Sphere over Seattle, WA

The report, as filed

It was around 10 pm on July 4, 2014, and I was out in the front yard of a friend on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, waiting for the fireworks over Lake Union when seemingly out of nowhere three orange orbs appeared in the eastern sky; looked like they could have been over South Lake Union or Beacon Hill. They weren’t very big but clearly visible. They hovered in a triangular shape for about 10-15 seconds -- one object above and two below that. I told my friend, those are UFOs! But he laughed and said, "No they’re not." And I said, then what are they? He had no answer. The triangle moved slowly and in unison to the right (S) and moved behind a tree, so we ran over to the edge of the yard to see if we could track them. I could see the orange lights through the branches. (These objects were high in the sky; I don’t mean they were behind this tree across the street.) When they emerged, the orbs spread out into a line and the one farthest to the right turned and dropped a bit below the others. Again, they just hovered for about 10 seconds. I was slapping my friend on the back and saying, see, see, those are UFOs! Then the one to the far right disappeared. It was just gone. The other two hung on for a few more seconds and then they, too, were gone, first one, then the other. Yes, there were many choppers and airplanes in the air waiting for the fireworks, but they were noisy and I could easily identify them as aircraft. At the time we saw the orbs, all the aircraft were farther north and were clearly not near the objects. I flew airplanes as a student pilot years ago, and have many hours of flying time, including solo landings. I know what aircraft are like and these were not conventional aircraft. The fireworks had not started so these were not fireworks. Unless there’s a new kind that can hover, turn, stop, and change formations in a crisp manner. I was thinking maybe they were flares, but they just didn’t look like flares. The orbs were not wavering, fuzzy, but very stable and clear in the sky. To the west, there was a quarter moon out, but again, it couldn’t be confused with these very orange, very round, very clear objects that were hovering in front of us. I looked online the next day and somebody posted a video that shows an orange globe hovering and moving in the sky. A commenter said it was a Chinese lantern, which, he said, were everywhere last night. What we saw was not a lantern. When I got home last night, I called my son and told him about it and he said, wow, that’s weird because I saw an orange object hanging over Beacon Hill about the same time. He said he thought at first that it was a planet but it seemed too big for a planet and it was very round and orange. So, that whole experience was a first for me and my disbelieving friend who witnessed it with me. I have no idea what they were but sure wish I could find out.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #111000). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.