2010-12-31 - Leavenworth, WA - Light

At approximately 11:00 PM PST on New Year's Eve, 2010, my wife and I both observed two orangish objects in the night sky, approximately 25-30 degrees above the southeastern horizon, from our house near Leavenworth, WA. Based on the surrounding hills, it appeared they might have been somewhere between the towns of Peshastin, WA and Cashmere, WA although if they were higher up or large, they might have been closer to Wenatchee, WA.

The sighting was through a large, southeast facing bathroom window. Being an extremely clear night, it was easy to distinguish the two objects, not only because of their orangish color, but also because they were considerably larger than the surrounding stars.

Because it was night, we couldn't estimate the altitude or size of the orbs. However, the objects appeared to be about 10 miles to our southeast and maybe several thousand feet above the ground but these observations are purely guesses.

At first, each object appeared to be stationary. Perhaps a minute later, one of the objects began to travel slowly towards the north or northwest, which would put it on a course to possibly travel over our house. As it progressed, it also became visibly larger than it was initially, which would probably be the case if it was, in fact, headed our way.

Once the object started moving our way, the second orb seemed to do an about face and headed in a southeast direction for a few seconds, then appeared as if it headed toward the ground as if it were falling out of the sky. We lost sight of it once it went below the hills surrounding our home.

The object heading in our direction moved from the southeast to a point more directly overhead, approximately 60-75 degrees above the eastern horizon. After about a minute or so, it appeared to stop and seemed as if it was perhaps only a mile or two away and several thousand feet above the ground. Again, the distances are strictly speculation.

Since the remaining object was now much higher in the sky and closer to our home, I went outside for a better view. The object was still glowing orange and remained stationary. Suddenly, the object began to pulsate with a brilliant, white light. It reminded me of a strobe light and was difficult to look at directly. After maybe 5 seconds, the white light then faded back to the orange glow and then repeated itself perhaps two more times, each time emitting the same strobe-like white light.

After the last strobe light episode, the orange glow of the orb grew larger, and then returned to its original size after about 4-5 seconds. It then paused for around 5-10 seconds before glowing larger, and then returning to its original size. The orb repeated this around 4 or 5 times and then slowly, over the course of maybe 15 seconds, faded away until there was nothing left to observe.

There was no sound associated with the sighting which lasted approximately 10 minutes.