Shifting orb witnessed at Stevens Pass, WA.
After a day of skiing at Stevens Pass, I was staying the night at the ski resort with some friends in the RV lot so we could ski the following day. Around 7:00p.m we left our camper and walked to the main base area of the resort. Skiing operations closed at 4:00 that day and the mountain was dark, but the base area was illuminated, and we used this lighting to play a game of cornhole (beanbag toss game) right in the main courtyard area next to the lodge and clock tower. It was a very cold night with broken clouds and occasional snow showers. We were the only ones outside in the area. It was the night before a full moon and the moon looked amazing with the small broken clouds moving quickly past it.
Having the place to ourselves with the resort lodges and clock tower decorated in Christmas lights and the full moon in the backdrop, I tried my best to get a picture with my phone that captured the whole scene. To do this I stepped about thirty feet away from my friends, took a knee and held my phone at an angle that got all three of my friends in the frame as well as the moon (this was tricky and you will see that in a couple shots either a friend or the moon gets cut off). Once I had the correct angle I waited for gaps in the clouds as they passed over the moon. After snapping a couple photos, I first noticed the object in the screen of my phone.
The object first appeared as a blotch of white light in the screen of my phone. It seemed like a morphing light ball with a bright core surrounded by a duller light and was very fluid yet erratic in its movements. If I had to guess I would say the core was the size of a large grapefruit and the outer layer the size of a beach ball. It was like a luminescent aerial jellyfish. The object first appeared in the sky around the trees in the background and moved toward us. It came as close as the clock tower (the photo showing the object in front of the lodge verifies its proximity).
At this point, I looked up from the camera, where the image was very bright, however with my bare eyes I could only see the outer dull light, but the inner bright sphere was still visible in the screen of my phone. Put another way: With my bare eyes, the object was not very noticeable and I might have not noticed it. At the same time it was glowing even brighter than what was captured by the camera on the screen of my phone. At one point most of my screen went white. I was really confused and rendered speechless.
At this point I stood up and pivoted my whole focus to the object. As soon as I did the object shot off to the trees behind the lodge, paused near the top for one to two seconds and then shot off over Big Chief Mountain at impossible speed and was gone. As you can see in the pictures, my friends were oblivious of its presence and I wasn’t able to process what I was seeing in time to verbalize what I was seeing. By the time I did, it was gone. I still really have no idea what I saw and the photos just add to the mystery.
Likely unrelated, we did see multiple F/A-18 or F15s (looked like they had 2 vertical stabilizers) jets flying at low altitude over the resort the following morning.
After a day of skiing at Stevens Pass, I was staying the night at the ski resort with some friends in the RV lot so we could ski the following day. Around 7:00p.m we left our camper and walked to the main base area of the resort. Skiing operations closed at 4:00 that day and the mountain was dark, but the base area was illuminated, and we used this lighting to play a game of cornhole (beanbag toss game) right in the main courtyard area next to the lodge and clock tower. It was a very cold night with broken clouds and occasional snow showers. We were the only ones outside in the area. It was the night before a full moon and the moon looked amazing with the small broken clouds moving quickly past it.
Having the place to ourselves with the resort lodges and clock tower decorated in Christmas lights and the full moon in the backdrop, I tried my best to get a picture with my phone that captured the whole scene. To do this I stepped about thirty feet away from my friends, took a knee and held my phone at an angle that got all three of my friends in the frame as well as the moon (this was tricky and you will see that in a couple shots either a friend or the moon gets cut off). Once I had the correct angle I waited for gaps in the clouds as they passed over the moon. After snapping a couple photos, I first noticed the object in the screen of my phone.
The object first appeared as a blotch of white light in the screen of my phone. It seemed like a morphing light ball with a bright core surrounded by a duller light and was very fluid yet erratic in its movements. If I had to guess I would say the core was the size of a large grapefruit and the outer layer the size of a beach ball. It was like a luminescent aerial jellyfish. The object first appeared in the sky around the trees in the background and moved toward us. It came as close as the clock tower (the photo showing the object in front of the lodge verifies its proximity).
At this point, I looked up from the camera, where the image was very bright, however with my bare eyes I could only see the outer dull light, but the inner bright sphere was still visible in the screen of my phone. Put another way: With my bare eyes, the object was not very noticeable and I might have not noticed it. At the same time it was glowing even brighter than what was captured by the camera on the screen of my phone. At one point most of my screen went white. I was really confused and rendered speechless.
At this point I stood up and pivoted my whole focus to the object. As soon as I did the object shot off to the trees behind the lodge, paused near the top for one to two seconds and then shot off over Big Chief Mountain at impossible speed and was gone. As you can see in the pictures, my friends were oblivious of its presence and I wasn’t able to process what I was seeing in time to verbalize what I was seeing. By the time I did, it was gone. I still really have no idea what I saw and the photos just add to the mystery.
Likely unrelated, we did see multiple F/A-18 or F15s (looked like they had 2 vertical stabilizers) jets flying at low altitude over the resort the following morning.
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Stevens Pass
USA
~30 seconds
~30 seconds
changing
WA
Occurred : 12/12/2016 19:06 (Entered as : 12/1216 19:06) Reported: 12/15/2016 12:31:48 AM 00:31 Posted: 12/15/2016 Location: Stevens Pass, WA Shape: Changing Duration: ~30 seconds Characteristics: There were lights on the object, There was an aura or haze around the object, The object changed color
Shifting orb witnessed at Stevens Pass, WA. ((NUFORC Note: Report from commercial pilot. PD))