1996-02-21 - North Vancouver, BC - Sphere

softly illuminated sphere about 15 feet in diameter traversed sky overhead at 1,800 feet altitude--no detectable sound.

My son (age 11) and myself (then age 41) were taking our dog for a walk near my house in North Vancouver. I am a private, recreational pilot and take an interest in everything that flys overhead. On this February 21/96 evening it was dark (9:05 pm) and a thick overcast of cloud was overhead--the cloud base was at 1,900 feet (because of the sighting--I immediately upon arrival home checked our local weather channel for cloud ceiling data and winds and wrote down the details of what I saw). Anyway, during our walk I looked to the west and saw an unushual glowing object, luminous but not glaring bright, no navigational lights or strobe. We stopped walking and I pointed the object out to my son. Its track would have it fly almost directly overhead. As it approached I said to him that this was weird--no sound, speed about what a small aircraft would fly at, 100 mph or so, but it was relatvely low as it went over--estimate based on known cloud base (1,900 feet) and the object was about one hundred feet below the cloud layer. Though it was night the overcast was bright because of the glare of city lights but I could not detect wings or any form other than that of a sphere, illuminated in a yellowish-white light (the object was close enough that wings would have been detectable). I figured the object to measure about fifteen feet in diameter. The west to east course was more or less straight (winds were NW - 11 KM/H), it did not weave or change altitude though I thought there to be slight oscilation--I did not sense that it drifted with wind direction. All this seemed odd but it was not until the object had passed overhead and was about 4 miles east of our position that we were amazed. At this distance the cloud changed from a solid defined layer at 1,900 feet to dropping right to the ground. I said to my son that if this were an airplane it would not fly into the cloud at this altitude because there are many mountains less than a mile to the north that rise to 4,000 feet. No aircraft flying IFR would fly this ! course. The object, seconds before entering the cloud dropped what I can only describe as sparkles--just like the flickering white/blue flashes one would see from a halloween sparkler. These sparkles descended from the still illuminated sphere for a time span of about four or five seconds, dropping about 1,000 feet below the craft. We let out a collective "whooo." Then twice more it dropped these twinkling bright lights in identicle fashion to the first then immediately entered the cloud and the illuminated sphere went out as if a switch were turned off as opposed to being obscurred by thicking cloud. We were pretty puzzled by what we saw and immediately upon arriving home I jotted down the details, it was only upon listing to your report on the Art Bell show and your invitation to submit both recent and past sightings that I felt compelled to dig out my scrap of paper with the details contained herein. Thanks ((Name deleted))