Fireball over Yakima, WA
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
Bright ball of light heading north very fast.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center. Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2010-02-09 → 2010-02-26
From the same sky
Related entries
September 18, 2023 · 9:38 PM · TEARDROP
Yakima, WA
I was driving eastbound on I-82 coming up the Umtanum mountains. It was 9:38pm. My 12 year old daughter was in the front seat not looking up. I frequently drive this route with her. A bright flash of light occurred in the distance behind the mountain and then a very bright white light began rising from behind the mountain [position through my windshield was at 11 o'clock to my left and started at about 45 degrees and rose to about 60 degrees]. The initial bright flash was so bright, it backlit the entire hill/mountain it occurred behind. In fact, I had thought at the time, was I seeing an explosion? {but there was no sound or blast waves}, was I seeing a flare? {but the object was very briefly illuminated, no longer than 5 seconds... so... lousy flare, maybe...}, was it lightning? {but the skies were totally clear}. ((( for example: imagine a large flash of lightning very momentarily illuminating the sky, but with zero sound, and nearly 1 second after, a bright white light object rising from it, hovering for 5 seconds while lit ))) Similarly, when someone walks upon you with a bright flashlight, I couldn't make out the shape of the object until 5 seconds after the initial flash - that is when the white light went out. Then I could very distantly see the vague shape of the object that had been this rising light. It was either shaped like a tear drop or shaped like a cigar - from that distance and that angle, that is what it looked like. Then it appeared to move away backwards and upward. At that time I continued in shock with my daughter (she never saw the initial flash or hovering light because she was looking down at the time). Then my daughter points in the same direction and says "what, what is THAT?" At that time, an object appeared to be nearing, with 3 steady non-flashing red lights affixed to different points on the craft. This craft was extremely close to the freeway and was operating parallel to I-82. It was so close above us... no more than 75 feet up. It was about 15-20 feet across. 3 red lights. No sound {I rolled down the window expecting to hear helicopter blades whirring or an engine sound of some type, but no, it was totally silent}. I vaguely felt like the object might be a helicopter, and as it passed very close above our heads, to me, it looked like it was shaped like a teardrop or a cigar. It was dimly lit by the steady red lights. My daughter got a better look. I was careful not to prompt her, and she drew the shape of the object with her finger describing it, similar to what I had thought I'd seen. As we passed by this large object, there was no way to turn around or to observe it. I was going 70mph and that road is scary, dark, twisted, and unforgiving. I noted we were very close to Burbank Creek bridge near mile post 17. Whatever this thing was, it was too close to the freeway to be considered a safe flying distance {pretty sure the FAA would've not allowed that}. It is important to note that the Army range is very close to that area, as well as some alleged NSA listening operations. However, if that was a military exercise, that was extremely dangerous doing that on a random Monday night so incredibly close to the freeway. The light was blinding and the whole event was shocking and distracting, and we could've been hurt by driving down that treacherous stretch of freeway while simultaneously being distracted. Interestingly enough, when I was about my daughter's age {also a pre-teen}, my own mother and I were out for a walk in Seattle and we also encountered a low flying silent craft. She and I also lost a little bit of time on that walk {my dad noticed it took longer than usual to get home from our walk though she and I didn't stop walking our normal pace, except to stop and look at the craft "briefly"}. That being said, I find it interesting this Umtanum ridge sighting was also only with my pre-teen daughter. Something about mothers and daughters, maybe?
May 26, 2023 · 9:55 PM · CIRCLE
Yakima, WA
I was outside and I saw what I thought was a plane as I always see planes in the air, but this was not a typical plane like I usually see. It was an orange round light slowly moving across the sky, no sound and no blinking. I watched for about 40 seconds and it looked like it slowed then stopped and then vanished. I waited for about three to four minutes looking into the sky, but I did not see it anymore. Who knows how long it was in the sky before I noticed it. And where did it go? Most importantly, what was it? This is not the first time I've seen unusual objects. Me and my partner both witnessed something strange. A handful of years ago in a place where we use to reside at, I was awakened to a strange sound in my kitchen, so I quickly glanced out from our bedroom and I noticed a red orange what looked like a fireball in the center of our kitchen, and it just vanished. While also there, we noticed strange lights moving in the night sky, I think I still may have a video of it somewhere. My partner also has seen a silver cigar shaped object in the sky kind of behind a cloud during the day as we were driving. I also have dreams of seeing UFO's, there are always lots of them with lots of lights, flying everywhere and it's always during the day. The dreams never change. And I always experience loss of time. Even while I am awake. Connected? Visitations? I'm not sure but it's kind of bizarre.
October 22, 2022 · 9:15 PM · UNKNOWN
Yakima, WA
Sometimes it would just stay put. High altitude. 3 times I saw it accelerate forward very fast, abrubtly stop, the fast again. I held my thumb out at full arms length and I would say that these short little streaks occurred within the same width of my thumb in related distance. From my vantage point, it appeared to be directly above a military site known as the Yakima Training Center. A witness friend who lives in Naches went out to watch it. That is about 18 miles NW of Yakima. He said another one was directly SSE over Yakima, probably over (Hanford Nuclear Reservation). My son was watching that one while I was watching the other one, NNE of my point. Mounted video camera with telephoto lens on tripod to stabalize clear video! Centered on screen. Camera didn’t move but clearly the UFO did.
June 3, 2022 · 2:30 AM · SPHERE
Yakima, WA
I noticed an unusually bright light in the low sky, close to the horizon. The lights intensity grew brighter, then another light appeared next to it and also got brighter. The first light dimmed and disappeared. This kept happening at intervals over at least 90 minutes in the early morning hours of June 4th, 2022. There was a low lying cloud at one point that was even illuminated. This is not the first time I have seen this phenomena from my porch overlooking the Yakima Valley. The first occurrence was roughly 18 months ago and had 7-9 objects in crowded cluster that did the same thing I witnessed last night. The color emitted was yellow and then went to a white very briefly before disappearing. I saw 3 black helicopters in formation earlier in the afternoon prior to this most recent sighting for your information and not sure one has anything to do with the other but thought it might be relevant to mention as usually you don’t see these types of aircraft overhead.
June 27, 2021 · 10:45 PM · LIGHT
Yakima, WA
Was sitting in our field and looking at the constellation Scorpio. All of a sudden to the top left of the constellation a star looking that wasn’t there before appeared out of nowhere. As it lit up it became brighter than all the other stars then it disappeared as quickly as it appeared and then nothing was there. About 3-5 minutes later the same thing appeared but this time above the constellation Scorpio. I thought it was all over because nothing else happened for a while. About 10-15 minutes later it appeared for the 3rd and final time but this time was to the right of the constellation. There was no other explanation of anything this could have been. Nothing comes as high as the constellation in the sky and there were no planes or anything else that I have ever seen do this. There was no sound at all either.
October 14, 2020 · 6:00 AM · TRIANGLE
Yakima, WA
Yakima Wa approximately 6:07am. Clear, no clouds still dark outside. I could see many stars. I was on my front porch and noticed an aircraft slowly ascending into the sky. Airport is close to my house. Just above this plane I saw what I that was another plane, but it wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before. Hundreds if not thousands of lights traveling very fast in unison. As I walked to the south of my yard I could see the other side of this craft. It was massive. All white non-blinking lights. Triangle shaped. Silent, and moving faster than any airplane I’ve ever seen. My iPhone could not detect a picture or video because of the lights on my property. I could clearly see this with the naked eyes. I watched this for more than 7 minutes straight. The pilot that was leaving from our airport had to have witnessed the same thing. As fast as this was moving, and how long I witnessed it, this craft had to be miles long. Since I couldn’t get pics or a video, I ! came inside and drew what I saw and everything I could remember about this event. I took a pic of my drawing and then texted it to myself so there would be a time stamp and date on my report. I went on Yakima scan to see if anything was reported and I saw nothing. I posted a short note saying, “did anyone else see the lights above the airport from the West heading East”? I didn’t want to give a full description because I wanted to be able to confirm the details I saw without leading others . I know what I saw and witnessed. I’d like to know if anyone else has reported this as well. I decided not to include the picture and details I drew out because only my husband was notified of what I saw, and if I see that there’s other reports, it will prove my drawing was correct. Please feel free to contact me. Please!!