and rapidly approaching the airspace directly across from our pool. During the approach my wife suddenly came to the realization this was not conventional aircraft, got spooked and insisted I get my glasses as she quickly got out of the pool. I d! ashed to the kitchen door and retrieved by glasses and ran back to the edge of the pool, propping my arms up on the wood pile that lined the property line. My wife was now standing behind me watching as the objects now slowly cruised by together, reminiscent Japanese lanterns but at a close enough vantage point to eliminate that possibility. They also were clearly traveling together and independent of the wind so I quickly dismissed the possibility of such a man-made object. The glowing balls of orange light, less than a quarter mile away and at about 500 feet briefly continued away from the pool to the left and each orange ball, one by one, imploded on itself disappearing one by one till all has disappeared from the sky.

A couple of observations.

I have been a student of the UFO phenomenon for over 25 years, spending the late 80’s and 90’s as a field investigator and assistant state director for MUFON and eventually helping establish Oregon UFO Research in 2000. At the time of this event, the wife and I HAD JUST been discussing the subject of unidentified flying objects, and in particular I was in the middle of telling her about an incident in 1988 when I saw a low flying orange ball of light in my back yard in West Salem. Almost immediately on the heels of telling her that story these balls of light appeared coming in over the homes along our street and heading our way and looking exactly like the object I had seen 23 years before. I caught myself saying, "You gotta be kidding me," to my wife in light of just recalling to her the incident 23 years before.

My gut feeling as I watched the orange glowing orbs or balls was that the flight was intentional, that they slowed as they passed us next to the pool and that we were being watched as we watched them, strong feeling.




NUFORC Note:

We extend our gratitude to Eric Byler, Co-Founder of Oregon UFO Research, for sharing this report with our Center. Eric is an exceptionally experienced and dedicated investigator of the UFO phenomenon, and we know him to be an unusually reliable source of information. PD


Posted 2012-08-19

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