1999-01-03 - Bellevue, WA - Light

Orange light seen in Northeast sky moving slowly upward, then stopping and then moving to right (south) - approx altitude 25,000 feet

My wife and I walked out our front door toward our car and I immediately noticed a bright orange light to the right and slightly downward from the moon in the Northeastern sky. The unusual color caused us to watch closely as it moved slowly upward, stopped for about 45 seconds, and then moved slowly to right (south). There was cloud cover which had clear areas. The light appeared to be above the clouds. At first we assumed it was a plane or helicopter, but the movement of the light was not consistent as we would expect of an airplane and the orange color seemed unusual. It moved to the right (south) until it was directly eastward from us. Although the brightness had been steady at first, at this point it seemed to wax and wane although not necessarily in correlation with the breaks in the clouds. The light then disappeared and although we watched for it for several more minutes it did not appear again. Several times I thought I saw a smaller white light leave the orange light going in a southerly direction for a short distance although it was very dim because of the distance. There was never any sound that we could associate with the light as might be expected in the case of a jet passing overhead. Shortly after the light disappeared, a small light plane passed over coming from the north and flying toward the area where the light had disappeared. This may have been entirely coincidental as we do have fairly regular air traffic flying overhead.