2002-02-02 - Spokane, WA - Light

Two bright lights - one danced wildly while the other stood still.

I was at my home on a hilltop about 18 miles SE of Spokane, WA. At about 8:20 PM PDT I observed a bright light to the NW over Spokane. This is not too unusual as this is the general direction of the local airport and military air base. I am accustomed to seeing landing lights, and have observed them appear to hang in the air when the plane is taking off and traveling towards my location. Usually however, I can detect the motion of the plane after several minutes. What drew my attention to this light, was the fact that about 10 minutes after initially seeing it, it was still in the same location. I then thought it must be a helicopter, and grabbed my 7X35 binoculars.

What I saw through my binoculars was three white lights in a line, with red and blue lights on top. The brightness would increase to quite bright, and then fade to dim, and back to bright etc. about every 2 to 3 minutes. The light then began moving slowly toward the NE. I then saw another light approaching from the SW. I thought it must be an airplane coming to check out the original light. But when the second light got to within what I estimate to be about 3 miles from the first light, it too then stopped and began to get brighter and dimmer, just like the first. I called 911 and reported what I was seeing, and was told no one else had reported anything.

Now what is still giving me goose bumps is that while I was on the phone with 911, I was still observing the lights in my binoculars. All of a sudden the second light began "dancing" - it left the impression of what one sees on the 4th of July when you move a sparkler around rapidly at night. What is most unusual is that the original light stayed stationary, so I know it just wasn't me getting jittery with the binoculars. This dancing lasted only about 20 seconds. The second "dancing" light then dimmed out and I didn't see it again.

The original light then continued moving slowly to the NE, but as it got NNE of my location, the white lights went out, and the "object" began moving rapidly to the SSW, and it appeared to be climbing. I would estimate its speed as that of a fast military jet. I observed what appeared to be the normal red and green navigation lights on the outside edges, but there were two larger, brighter red lights which glowed steadily on top. I was outside at this point, but I heard no noise, which is probably not so unusual, because the object was probably 20-30 miles from me at this time. Its hard to estimate. At about this time, I again saw what appeared to be an object much like the original, over Spokane, again in the general direction of the civilian and military airports. This object again flucuated in intensity, but after about 5 minutes it dimmed out. Again, what bothers me about this is the wildly dancing of the one light, while the other stayed stationary.