Sighting in Washington

About half an hour ago i spotted a UFO while i was out having a cigarette. I didnt take a picture because all I saw was a dot flying around in the sky. At first, I thought it was a plane, but then i saw it turn to the right, STOP, and go back the other direction. An impossible maneuver for any man made craft as far as i know. and then i watched it fly around for about 10 min. or so, until it literally just disappears from my sight.

Now im not posting this because I'm trying to get attention, im simply doing it because I think people need to know that this is becoming a more increasingly happening phenomenon. I'm sorry I don't have any more information, but it was pretty much a simple (boring) sighting...but a sighting none the less

Hi LH,

Please describe with a little more detail. Did the object look solid, or was it 'shimmery' (for lack of a better word). At what height would you estimate it? Was there any cloud cover? If so, did the object interact with the clouds in any way? Was there any other air traffic before, during, or afterwards?

I ask because I've noticed similar things on three occasions and am fascinated with the phenomenon. Look forward to your reply, Gram.

Thanks for your observation, were you in the city of Washington or Washington St.. Plz give the exact location as I like to keep track of the local sightings in my state. The Evergreen State is a hotbed of UFO sightings as you may already know.

Thank you
Tom

Originally posted by ledhead
About half an hour ago i spotted a UFO while i was out having a cigarette. I didnt take a picture because all I saw was a dot flying around in the sky. At first, I thought it was a plane, but then i saw it turn to the right, STOP, and go back the other direction. An impossible maneuver for any man made craft as far as i know. and then i watched it fly around for about 10 min. or so, until it literally just disappears from my sight.

Now im not posting this because I'm trying to get attention, im simply doing it because I think people need to know that this is becoming a more increasingly happening phenomenon. I'm sorry I don't have any more information, but it was pretty much a simple (boring) sighting...but a sighting none the less

Is that the first one you have seen in Olympia? I ask because I live in the area myself (about 3 blocks from Evergreen) and I look for them frequently but have never seen one.

Are you sure it wasn't a military jet? I ask because we just hosted the Annual Airshow across your border in Abbotsford, BC. Alot of them may be flying home and all kinds of aircarft came to the show, that we don't usually see in our skies.

I went to it on Sunday, and indeed these jets have amazing manoevers(sp?). Some of them fly faster than the speed of sound, so by the time you hear them breaking the sound barrier, they've gone past. I also noted that at certain points they couldn't be heard, yet they're still visible. They flew sideways, upside down, tilted up with the nose of the jet pointed skyward, making sharp turns, freefalling, etc. There were also some black helicopters patrolling. In fact as I type this many of the aircraft are flying over my house. I'm located close to the US border, I can see Mount Baker in washington state. Anyways, gonna go check them out, because they're such an awesome sight!

Originally posted by Gramafaloon
Hi LH,

Please describe with a little more detail. Did the object look solid, or was it 'shimmery' (for lack of a better word). At what height would you estimate it? Was there any cloud cover? If so, did the object interact with the clouds in any way? Was there any other air traffic before, during, or afterwards?

I ask because I've noticed similar things on three occasions and am fascinated with the phenomenon. Look forward to your reply, Gram.

Sorry about the detail. I'm no expert, but the aircraft was decently high. Probably a few thousand feet in the air. Lower than commercial aircraft. The object was a solid light, although it would get fairly bright, and then get so dim that it would disappear for a few seconds before going back to normal. I do not believe there was very much cloud coverage, at least the object wasn't around any clouds. I didn't see it interacting with anything, although it would stop in one location for several minutes. And there was absolutely no other aircraft that I could see. I did see a few helicopters about an hour ago, but that's fairly normal.

I've never witnessed anything like this before and you just get the weirdest feeling ever when you do.

On a side note, that night I had very vivid nightmares of being abducted, but I highly doubt I actually did

Originally posted by HanAlec19

Is that the first one you have seen in Olympia? I ask because I live in the area myself (about 3 blocks from Evergreen) and I look for them frequently but have never seen one.

ATS really is a small world I guess haha. I grew up in the Tumwater/Olympia area, but I actually live in Shelton right now. Which sucks, but apparently there's UFOs out here so I'm not complaining now. I know a lot of people in Oly and not one of them has seen a UFO although.

Originally posted by violet
Are you sure it wasn't a military jet? I ask because we just hosted the Annual Airshow across your border in Abbotsford, BC. Alot of them may be flying home and all kinds of aircarft came to the show, that we don't usually see in our skies.

I went to it on Sunday, and indeed these jets have amazing manoevers(sp?). Some of them fly faster than the speed of sound, so by the time you hear them breaking the sound barrier, they've gone past. I also noted that at certain points they couldn't be heard, yet they're still visible. They flew sideways, upside down, tilted up with the nose of the jet pointed skyward, making sharp turns, freefalling, etc. There were also some black helicopters patrolling. In fact as I type this many of the aircraft are flying over my house. I'm located close to the US border, I can see Mount Baker in washington state. Anyways, gonna go check them out, because they're such an awesome sight!

Wow, I've never seen this but I really really want to now haha. I wouldn't rule that possibility out, though. The aircraft I saw didn't make any noise at all. Never did. But I just couldn't see a military aircraft go one direction, stop for a few minutes, and then go to complete opposite direction and stop there for a few minutes. But like I said, I wont rule that out at all.

Thank you for your feedback

This reminds me of an interesting experience I had a few years ago. It was a nice day with very light breeze and a few scattered cumulus clouds so I decided to take a walk to the beach about a block from my house. As I left my house I could see down the street, a group of 6 people looking up and pointing to the sky. I looked up and could see nothing except the clouds which I estimated to be at about 2,500 feet above the ground. Being a hang glider pilot, I spend a lot of time looking at the sky wishing I were in it. Judging cloud height is an important part of analyzing weather conditions.

As I got closer to the group I could hear comments; "Look at that thing.", "It's huge!", "How can it do that?". Really curious now, I asked what they looking at. A woman pointed upward and said, "A UFO!". I looked, and looked again, then spotted what they were seeing. It was a black, spherical object moving generally to the west but occasionally suddenly changing and even reversing direction as it moved away and got smaller and smaller.

It took me a few seconds to realize what we were seeing was a toy balloon drifting in the wind and being buffeted by thermals and wind gusts. With no reference to judge its size or altitude, the spectators had for some reason decided that it was huge. This assumption of size led to the assumption that it must be at a very high altitude (because it only appeared to be a rather small spot). Now, because it was assumed to be very large and very high, its motion and speed became exaggerated in the perception of the observers.

What was in reality an object maybe 10 inches in diameter, at an altitude of maybe 250 feet, drifting lazily in the wind, had become a huge UFO, high in the sky, performing impossible maneuvers. When I pointed out what we were actually looking at, six pairs of eyes suddenly refocused, there were some chuckles and somewhat sheepish giggles.

It turned out they were on the way to the beach themselves so we had a good time walking the rest of the way and discussing how our minds can convince us we're seeing something we're not.

[edit on 12-8-2008 by Phage]