NUFORC Sighting 111101

Occurred: 2014-07-04 23:05 Local
Reported: 2014-07-05 16:40 Pacific
Duration: 4 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Ferndale, WA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Changed Colo

Slow-moving orangish-red lights over Whatcom County, Washington

Independence Day 2014 about 12 miles north of Bellingham, Washington. Around 10:00 p.m. my sister and I watched an orangish-red light in the SW sky move slowly away from us in an upward trajectory. It had no blinking strobes that would have identified it as an aircraft. We forgot about it and around 11:00 p.m.

I went outside to watch and listen to fireworks, and a live rock concert taking place across a neighboring field when I noticed a semi-bright white light low in the southern sky over the Bellingham Bay - Lummi Island area. I was thinking that it looked like the moon behind clouds... the sky was about 95% overcast with small open holes where I could see some stars.

The light slowly turned in a westerly direction changing from white to the bright orangish-red color. I got my binoculars and my sister and when we looked for it again it was behind a clump of trees but we could still see it intermittently.

When it completely re-emerged there were two of them! moving slowly and appearing to be connected in some way. One appeared to be following and catching up to the other light -- or they were two lights connected to a moving craft, that appeared to get closer together as the object rotated and moved away from us.

I felt that there was no way that two aircraft would be flying that close together at night. They did what the earlier light did, slowly moving away from us in an upward trajectory in the SW sky and then blinked out or disappeared into the cloudcover.

This sighting lasted for about 4 minutes in total. In between songs at the concert and fireworks we noticed that the lights made no sound whatsoever.

About 15 - 20 minutes after the sighting a commercial airliner went through the same area of sky as the lights and it had the obvious bright white nose light and strobing lights along with its jet engine sound.

Posted 2014-07-11