NUFORC Sighting 142644

Occurred: 2018-08-09 20:25 Local
Reported: 2018-08-10 10:59 Pacific
Duration: 20 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: San Diego (17 miles north of), CA, USA

Shape: Diamond
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby

Bright Object Behaving Strangely.

I was speaking with a family member on the phone and walked over to my glass patio door to look outside. A bright object in the sky at about the 11:00 position and to the west caught my attention. That would put it over the Pacific Ocean. It was very bright, but was not shimmering like a star. I’ve seen Venus hundreds of times and this was probably 2 times the size of Venus. It was roughly diamond shaped (with no defined edges) and had an orange-ish tinge. It was also much too low to be a star as I could make out the thin, broken layer of high clouds behind it. So, my first thought was that it was a helicopter, especially given that there is occasionally police helicopter activity in the area and the altitude seemed about right.

I continued to watch it, expecting that the object would turn/move soon and I would see its aviation lights, but it just remained in the same position for about 15 minutes. Then I thought I saw it wavering sideways just a bit, so I lined up the edge of a palm tree with the object, and sure enough, it had a very subtle back-and-forth horizontal motion to it. I never saw any aviation lights. I still assumed it was probably a helicopter, and I was still having a conversation on the phone, so I didn’t open the door to see if I could hear a faint rotor sound in the distance. Actually with all of the other city noise (i.e., nearby freeway, local traffic) and with the distance, listening for a sound from the object would have given an inconclusive result.

I continued to watch it and was about to lose interest, when things got even stranger. The object faded out in place for a brief moment and then grew bright again, matching its original size and intensity. It was like a light bulb on a dimmer switch and you quickly turn down the voltage to the point where the bulb goes out and then you increase the power until the bulb is at full brightness again.

At first I thought perhaps the effect was caused by clouds p! assing in front of the object, but again the clouds were much higher a nd quite thin. After a few more minutes, the object started becoming smaller and smaller, until it was a tiny spec in the distance. This had a very different visual look than the dimming. This time it appeared more like the object flew away at a level trajectory (further out over the ocean) and then stopped. This changed took only a matter of seconds.

I watched it in the distance for a minute or so and thought there was nothing more to see, so I looked away for another minute or two. When I looked up at the sky again, the object was back, in the exact location described at the beginning of this report and with the same shape and brightness.

After a few more minutes, it did the same maneuver again – appearing to move away very rapidly at a horizontal/level trajectory with the object becoming a tiny spec in the distance at the same location as before, except this time it completely disappeared.

About halfway into this event, I noticed what were obvious airplanes (aviation lights visible) slowly circling far away from the object while it was in its original/stationary position. It seems that these airplanes had their approach to the San Diego airport interrupted. I say that because once the object disappeared as described above, an unusually high volume of airplanes started flying through the original area where the object was. These airplanes were clearly headed to the airport. //End of Report//

Posted 2018-08-10