Changing over Lynnwood, WA

The report, as filed

This sighting was very much a spontaneous encounter on my part, and ended almost as quickly as it began. I was in my car, parked outside a strip mall next to a park, with a Taekwondo studio and Scuba Diving store in front of me. I had just dropped off a family member, and was reading a book for college while waiting in the vehicle for my family member to return in about an hour. A friend called me on my cell phone; I became distracted from reading, and so we talked for about five minutes before the beginning of the UFO encounter. I was casually looking outside at my surroundings without much attentiveness, when I spotted this apparent craft. I did not actually think it was an aircraft at all, at first. I was looking up at the dark/grayish clouds in front of me, and I glanced in the craft’s direction, thinking I had just seen a small dark break the clouds in my peripheral vision - as if I could see through to a darker cloud layer. I was not at all alarmed, nor did I suspect it was a flying object. I continued talking, and when I turned my attention to the area again maybe about 10 seconds later, I looked more closely, and noticed this was not a break in the clouds. Something was definitely there, well below the cloud layer. I knew very quickly it wasn’t a bird or plane, because it was hovering completely motionless in the air. My immediate assumption was that this was a helicopter, which is perfectly reasonable, as I see them fly by from time to time, even at this particular parking lot. I like to check out aircraft whenever I seen them, so I asked my friend to wait a moment while I sat up closer to my dashboard to focus in on the supposed helicopter. I saw it was smaller than a helicopter; it had no tail, no propeller blades or moving parts, and made no audible sound. It was unusually difficult to make out its shape. This may have been because of its size and the dark backdrop. But I stared at it for maybe about 20 seconds as it hovered there in the sky, absolutely motionless, expecting it to move. I was so surprised at how still it was, I even moved my head left to right, just to be sure I wasn’t somehow staring at a speck of dust on my windshield. I am pretty sure it had corners; it was not an oval or sphere exactly, but it seemed like it was maybe rounded slightly. I can’t say for absolute certain, like I said earlier, the shape was hard to make out - but if I had to guess, it was perhaps a cube or triangle with rounded edges. Very dark – basically black in color, and may have had a small gray or white marking on it, but I cannot say for certain as it could have been a reflection of the sky, if it was metallic. But from my angle at least, I would describe it as fairly dull; a matte black. In terms of size, I would say it was one to two meters across, and one-half to one meter in height. I was still on the phone, and began describing the object to my friend, who was listening closely, and became a little concerned for me. I did not feel threatened by it, but was very curious nonetheless. I sometimes keep a pair of binoculars in my glove compartment, and so I began quickly rummaging through papers, napkins, and tools I keep in there, while still keeping an eye on the object, only occasionally glancing into the glove compartment fo r a second or two. I had two plausible explanations in my mind; it was either a big balloon of some kind, or a drone, but I wanted to find out for certain. At the exact moment I thought that, it started to move slightly to the left, and then a second later bolted off at high speed, traveling backwards, away from me. It did not tilt, turn, or otherwise look like it had control surfaces or a propulsion system. I became upset it was leaving, and I could not find my binoculars. Still talking to my friend, I figured I took them out of the compartment a few months ago to bring on a boat trip, and forgot to return them. The craft left the location pretty fast; in about 15 seconds, it was a tiny little dot, and disappeared somewhere behind buildings or trees. I found it very unlikely to be a balloon because if it was, it probably would have been smaller and round, likely would have had a string or something attached to it, and would have been ascending at a constant rate, not to mention being bobbed and brushed by the wind - not sitting perfectly still in the air, before suddenly bursting off at a very high speed in basically one direction. It is hard to guess how high and far it was from my location with only a limited number of items for a point of reference, but I would say no more than a quarter mile from where I was parked. It was relatively low; my best guess, I would say between 6! 00 and 800 feet above the ground. When it moved, it began gently, and increased speed very quickly. I would approximate maybe 250 to 300 mph the last I saw it. Also note, there was a young man, maybe about 25, sitting in his car parked next to me, but he was facing the opposite direction and was staring at his phone, so I did not bother to ask if he had also seen the craft after it had left. As far as I could tell, we were the only two people in the parking lot capable of viewing the craft. Once the surprise and adrenaline rush had worn down, I resumed my conversation with my friend, speculating what it could have been. I regretted not taking a picture with my phone, but on the other hand, it probably would have been too small to turn up as anything more than a few pixels on the image anyway. I decided to take a picture at least of the sky conditions where the craft was, about five minutes after it left, to give some perspective as to how I saw it. The only plausible and conventional explanation I have was that it was a large, black, very fast moving drone, with long range wireless capabilities. This is a suburban area, so it was hovering and passing over small buildings, houses, and some forested areas. I have walked near the place where the craft was in the past, and I know there are some small fields and depressions in the ground, as well as a high school it most definitely would have passed over or near. I do not know how long it was hovering there prior, but I know it sat still for at least the minute or two that I saw it from when I first glanced it in the sky. For a craft that size and altitude, it should have had some light beacon to indicate its presence to other aircraft, and I would have expected it to be flatter with four or more distinguishable copter propellers if it was a drone. This craft did not possess any of those features as far as I could tell, but I would be willing to accept a drone as a conventional answer. I readily acknowledge that it is just an unidentified flying object. I am not necessarily trying so suggest this was some event so extraordinary that it exceeds all conventional reasoning, nor that it is of extraterrestrial or otherwise supernatural origin. It was certainly very odd though, and this is not the first instance in the time I have lived here that I have seen unusual or inexplicable aircraft. There was one other event that occurred on my thirteenth birthday when I was walking home from a store. I was on the top of a hill nearing my neighborhood next to a forested area with only a couple sleepy houses to my right side, when I spotted a silvery metal craft, oval in shape flying over the forest, completely silent, and traveling at similar heights and speeds to this one. Unlike the case I am presenting here, I do have a picture of the actual craft itself (albeit a poor resolution one) taken from my phone, and posted on Facebook. In the original image, the craft was too small to see without zooming in, but it was nevertheless in the image. I searched old data folders and even tried to revive the (now dead) phone I took the photo with to see if I could retrieve the original file, but unfortunately could not bring it back. In the Facebook photo of this so

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #135259). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.