NUFORC Sighting 84275

Occurred: 2011-10-01 21:50 Local
Reported: 2011-10-01 22:23 Pacific
Duration: 2-3 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Tenino, WA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object

Orange ball of light hovers and then ascends and suddenly disappears

At approximately 9:50pm PST this evening (10-01-2011) my wife and I stepped out side our house. We looked to the north of us and there was a very bright orange flickering ball of light in the sky with a slight halo. It looked like it was burning and I first thought a plane was on fire and expected it to descend at any moment. I judge the height to be between 1000 to 2000 feet. There was a sound similar to a plane moving across the sky. But I saw no other planes while looking around.

We live in a flight path to Seatac international airport and a few miles south of a regional airport so we are use to seeing and hearing planes. This was very different. This light was too low for the jetliners that fly much higher and too large for the smaller cessnas that fly out of the regional airport nearby. This was not typical of the different planes and their normal lights It seemed to move a few degrees to the east but very slowly. The cloud cover was sparse and low but I thought perhaps the light of this was diffusing oddly through the thin patchy clouds. The stars were viewable throught the clouds and the light was shining down rather than horizontally. T he plane like sound diminished and the light seemed to hover in place for about 30 seconds. I kept watching to see if it was a plane flying. Then it just went straight up and suddenly disappeared.

The best description I can give is that it looked like the firey engines of a rocket as it is ascending.

Posted 2011-10-10