2013-12-31 - Tigard, OR - Fireball

Large orange fireball witnessed on New Year's Eve near Tigard, OR

My housemate and I were returning home after a late night at the office (a health care practice) and a quick bite to eat on the way. We were 100% sober (even as this was later in the evening on New Year’s Eve). Driving south on Barbur Blvd very near home my friend (the driver) exclaimed that there was a bright orange object in the sky up over the car. I quickly looked up to see the very bright orange object, brightly lit and moving very slowly from the west side of the road in an easterly direction. I told the driver to stop the car but it really wasn’t safe to do so until we arrived at our driveway about a minute after.

Upon jumping out of the car the object appeared to move in our direction and seemed to flare up in brightness slightly. It was immediately obvious this was something quite unusual and unconventional/non-ordinary. In the distance, I noticed a small aircraft (just the lights) approach in our direction from the SW somewhat toward the object and I remember wondering if the pilot was actually seeing this object and attempting to come closer to investigate. The orange object (upon having moved essentially overhead where we were) suddenly then traveled upwards, becoming smaller and smaller (in the clear night sky) until it simply disappeared. Interestingly, the small aircraft seemed to veer off of its seemingly interceptive trajectory at that time and proceeded to fly almost straight north and eventually disappeared from view.

We then went indoors and put everything away to settle in for the evening. After about 15 minutes I suddenly felt the need to go back outside again and found that the object had returned over our driveway (though likely several hundred feet up—I am a bad judge of distance, however), bright as ever. It moved slightly and stopped a couple of times and by the time I got my housemate to come back outside again it seemed to quickly fade from view. There were at least 3 or 4 more occasions in the next hour where I went back outside to find the object in the sky again, roughly in the same location. I eventually stopped trying to go back outside once fog moved in to the area and obscured the sky and surroundings. I estimate this to have been a little after 22:30 o’clock.

The object made no sound, glowed with variable brightness/intensity—from quite brilliant to extremely dim, then brilliant again—with no flashing lights of any kind, seemed fairly large in size (certainly larger than a Chinese lantern…possibly larger than a helicopter) and appeared to move slowly/deliberately and/or hover rather than exhibit accelerative speed, except when it swiftly traveled straight up and disappeared the first time. Although we initially somehow assumed it was probably spherical in shape it at times seemed to reveal a more elongated general appearance. The darkness of the sky and the brightness of the object made this very difficult to clearly determine. I also couldn’t help but feel it was somehow oddly “aware” of us standing there viewing it, as it appeared to be drawn to our location. It seemed to make some directional movement toward me whenever I stepped outside to view it and it also seemed to flare in response to the attention and our efforts to! talk to it. I am open to the reasonable possibility that this aspect of things may just be some sort of coincidence, however.

I used my iPhone 5 to take a few quick snapshots, though the resolution (as is often the case at times like this) was fairly poor. One picture does seem to suggest a more “rod-shaped” form when enlarged. I attempted a zoom shot in one that seemed to exhibit a more “fuzzy spherical form”. Another still seemed to resemble a “clustered spherical form”. I will forward these pics to you in a separate email.