2012-05-27 - Portland, OR - Light

Bright, amber, shimmering light in sky above Southeast Portland

At 9:24 PM from the residential east facing slope of Mt. Tabor in Portland, OR I witnessed a light in the sky located South/Southeast approximately between Mt. Tabor and Mt. Scott just below the scattered cloud layer that behaved like nothing I have ever witnessed in the sky before. I was outside of the house preparing to move my car into the driveway from the street where it was parked. As I was getting into my car I was now facing south, and before sitting down into the car I noticed a bright, amber, shimmering light in the sky comparable in size and intensity to a street light viewed at 1-2 blocks away. What drew my attention is that the light was so bright and at this point it was stationary in the sky. To be clear, there is frequent air traffic over Mt Tabor depending upon flight arrival patterns at Portland International Airport (PDX), so we are very accustomed to witnessing bright jet landing lights and how they appear/behave in the night sky. Wh! at I was now observing was definitely not any form of conventional aircraft, and was definitely not jet landing or helicopter lights. Approximately 3 seconds after I began observing the light it very smoothly and rapidly moved from south to north in a straight line toward me covering approximately an eighth of a mile in the sky, though the distances are hard to gauge with the clouds as my only reference point in the sky. There was no jet noise or any other sound. The light stopped and hovered stationary again, very bright and clearly visible. At this point I called my family members that were still in our house via my cell phone from the street to come out and look at this light, because I did not want to lose sight of it. The light continued to hover for approximately 1-2 minutes with clouds blowing by above the light while the light remained stationary. By now I had one witness with me observing the light. Now, the light moved again in the same manner to the east b! y another approximate eighth to one quarter of a mile where it! stopped again, and remained stationary in the sky. A third witness had now arrived. We observed the light for another 30 seconds to 1 minute as it hovered stationary in the sky with clouds blowing around it as it sat in a small patch of open sky. The light must have gained altitude during it’s last movement, because at the end of this period the clouds began to then move in front of the light, became thicker causing the light to fade behind them. From this point the cloud cover thickened in this area of the sky. Three of us watched the sky for another 15 minutes but never saw the light again. I don’t think air traffic control at PDX was routing planes over southeast Portland last night during this event because I did not see or hear any jets while observing this light.