NUFORC Sighting 82317

Occurred: 2011-07-04 22:00 Local
Reported: 2011-07-07 20:02 Pacific
Duration: 45 minutes
No of observers: 15

Location: Auburn/Federal Way, WA, USA

Shape: Sphere
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

15 witnesses saw red lights at night over Auburn, Washington on 7/4/2011 - Not fireworks or lanterns.

On the 4th of July, 2011, 15 people witnessed aprox. 12 different red/orange balls of light moving from east to west around 10:00 PM. The spheres continued to show up for about 45 minutes. Most of the witnesses are non-drinkers and were very alert, Thinking at first that they were 'Chinese lanterns', only a couple of pictures were attempted. While watching carefully, it was later decided that perhaps they were something unusual. A similar sighting was noted in 2009 of a single object on that Fourth of July, and it was also reported.

On the 4th this year, it was a warm night, little to no wind, fireworks going off everywhere. Some of us are familiar with various human made craft, and have seen 'chinese lanterns' in flight. This was purposeful and did not flicker or move in an erratic way. One group of five or six contained four spheres that were very close together in two sets of two. These broke apart and coninued to soar in a shape similar to the markings on dice - Like the '6' with one dot on the top missing. The sixth sphere winked out and lit up again as they traveled to the west. The shape became similar to the Big Dipper, but the movement was smooth and did not appear random.

The objects came from the east, but at different points along the horizon. Some were farther away, most were 'BB' sized or smaller.

One of the objects was observed for at least four minutes - It crossed under the flight path of a commercial airplane as the plane was starting to descend towards SeaTac Airport. The plane was aproximately twice as high as the object, and the object was aprox. 100 feet above the tops of mature alder and evergreen trees. The object did not flicker but seemed to pulse a beautiful orange color. It did not veer in any way but stayed in a straight path at the same altitude, speed was relatively slow. At the closest point, it was slightly smaller than a wooden pencil eraser and was coming from the east, and it continued to glow as it disappeared into the distance to the west.

Posted 2011-07-17

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