Light over Diamond Lake/Mt. Thielson, OR

The report, as filed

My wife and I were camping near Diamond lake, less than a mile from the northeastern shore. We had a great view of both Mt. Bailey and Mt. Thielson, and we were both up early to watch the sunrise. All the stars were fading with the morning light, and we were looking toward Mt. Thielson (where the sun would be rising) sometime close to 3:00 or 4:00 AM, when a bright light appeared, seemingly on, or appearing from behind the slopes of the mountain. At first we assumed it must be a car or some other snow vehicle, because it appeared to move along the surface of the mountain. But it's movements became too fast and irregular, and the light itself seemed too bright to be headlights or anything similar. The light moved halfway up and down the mountain line, and then, began to lift off (or rise higher from behind the slopes) and slowly rose up into the sky, shifting in very small motions from side to side, or perhaps in small spirals. The light, which at first was ! brighter than a regular star began to shrink or dim, and it's movements became less and less apparent. It finally died out, obscured by the sunlight and high above the point it first appeared, maybe three hours later.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #134762). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.