2002-02-24 - Bellevue, WA - Changing

Strange lights in night sky over Bellevue, WA on 02/25/02 -- a craft?

Location: Bellevue, WA Time: 11:15 PM 02/24/02 to 3:10 AM 02/25/02 11:15 PM I stood outside on my front porch and saw in the western sky what appeared to be 2-3 stars grouped together. I was alone. It caught my attention as unusual. As I watched, it changed back into what appeared to be one star. It wasn't as if the lights merged; it was as if some lights were shut off. Next it appeared to be a regular, but bright star with a thin "X" light shine pattern coming out of it. Went back to the "ball" shape. An arm of light appeared to project off of it, making it look kind of like a long, thin arrow. The light didn't appear to be projected, but again as if it were turned on. A few times there appeared to be a gap between the arrow tail (the ball) and the shaft of the arrow. It was moving in a northerly direction, but very, very slowly. The "arrow" seemed to point easterly. There was no noise, and the light appeared to be quite high up, but I don't know, as the light was all I could see (no outline of any shape). The "ball" part of the light looked about the size and intensity of Venus in the night sky. There was a very, very faint aura of light around the object. I phoned my son to ask him to go view it, but he had company, he said it was probably a satellite, and he refused to go look.

11:15 PM As at the first sighting, the look of this object wasn't constant; it changed. A few times it appeared to project a very thin green "X" light pattern off of the ball of light. The shaft of the arrow would appear and disappear. At times there appeared to be a red light at the tip of the arrow. At times it appeared to project thin green lights that gave it a diamond shape, with one tip of the diamond being at the "ball" and the other tip being at the end of the "shaft".

11:54 PM It appeared much the same as 11:15 PM. It had moved higher in the sky (more easterly). I could see it moving, but the movement was very slow.

2:20 AM Still fluctuating between showing the different light patterns as described above, mostly appearing as a star-colored ball with a shaft of light from it. It wasn't like a searchlight being projected, but like lights being turned on. Still quite close to the same location as 11:54.

3:10 AM The object had moved way off to the north and was quite a bit lower in the sky than at 11:35. At this point the lights appeared to be pulsating. The ball was red, and the shaft was green, then they would trade colors. There didn't appear to be a set rhythm to the color changes. After this, I went to bed.

At each observance, I watched the object for approximately ten minutes, but it was close to 30 degrees on my front porch (facing west), so I couldn't stay outside long.

At noon today there appear to be some "clouds" -- fanned con trails? -- that have strange patterns to them... then don't sweep straight across the sky like a con trail, but curve. They are close to where I saw the object, almost tracing the object's path, but lower.