2001-11-18 - Lake Forest Park, WA - Triangle

I saw a bright, erratically moving light, the movements of which seemed to be beyond the capabilities of any manmade aircraft.

I went out onto my front porch at just after 3 a.m. to try to view the meteor shower. Immediately I noticed a bright light to the south and a little west, about 30 degrees up from the horizon. This light was continuously moving up, down and sideways in both directions. Since I could not tell how far the object was from me it is hard to say how far it was moving. It was not darting across the sky, but it was moving in a tightly contained area, like a firefly in a very small jar. If I had to guess I would say it was at least a half a mile away, possibly even several miles away, depending on it size. Over the course of the time I observed it, its position slowly moved west and possibly farther away from me, as it seemed to become dimmer. Its shape was hard to determine because I had no binoculars, but I got the impression of a triangle, and I seemed to see colored lights at times, such as red and green. The light also seemed to increase and decrease in intensity at times, although it was always quite bright. My attention was also drawn to another light to its right (west) and slightly closer to the horizon. This light did not appear to be moving and was much dimmer. It may have simply been a star, but I thought it was interesting that its distance from the first light seemed to stay about the same, even as the first light moved slowly west. I also got the impression of seeing other lights moving around in the vicinity of the first light, but they were very fleeting and faint. If this was a conventional aircraft, I cannot understand its movements. I wondered if maybe it was a helicopter or a balloon, but the quickness of its movements would seem to make this impossible. There was no particular wind that night that I am aware of. My home is in Lake Forest Park, but the object was probably over the city of Shoreline or possibly even Seattle.