Unspecified over Portland, OR

The report, as filed

Early morning (from approx 12:45am -1:45am intermittently) New Years Day, 2017, I witnessed an unexplainable series of light events, in the sky of NE Portland, Oregon. And then, something on the tarmac of the Portland International Airport. This all began at approx 12:45am. I was standing on the sidewalk with a friend, in a cul de sac on NE 14th Place, near Killingsworth St. There was a set of 2 & 3 story houses and store type buildings immediately to the North of us, and while my friend and I were chatting and wrapping up a social evening for New Years. Notably, it was a very low key night, my friend doesn’t drink, and I’d had just one light beer, well before midnite… So, as we were chatting, and I was about to get into my car and head home, we noticed that a very odd light had been emanating intermittently, in approx 20-30 second sustained pulse outputs, from well behind the buildings to our North…but spraying the sky with light over us. We also noticed a distant “bzzzzzz bzzzzzz bzzzzzz” electrical energy sound that accompanied the sustained light bursts. At first, I didn’t think much of the light flashes. Neither of us did apparently, because we continued talking through the first 2 or 3 of them… Additionally to note: it had been very cold those few days. And I believe that high winds/heavy rains had been in the forecast. I don’t remember the specifics at this time of the forecast that night… But I do recall, that the conditions were that which can lead to the occasional power surge/exploding transformer, because I remember power outages due to the weather of the night, being a concern in general… along with fallen trees and such. My friend who was a former electrical engineer with Intel, years prior to this time, and who was now a leading advisor/consultant on state and federal energy efficiency for government agencies, began to find the situation as odd as I did. We agreed to move ourselves quickly, a few hundred feet, to the end of the street to see if we could catch a better view of these lights, in what would next be, the fifth or sixth 30 second sustained pulse of light and sound… Another odd aspect of this “light show” was that the lights that were constant for the 20-30secs, yet pulsing in intensity, and sometimes “beaming” in a broad spray of faintly focused beams —they were also changing faint colors during the burst, pulsing reds, greens, blues… all of this detail happened faintly, but distinctly enough to be recognizable as separate colors… these bursts and broad beams were also fanning out of the north east direction to our location… from where we were located, and my guessing/calculations of the height of the light and the brightness, combined with my lifelong familiarity of the area… led me to estimate, that if I had to make a guess of the origin point, I would estimate that the light was coming from somewhere between us, and the Portland International Airport. My friend recognizing the lateness and his lesser curiosity to find the source —agreed that the whole event was very odd, but that he was calling it a night. I told him that I was going to investigate this further on my way home… that I would watch the sky, head into the direction that I believed the lights might be originating from, and see what I could find. I didn’t know of any power station between us and the airport, but I was accepting of the idea that possibly there was one, and that maybe they were having some massive power surges at a local power station, and these sustained 20-30 second bursts of light and buzzing sounds of electrical energy, might be coming from something like that. Of course he said to “text” him, if I found anything. By approx. 1:15am, I had driven Northward through NE Portland, watching the sky and seeing nothing further… until I driven approx 4 miles by road (probably less than 2 miles as the crow flies) to a location along the Columbia River, parking myself at a high vantage point at the M. James Gleason Memorial Boat Ramp, which is situated and Western most point of the Portland International Airport… I sat there with my eyes intently scanning the horizon, looking back in the direction of NE Portland from where I’d just come… seeing if the event would occur again, back in that direction, or if it were to occur again, would it now be behind me further to the North? Or what? I texted my friend, told him where I was parked… and that I’d seen nothing yet. If anything changed, I’d let him know in the morning. (He was not a late night guy really, so I wanted to check-in and alleviate any concerns he might have for me, still being out…) Then, at approximately 1:40am —a brilliant green burst of light flashed on what I estimated to be Rocky Butte. Which is basically one of a half dozen elevated hilltop/mounds around the Portland area. These small hills resemble Lava Cones in Central Oregon… They might be big enough to top out 400-600 ft above the average ground level around Portland, and they might host 50-100 homes and acres on them, give or take… My point being, these large ground mounds are elevated enough, that from my vantage point, Rocky Butte was positioned just South Easterly, approx 3-4 miles (as the crow flies) from my location, and I was looking almost directly OVER the Portland Airport, at this new light burst, mid way up Rocky Butte… Now, I’m no expert on exploding transformers, but THIS event, was much more like what I would have expected an exploding transformer to be, as I had seen an alleged transformer explode once or twice in my past, and seen the light in the sky, followed by a power outage… But this was in stark contrast to what we had seen earlier. This particular burst as I said, was bright green. It was a flash of bright light, similar to looking at an arc welder (which I know you shouldn’t look at) but my point is that it had a distinct light source at it’s core that was very bright (like an explosion) and it was strong flash of green light, maybe lasting as much as five seconds…but definitely not longer. This light event did NOT seem extraordinary, BUT, it made me feel like my waiting had paid off, as I had been sitting there almost 30min waiting for SOMETHING to happen… But this felt like a more mundane event, than what we had witnessed earlier. I decided to wait another 5 mins and see what might happen. Then just a few mins later ——— wow. Just wow. I’d like to note here, Portland International Airport is home to an Air National Guard squadron (my father flew F102’s out of that base in the 60’s), and it’s also home to some of the top US Air Force Pararescuemen and Combat Controllers in the country. I had spent a few years working in the special operations community and I had the honor of working with these local guys a little bit over the years, and becoming familiar with the base itself. The next “light event” occurred what I estimated at the time, right outside the hangars of the USANG area… granted I was probably at least a mile away, but what I saw was incredible! A VERY bright green light began to emanate from this point on the base, it got brighter and bigger and sustained itself between approximately 60-75 seconds, an eternity it felt at the time! This light had something of green diamond shape to it’s light formation when it had reached full intensity after about 10-15 seconds… I could not believe my eyes… I was running through rational explanations in my head: “it's not an explosion, because it’s sustaining itself… it’s not some search light…because…I’ve never seen ANYTHING like it, and it’s just emanating light, it’s not searching or moving!” And then, after approx 60-75 seconds… a green beam of light shot straight up into the sky! like a laser… I can’t explain it, beyond associating it to something you see in the movies… after a few seconds of this sustained green laser beam, directed straight up, I don’t know how far… the burst flashed OUT with an intensity that I can’t really desc

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #136816). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.