2011-07-31 - Rockaway Beach, OR - Chevron

Saw a flying object, seemingly orbiting earth, when there was a burst of light/energy and the craft sped off at an unimaginable speed.

Im originally from Portland, Oregon. The night of my 21st birthday, I was lying on a beach with my best friend. We were lying there, talking about our future lives and all that comes with being an adult. It was a VERY clear and starry night. I saw several (3-4) shooting stars that night. Being from Portland, I've spent a big part of my life in the outdoors. I study star maps and astronomy whie camping in the mountains/beach. I'm lucky in that I'm from an area where it is fairly easy to escape the city and find yourself isolated in nature. I'm an extremely clear thinking and fairly smart individual. I've always believed in life on other planets. Mainly because the odds are stacked against the idea that we are the only species that has evolved to a degree of oenlightenment. My use of enlightenment, of course, refers to having the knowledge of the universes that we have obtained as a planet. I had never had a personal experience with unidentified objects. So, my b! elief was based solely on logic.

Now to the experience. It was fairly short, but I was able to take in the information, look at it objectively, then immediately come to a conclusion. My friend and I were discussing the complexity of life, when we both stopped talking. During this intermittent silence. We BOTH saw an object that looked like a sattallite. I can take a stab and say it was not in our earths atmosphere. It seemed to be just outside. As I said, very much like a sattelite orbiting the earth. This immediate acknowledgement did not seem out of the ordinary. I have noticed a sattellite or two in my time researching (amateurly) the cosmos. So, we notice it without mentioning it. That was when there was a burst of light/energy and it sped off into the reaches of space. It definetly had a shape to it, but it was very difficult to make it out from such a large distance. I would describe it as an arrowhead or chevron. The burst of light formed a circle behind the shape of this craft. The burst was of a bl! u/purple hue. Also, a burst of white light momentarily trailed the craft/object for a split second. Being from the generation of the internet and special effects, it looked very much like the millenium falcon going in to hyperdrive. Even down to the slight skipping of the craft/shape before it took off. The craft was very visible before the burst, as was the burst itself. Even more so than the craft itself obviously. As I said, i've seen many shooting stars (and wished upon them too). But this was no star. As we watched it, we both exclaimed "Whoah". We then asked each other if we had seen the same thing. It was no trick of light, or an optical illusion from the cosmos. We spent about ten minutes describing what we had seen so as to lock the knowledge and memory into our brains. We are both avid woodsmen, and have more experience with the night skies than most folks. We are two normal dudes who saw something brilliant and unexplainable. As I type, I can clearly see the event in my minds eye. I wish I was a more talented artist so I could render an accurate depiction of what it was like. For now, these words will have to do.