Oval over Kennewick, WA
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
UFO report of sighting 8-11-16. The purpose of this report is to identify objects that I have seen through my telescope, and not to claim a sighting of extraterrestrial aircraft. On August 11, 2016, at 8:10 pm I observed a bright spot in the sky with my naked eye that was obviously not a star as the stars were not visible this early in the evening. After a few minutes I realized what I was seeing was not something I have seen before so I shot a picture and a short video with my cell phone and got my wife to come outside to have a look also. Using a 7x35 binocular I was able to resolve the object into a disc shape but no other detail was visible. I set up my C-8 Celestron telescope to have a better look. The object resolved into an orange color object that was oval shape, had a flashing light on top, was rimmed with what appeared to be many lights around the circumference of the bottom side that were dimmer than the light on top, and seemed translucent like a fabric. After a few minutes of observing, I attached a video camera to the telescope and recorded a few minutes of video in two recordings. After bumping my telescope I was not able to find the object again as it was getting farther away and dimmer during the observation. The video capture settings, frame rate at .844 per sec. is to slow to stop movement so there is some motion blur in the images but enough detail to see structure of the object. The orange color had faded to whitish purple by the time I got the video recording. I do not see the lights that were around the bottom of the object in the video image that I saw through the eyepiece of the telescope. The sighting lasted from 8:10 pm to 8:53 pm about 43 minutes until I lost sight of it. The direction of travel was southeast, and the object got smaller by about half and was viewed by me and my wife, before I went to video capture. My telescope was hastily set up and there were no stars to polar align the mount so the tracking is off a little with respect to the stars. The tracking motor is running at sidereal rate and I used the manual slow motion controls to center the object when it ran out of the field of view. I have been using this telescope for 18 years and this camera for only a few times. I am experienced with deep sky astrophotography with several camera types and several telescope types for 17 years. Technical information: Telescope, Celestron C-8 telescope, 200mm mirror f/10 with f/3.3 focal reducer. Calculated focal length 686 mm. Camera, ZWO ASI 120 MC color video camera with 3.5 x 3.5 micron pixels, 1280x960 image size. Capture at .844 frames per second. All technical data is available. Approximately 420 frames of data available with object visible. Two video files 903 MB and 893 MB. Three still captures from video. Approximate RA 21h 46m, DEC 9 deg..
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #129265). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2016-08-08 → 2016-08-25
From the same sky
Related entries
February 28, 2021 · 8:20 AM · TRIANGLE
Kennewick, WA
I was on getting out of my car when I had a feeling to look up in the sky, I looked up and noticed an object I have never seen before. It was a huge black triangle with 3-4 lights on the side of the craft. It was moving very slow, I didn't take my eyes off of it but told my brother who was with me to get out of the car, as soon as I said that it started moving faster and disappeared. Like invisible , I could not follow it with my eyes anymore. I saw it for about 15 seconds, I should have recorded it butt I was astonished I was looking at a UFO. It was the size of a house just floating there. There was no way it was any aircraft I have ever seen. I will attach a picture that I drew immediately after I saw it.
July 23, 2020 · 9:30 PM · SPHERE
Kennewick, WA
My wife and I observed a military aircraft escorting a glowing orb south of Kennewick, ,Washington on a date and time given. The military aircraft was following behind the object and continued the escort until it was out of sight. It approached us from the south from the direction of the Boardman bombing Range in Oregon and headed in a north easterly direction. The aircraft had clearly visible aircraft navigation lighting. The glowing orb that it was escorting had no such lighting. I am fairly certain it was a military aircraft because I could not find it on my phone app that tracks commercial aircraft. Typically, military aircraft do not show up. However, commercial aviation and general aviation aircraft do show up on that app.
May 17, 2020 · 9:53 PM · SPHERE
Kennewick, WA
On Sunday May 17, 2020 at 9:53 pm, I saw a red sphere in the sky. It was silent, and the red sphere light seemed to pulse. It moved westerly and my visual ended when it went below the roofline of the shop in my neighbors’ backyard. Initially I thought it was the planet Mars, just particularly brilliant. But when I realized it was not stationary, I snapped a quick photo and then returned to the house to get my husband. We both returned to the backyard and it was moving and seemed closer to us and moved westerly. It appeared to have a whitish haze around the sphere that emanated about two times as wide (also circular habit seemed dimmer on the upper left side) as the red pulsing sphere and the aura lasted only a few seconds, then it returned to a solid pulsing red color (my husband saw it pulsing red and blue). I’m not even sure if I would call it solid. It soon was starting to go behind the large silver maple tree in my neighbors’ backyard so I walked! about 40 feet south so I could continue to keep a visual on it. I was able to capture several short videos on my iPhone and then it appeared to turn southerly and seemed to be moving away from us moving in a southwest direction and downward rather quickly. This whole experience lasted from 9:53-9:54 (21:53-21:54) before it moved out of my sight because a structure was blocking my view. I believe it was about 50° off the ground when I initially saw it and when I lost sight of it, it was about 25° off the ground. It appeared to be a bit larger than Mars is to the naked eye and I approximate it did appear to get a bit larger as it moved across the sky. There were few clouds in the sky mostly toward the north (none in the area that the object traveled) and there was no wind.
April 17, 2020 · 9:30 PM · OVAL
Kennewick, WA
Hey did you guys hear about strange white lights moving in formation? About 20min ago, tonight 9:45pm, I was in the backyard taking my rottweiler puppy out to go to the bathroom when I saw more than 10 small white lights (orb like)heading south in Kennewick, Wa. They were spaced apart in formation. Then were gone..couldnt track them. Got a picture. Couldnt get it on my phone for video....I dont know of any satellite that do that?
April 11, 2020 · 9:30 PM · CIRCLE
Kennewick, WA
Two star like objects quickly zipping across the sky. At first, they appeared to look like two shooting stars with no tails but they continue for several seconds. They appeared to be chasing each other. They quickly changed directions and almost disappeared but they then reappeared again, zipped around and finally were out of site. Moments later a flashing light from the same vicinity flashed several times (5 seconds between flashes). We thought maybe they were an airplane light but they didn't change locations. It flashed about 5 times and stopped. I am not an active follower of this page but wanted to report this as it was a peculiar incident.
March 12, 2020 · 9:30 AM · OTHER
Kennewick, WA
I've been trying to find any one who saw anything on this night