2003-07-06 - Salem, OR - Other

V shaped, Tilted and rotating pale white craft. No noise.

Hello and thank you for your services.

It is 3am on Sunday the 6th of July.

At between 12:03am and 12:05am the 6th of July, i was sitting on my balcony of my appartment and looking up at the night sky. The sky is quite clear tonight and there are a dozen stars visable. I noticed a pale colored object moving slowly due south across the sky above me. I stood and squinted(ive lost my glasses)and noticed it was not lit with strobes or anything that most aircraft are required to have. Then i ran in and grabbed my binoculars and came out for a better look. At the same time i yelled at my girl friend to come look, because she has better vision.

I was not completely alarmed when i first saw it, because i thought it was much higher and possibly a sattelite. When i put the bino's on it, i then freaked out, because what i saw was definately not a known aircraft. My heart was racing.

The craft appeared to be a "V" shaped thing, or a "boomerang" shape. It was tilted roughly 45-65 degrees from the horizon and from my perspective seemed to be between 1500-3000 ft altitude. It was a pale color, possibly white, and seemed to only be lit by the city lights. I was a bit shakey with the bino's at first but could make out some rough details. It had some kind of dark/black trim work, but i dont believe it was a silver colored object, because there was not glean or glint from the city lights off of the surface. Its rotation was counter clockwise and probably no more than 1 revolution per second, but its spin changed slightly from half of that, more or less during its path. Its path was steady, and in a south direction. I live just north of the capitol building in Salem, and this craft was just north of being above that building. Just further south is our airport, and it looked as though the craft got to the vicinity of being above the airport and then it stopped its flight path and hovered, while still spinning. I climbed my railing for a better look because it was just about to go behind some trees in my line of sight. When i got up the railing 2 seconds later, and put the bino's on it again it was simply gone.

I immediately called 911 and reported it, if nothing else, there's a record of it if you call them i believe. I asked if they had any other reports and he said no. I asked if he had a number for the airport. I wanted to contact someone at the radar station, but he said Salems airport(traffic control) was closed at this time of night.

I had about 25-30 seconds of nice veiwing of the craft through my binoculars and have made detailed sketches.

The craft made no noise. It filled my view in the binoculars. It was roughly 1/2 to 3/4 the size of a full moon from my vantage point.

If i were to make an amature guess, i would say it was possibly close to the size of a chinook helicopter. It seemed to be traveling at the rate of a helocoptor moving at a fairly slow cruise. But it certainly wasnt any kind of craft ive seen before.

Temperature 65-68 F Clear skys, some slight haze. Some light polution No other oddities to report, expept a strange encounter with a homeless fellow in a near by park by me and my girl friend 3 hours earlier. (some odd coincidences) There was one other small plane in the vicinity, but to the south west about 1-2 miles. It was just cruising around. And it DID have the proper lights and strobes.