Fireball over Friday Harbor, WA
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
On April 22 1998 I was sitting in my front room by a south-facing window a little before 9:30. I was alone as it was a Wednesday and my
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center. Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
Ask for the records
What would the paper say?
For a dated, located U.S. sighting, FAA radar data and ATC communications are the records most likely to exist. Through Aletheca, the house instrument, anyone can commission the request — filed, chased, and published in the open, refusals included. The draft goes over already written: the records sought, and the date window they would live in.
Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 1998-04-19 → 1998-05-06
From the same sky
Related entries
November 25, 2023 · 6:50 PM · CIRCLE
Friday Harbor, WA
I was laying playing hide and go seek with my friends at the restaurant I looked up and I was looking at the stars it looks like they were was there a star there and then a big bright light and then my friend saw it but it was like bright light and then it went away and it was like a blink of an eye was so fast and then it was gone there's nothing there
March 14, 2023 · 6:45 AM · LIGHT
Friday Harbor, WA
Witnessed what looked like a small golden speck of light floating in the air above the islands. It vanished after approx. 30 seconds.
July 10, 2022 · 9:27 PM · CIGAR
Friday Harbor, WA
Observed 2 white cigar shaped object the sky. The object was slow moving from NE to SW and about a hands width above the horizon. I observed the object in the sky for 10 minutes. No lights. The objects started out to gather the upper object was about 4 times larger than the lower object. Both objects separated over time. likely contrails
October 31, 2019 · 6:30 PM · UNKNOWN
Friday Harbor, WA
Three lights, all moving at the same speed so they’re not separate planes. Moving super fast. Looked with binoculars, couldn’t see anything besides the three lights. Underneath, there was a plane moving much slower than the unidentified aircraft. Moved incredibly quickly and went out of view in the span of ~2 minutes.
February 19, 2018 · 5:45 AM · LIGHT
Friday Harbor, WA
Strong winds had blown all night long making the early morning sky clear and dark, with the early morning stars and planets extra visible and a few of the larger ones were tinted orange-ish in color. I was driving into town on my way to the gym. With mornings like these, I love looking up at the sky. Because it’s so early in the morning there are no other cars around me. Town is empty. I always try to look up at the sky anyway because when I was about 16 years old, (roughly 1992) my father and I experienced a real UFO sighting together out in Palm Desert. That one was a major experience with an actual craft that moved like a shooting star after hovering in place for about an hour. My point is – because I look at the sky a lot, I’ve seen a lot of anomalies that I felt could have some explanation, and none of which were remotely similar as to what I saw that night out in the desert with my dad -- until this morning. I was driving slowly down Second Street, as I mentioned, looking straight ahead and up towards the clear black sky. Suddenly, right in front of me was this very, very white light that flashed in front of me and my initial response was that it was a shooting star. But there were two things that went with this that made me second guess the whole shooting star thing. First, the way it moved. I didn’t see where it came from but that it entered my field of vision from the right moving towards the left. And it moved just like a shooting star but into a upside down ‘U’ shape and just vanished ---not vanished from my field of vision like behind a tree or behind hills or a building--vanished. Disappeared. As if there were a tiny little pocket waiting for it and it dove into that. There was a trail of light and then there wasn’t. The second thing is that if it were a shooting star, it was way too close to the earth. We have small, single engine, prop personal planes, puddle jumpers and sea planes coming in and out of our tiny airport here. It was a similar distance to one of those little planes about to land. Like most islanders, I’m very familiar with these planes being around and what they look like when they are landing or taking off. This thing I saw moved and looked like a shooting star but was very close to the earth and moved in an arch shape before disappearing into a seeming pocket in the sky. A white light, no pulsating and no other lights, no other colors of light. I’m open to explanations! I would love to know your opinion on the matter. Sorry I don't have a photo, it happened too fast. Thank you!
January 15, 2015 · 6:30 PM · LIGHT
Friday Harbor, WA
On Thursday evening, 1/15/15, my wife and I were driving north on Mullis Street, even with the adjacent airport north end (runway 16) less than ¼ mile from Spring Street, which is the main street of the town of Friday Harbor, Washington, on San Juan Island, USA. It was dark, 18:30, when we saw three separate bright orange lights flying over the town descending from the north east in the direction of the airport. My first impression was three aircraft on a very low approach to land at the Friday Harbor Airport. I stopped our car so we could watch, since the lights were starting to bob up and down. I said they had to be helicopters. But then they almost appeared to be going down behind the buildings in town. They stopped getting closer and suddenly started climbing at a very high speed headed back northwest. They grew dimmer, and one at a time, blinked out and were gone. The whole duration of this sighting was about two minutes. I kept trying to find an explanation for what we were seeing. I wish I had immediately reached for my I-phone to get a video. I knew they were unconventional aircraft since they didn’t have red and green navigation lights. Then the erratic flight and changing speed ruled out any aircraft I have ever seen. My wife and I are both private pilots and have flown into the Friday Harbor airport hundreds of times.