Clearly visible, stationary sphere, "takes off" after an hour or so of observation
On Thursday 7-17-03, myself and three co-workers (all engineers) were golfing at a local coarse when Chris, (one of the group) told us to look in the air at something he happened to see. His words were something like take a look at that! That aint no @#$# plane. We looked up into a clear blue sky to see a stationary object at about a 55° angle, south southwest from our location. The object appeared to give off a "silvery" reflective light. The object looked like it was undulating or rotating in an irregular fashion because of the variations in light emissions. My first thought was that it was a typical small helium balloon that had been let go and was rotating and reflecting light as it climbed. But as we watched this thing it became apparent to us that it was not. This thing appeared to be very high. Its really difficult to say without any references, but I would take a guess at 50,00 ft. A lot of planes are coming and going at PDX and they all appeared to be way below this thing and it didn’t seem to be moving. It was breezy on the ground and I suppose it would be windy up there also, but this thing seem to stay in place with no apparent movement from wind, (as with a balloon) or slow movement by rotation (as with a planet or star) We finally had to move on, as we had golfers behind us. I watched the object in between golf shots as we played for a little while. About an hour and fifteen minutes later as we neared the last hole, Chris again brought the object to our attention, It appeared to be in the same area of the sky, but was even smaller (or higher) than before. I took my eyes off of it for a second, when Chris said it just saw it move to the right about eight inches (at arms length) and is now quickly climbing away. He tried to point to its location in the sky as it climbed, but it was too small for me to pick up. I would have loved to have some binoculars right then. This thing was very puzzling. Could it have been a weather balloon or an atmospherically distorted viewing of a! planet? Many other people had to observe this object as it was CLEARLY visible for at least an hour and fifteen minutes.
On Thursday 7-17-03, myself and three co-workers (all engineers) were golfing at a local coarse when Chris, (one of the group) told us to look in the air at something he happened to see. His words were something like take a look at that! That aint no @#$# plane. We looked up into a clear blue sky to see a stationary object at about a 55° angle, south southwest from our location. The object appeared to give off a "silvery" reflective light. The object looked like it was undulating or rotating in an irregular fashion because of the variations in light emissions. My first thought was that it was a typical small helium balloon that had been let go and was rotating and reflecting light as it climbed. But as we watched this thing it became apparent to us that it was not. This thing appeared to be very high. Its really difficult to say without any references, but I would take a guess at 50,00 ft. A lot of planes are coming and going at PDX and they all appeared to be way below this thing and it didn’t seem to be moving. It was breezy on the ground and I suppose it would be windy up there also, but this thing seem to stay in place with no apparent movement from wind, (as with a balloon) or slow movement by rotation (as with a planet or star) We finally had to move on, as we had golfers behind us. I watched the object in between golf shots as we played for a little while. About an hour and fifteen minutes later as we neared the last hole, Chris again brought the object to our attention, It appeared to be in the same area of the sky, but was even smaller (or higher) than before. I took my eyes off of it for a second, when Chris said it just saw it move to the right about eight inches (at arms length) and is now quickly climbing away. He tried to point to its location in the sky as it climbed, but it was too small for me to pick up. I would have loved to have some binoculars right then. This thing was very puzzling. Could it have been a weather balloon or an atmospherically distorted viewing of a! planet? Many other people had to observe this object as it was CLEARLY visible for at least an hour and fifteen minutes.
No
Yes
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Off
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No
Portland
USA
1hr 15 min
1hr 15 min
45.51
-122.66
sphere
OR
Occurred : 7/17/2003 15:15 (Entered as : 07/17/03 15:15) Reported: 7/21/2003 6:11:39 PM 18:11 Posted: 7/23/2003 Location: Portland, OR Shape: Sphere Duration: 1hr 15 min Characteristics: There were aircraft in the vicinity or aircraft chasing the object
Clearly visible, stationary sphere, "takes off" after an hour or so of observation