Fireball over Des Moines, WA
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
my wife saw a huge object in roughly the same location as i did in the past. it was too slow to be a meteor. it happened south of us. t
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 2009-02-09 → 2009-02-26
From the same sky
Related entries
July 8, 2023 · 6:20 PM · LIGHT
Des Moines, WA
It was a white light moving in various directions. I thought it might be a drone. I rolled down my window to see if I could hear a motor, no sound, I thought maybe a silver balloon but it was moving up and down and around then stopped in one spot. I took a photo with my phone it was just a light with darkness around it when you zoom in but no propellers. After zooming in you could see a darkness around it.
February 27, 2022 · 11:15 AM · TEARDROP
Des Moines, WA
It looked with a fighter jet coming from the west but moving much slower and no sound. Disappeared up into clouds. Immediately another appeared coming from west (marina) and it did the same thing. I saw a third to the north and it came down to the ground onto the hillside neighborhood. It turned white before reaching ground. By then, the 2nd had disappeared.
August 29, 2021 · 12:30 PM · SPHERE
Des Moines, WA
I was on Alaska Airlines flight #1460 from Las Vegas to Seattle, seated in a window seat 7A. I was looking out the window as we flew over Tacoma, making a left turn into SeaTac to land. At about the time we were flying over Des Moines on final approach I saw an object appear to be level with us, either stationary or slowly moving relative to the plane. As we flew by, it was only visible for a few seconds. The object was perfectly spherical and white in appearance. It was not reflective, but smooth. It's difficult to estimate it's size and distance, but my guess is it was about 100 to 200 feet from the left wingtip, and 3' to 6' in diameter. My first thought was that it might be a balloon, except that it was perfectly spherical (nothing was hanging from it) and opaque white in color, not transparent at all.
April 8, 2020 · 5:08 PM · OVAL
Des Moines, WA
While walking north on 16th ave, I happened to turn to the south for no reason and see what happened to look like a silver special occasion balloon come across the lower tree line over 16th Ave S. rather quickly from the Redondo location and pick up speed. I lost this object in the trees for a few seconds and it made a sharp left to just what I can only assume was the I-5 highway then made a very sharp right turn south in the same direction of the highway. After that I lost track of it as it was out of my field of vision.
March 10, 2017 · 7:15 PM · LIGHT
Des Moines, WA
I was driving south on 405 with my friend, where I noticed lights in the sky, flashing at the right side of my front windshield at about 7:15 pm. First, I thought it was reflection of the headlights of the cars that was following me. But suddenly this object moved to the left side of my car and started flying at the same speed with me. Now I and my friend saw it clearly. There were four lights of blue colour, egg form (colour could have changed because of the clouds) that moved quickly towards center where they met and then separated evenly in opposite directions. My friend said it was projector but I said it couldn't have crossed freeway. After I dropped off my friend I got to my home. I spent there about 20 minutes and drove to meet with friends in Bellevue. Google layed route through interstate 5 where I've met these lights again. I don't believe in coincidence and I also do not want to think it was helicopter chasing me with some kind of unusual projectors. The lights did not even touch the ground and did not have beams. I understood that this object was possibly changing it's altitude because the lights changed it's size. Second time I saw it, it was about 8:00 pm. It all happened on 03/10/2017. Finally after I got home at about 11 pm and parked the car. I've seen the reflection of the lights on the house I live in. We spoke via telephone with the witness, and he seemed to us to be quite serious and sober-minded. He added that he now believes that the reflection of lights on the house were due to headlights of vehicles on a nearby roadway, and that they did not have anything to do with his sighting, earlier in the evening. PD
December 13, 2014 · 7:30 PM · DISK
Des Moines, WA
There were 4 objects hovering about 150 yards in the air along the west side of I 5 they were in line about a mile apart from each other. I was going northbound past all 4 and then a 5th one flew from the east to west crossing over I-5 and then stopped. All were the exact same. Disk shape with square panels domed out on the bottom with white lights in vents in all all of the outer most sides of the craft. There were red solid lights and a white light that blinked on one side and then immediately on the other side and repeated every couple of seconds. I took a picture. It was dark out and the picture came out all white with nothing on it. Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD