NUFORC Sighting 19707

Occurred: 2001-09-30 19:15 Local
Reported: 2001-10-01 16:46 Pacific
Duration: 4-5 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Portland, OR, USA

Shape: Formation
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Aircraft nearby

Wedge formation of 5 round (or disc) shaped objects glowing pale green flying north incredibly fast on 9/30/01 @ 7:15PM over Portland



Saturday, January 30th ((sic??)), 2001, approximate time - 7:15PM The sun had set with only the slightest pale blue afterglow in the West horizon. The sky was perfectly clear with many stars visible. I was out on my back deck with 2 friends having dinner.

I was leaning back in my chair admiring the clear night sky when I saw an extremely bright white falling star streak across the Eastern horizon moving incredibly fast toward the south. It was literally only visible for 1 second, but left a long streak across my retina. I remarked excitedly for my 2 friends to look, but it was already too late. It was only because of the falling star that we saw what happened next.

For the next minute we all stood there craning our necks staring at the sky. At this time, there appeared a passenger plane at cruising altitude over to the east, moving slowly towards the NW.

Literally less than a minute passed before the friend to my immediate left said "What's that?" and pointed straight up. I had been looking toward the East where I saw the shooting star, but I looked straight up and saw what she was talking about. The third person with us never saw anything, because the event was over in just a few seconds, and she never locked on.

Basically, this is what we saw: Directly overhead there was a formation of very pale greenish dots. They appeared to be very high, but immediately looked very strange and unlike anything I had seen before. The lights didn't appear to be navigation lights, as they weren't points of light, like on a plane, but actual round shapes. Also, the light itself was very strange, because unlike stars, especially falling stars, and/or lights from a plane, they were very pale against the black sky - almost stealthy. It was as if the objects themselves were glowing, and giving off an eerie glow or haze immediately around each shape, as opposed to having lights on the surface.

The shapes were arranged in a wedge formation, with a point craft, and 3 more falling back on the right side at a 45 degree angle, and 1 off the point on the left side at a matching opposed angle. 5 objects total. They were close together, and looked like a formation that fighter jets might have flown in, but nothing (in my opinion) man-made could possibly move that fast, and there was no sonic boom or any other noise from them.

They flew in a perfectly straight line heading north. They were moving so fast that they literally flew across the whole sky and out of our sight in less than 4 seconds! It was amazing! To give you a reference, the commercial aircraft literally had moved maybe 3 inches across the sky from our perspective in the time it took these objects to span the entire expanse of the open sky and disappear into the horizon, and it was visible to us for several minutes after the formation vanished.

Naturally, we started yelling "Oh my God - did you see that???" and the like, and found out that unfortunately only 2 of us had seen them. We compared what we saw, and every last detail, including the arrangement and color of the objects was identical. I racked my brain to try to figure out what it could have been, but couldn't think of anything that made sense. If a shooting star hit the atmosphere and broke apart, it is highly unlikely that the peices would have formed a perfectly spaced formation, and would have been bright white in color, like a magnesium fire, not pale green. If it was a missile, again, why the formation and the color? I am sure it wasn't a plane because of the impossible velocity.

I was very curious to see if anyone else saw these objects, as it was a warm night and I'm sure there were thousands of people like us out enjoying the weather. Also, the passenger plane was in the vicinity, and flying in a trajectory that would have eventually intersected with the path the formation had flown, so I wondered if they could have seen them too.

It was so strange and awesome that I literally was beside myself for a few minutes, but now I am stuck in a rut where I want to tell people that I am pretty sure I saw something unnatural, but am afraid of being ridiculed. I would love to find out what it was if there is an explanation! So there you have it.

NUFORC Note:

Witness states dates of January 30 and September 30. We presume he means September 30. PD


Posted 2001-11-20

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