NUFORC Sighting 30551

Occurred: 1997-11-14 21:00 Local
Reported: 2003-08-06 13:48 Pacific
Duration: 30-90 seconds
No of observers: 3

Location: West Seattle, WA, USA

Shape: Formation
Characteristics: Lights on object

Full clear sighting and recall of November 14th, '97 event--Seattle, WA

It was on a Friday night in the late fall, a beautiful clear night with a bright moon. During intermission to a vaudeville show at Hokum Hall in West Seattle, the entire audience and some performers went outside onto the front patio and steps to enjoy the brisk still air. After some time, everyone--all the grandmas and grandkids and moms and supportive West Seattle locals--went back in for the second half of the show...that is, everyone except me and my two freaky friends (one of whom hadn't finished his cigarette), and my performer friend, who was headlining that night. After a few more words, my performer friend went inside and there were only the three of us remaining. We contined to stand on the stairs, staring out into the deep western sky. On one side of me, Mr. ((name deleted dreadlocked-to his-waist I-Do-Magic-with-a-K was still smoking his cigarette while people-cough-when-I-walk-in-the-room Mr. D stood on my other side. Both D and I shaved our heads then and if you didn't know us as some of the most gentle folks around you might have been intimidated by our sense of style then, very minimalist, tough guy black leather jackets and boots. Experienced trippers we, we were all on about 1/4 hit of acid (25mcg) each that night, not enough to hallucinate, just enough to encourage a little synchronicity...

Not even a minute had passed after my performer friend had returned to the fold, Mr. ((name deleted was speaking as I stared into the night sky, listening intently, while slowly, a pattern of lights in the distant west-northwestern sky 'dawned into my awareness'[ital.] exactly in the place I had been staring. I'm sure we must have all noticed it at pretty much the same time, but I was the first one to interrupt Mikey..."wait, that's 'not normal'[ital.]." All three of us stood there silent, mesmerized, as the lights moved in formation due eastward in the sky. They appeared to by flying a little north of us over maybe Everett (about 30 mi. to the north), at the speed and elevation of low-flying aircraft. What was strange was that each entity was only represented by one light, of the brightness and pale color of a star. They varied from white into reds and oranges and blues and greens but only as much as a star would. There were about 13-15 lights all moving precisely parallel to the ground plane in fixed formation. There seemed to be two lights ahead of the denser cluster. The quality of the lights themselves did not flicker or vary in constance. I could tell that the lights did not form the edges of a single entity because you could see the stars behind and between them as they passed.

Due to the local topography of tall trees and two story houses, we had to hop down the stairs and run north to the intersection and turn right heading east to keep them in sight. Acid is known for its ability to inspire hallucinations, but I hadn't been hallucinating at all that night, and was on such a low dose as to not expect it. Still, I couldn't believe it and I checked in with my friends as we ran. "Are we hallucinating? Is this a collective hallucination between the three of us?" They both had similar thoughts about low doses and hallucinations and it is also extremely rare to hallucinate the SAME THING as two other people simultaneously. Still, we wanted to double check and so when we saw this black gentleman, apparently a local, on the street, we stopped and asked him, "Do you see THAT?!" He was staring at the lights but he said nothing, he only looked down for a moment and shook his head. We took that as a "yes" and kept on running, keeping the moving light formation in sight. Finally, as the light formation glided eastward, approaching a position northnortheast of us, it moved behind an extra tall tree on our block and we lost sight of it for a moment. As the two leading lights emerged the trailing light formation no longer followed. In the same way that the lights had dawned into my awareness, I watched the remaining two 'dawn out of my awareness'[ital], right before my eyes.

Wow. We were silent. We walked about two blocks or so back to Hokum Hall. I always remembered the entire event taking about 30 really long seconds but there's a probability of it having been more like a minute and a half.

As we walked back up the stairs, an eerie airy haunting tonal music wafted out of Hokum Hall.

We stepped into the midst of the second half of the vaudville show and sat down as unobtrusively as possible. Mr. ((name deleted--2nd musician was playing his glass armonica, one of only six in current existence in the entire United States, an invention of Benjamin Franklin banned in the early 1900s on the belief that it awakened the spirits of the dead. Crystal bowls of increasing diameter turned together on an axis as Mr. ((2nd witness touched his moistened fingers to the rims, playing it like a piano. The sound was hardly like that of a piano however. Sonorous sirens, otherworldly, perfect music to commemorate my first UFO sighting. I felt strangely honored to have witnessed the event, one of three in a crowd of 60 who narrowly missed an opportunity to see what we had seen.

I shared this experience with a lot of people in Seattle in the days that followed; with my friends, with people in my local coffee shop, with my fellow bus riders. Folks told me that it was on the TV and on the radio the night of the occurance. I found the event reported on the front page of the Seattle Times and PI the following day, but after that, there was no mention of it to be found anywhere. I was surprised by how many people, once I shared my UFO experience, in exchange told me stories of UFO sightings and alien encounters they had had at some point in their life. Surprised especially by the ones I had known for years who had never mentioned it. "Some people think you're crazy," they'd reply, " so I don't talk about it much." When I told my friend who shares my sun and moon sign (Aquarius and Virgo respectively), she said that she witnessed it also, only from a downtown location. From her more northerly location, (for you out-of-towners reading this report, West Seattle is actually SW of downtown by about 5-8 mi.), she was able to she the shape of the formation--two "V"s. "Like geese," she said. This correlated precisely with what I had seen, with the two lights out ahead and a greater cluster following behind. Just like the lights had disappeared behind a tree for me, for her they disappeared behind a skyscraper. In the same way--two lights remaining, then winking out.

I have a B.A. in English/Professional Writing from the University of Puget Sound. I was an honors kid growing up who won spelling bees and competed in math olympiads and writer's conferences. I was a varsity athlete and leader of organizations both in high school and college. I'm not trying to boast. I'm just saying that I'm no dumb broad. I know what aircraft, meteors, and "Russian space debris" all look like. This was 'none of the above'[ital] and definitely nothing that fits within the realm of ordinary human experience or logic. Go figure. ;)

((

NUFORC Note:

This event was widely reported on the night it occurred, and the U. S. Space Command Headquarters, based at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, CO, reported that it was "space debris" that flew to the west (sic) and landed in the Pacific Ocean.

What the formation of lights must have looked like to a witness experiencing the effects of 1/4 "hit" of LSD is beyond our ability to comprehend.

We are familiar with the witness, and she seems credible and sincere to us.

Time of incident was approximately 21:09 hrs. (Pacific). PD))

Posted 2003-08-28