2000-10-08 - Tacoma, WA - Other

black, worm-shaped object drifting northwest just below cloud level at 16:45 on October 8.

i am a student at the university of puget sound and i was sitting at the kitchen table in our house in the north end of tacoma working on homework. i looked out the kitchen window and saw a fleck in the sky that looked like the mark on a photographic enlargement when lint has been left on the negative. i went out onto our back porch and watched a black, matte object drift silently closer. it slowly changed shape as it moved (at about the same speed as the clouds) from south to northeast. its form was constant, a tube shape (ROUGH estimate) perhaps about thirty feet in length that gradually changed shape from a 'u' to almost a ninety degree angle to a long, flat shape with one end sticking up. it was probably at least one foot in diameter, or as big around as a basketball (also very ROUGH guess). at one point, when most of it was flat and one end was sticking up, it looked like the fuselage and vertical stabilizer of a plane's silhouette and i thought my eyes were just playing tricks on me. however, as the object got closer, it continued to change shape. it was drifing along, made no noise and didn't perceptibly change height. i estimated that it was floating at about the same height a small, private plane would cruise, but soon after, a small, single-engine plane flew below it and i realized that it was half-again that high. it looked like a long, black water worm (long, styrofoam flotations toys kids use in pools) that was being manipulated by the breeze to form different shapes. i only saw one object and watched it for about 15 minutes before it disappeared (either into the clouds or from distance i couldn't tell).