SIGHTING: PORTLAND, OREGON (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"I'm a mufon field investigator in oregon. on feb 10 2020 at 8:18pm, i received a call from my two co-witnesses who were seeing an unusual white/amber orb in the distance behind their house near the hillsdale neighborhood in portland. i asked them several questions about it while on the phone (detail shared below). they noticed a flash of blue and red light to the sides of the orb. but those colors did not appear again. it hovered for about 20 minutes then moved in a westerly direction. given the slow-moving nature of the sighting i drove to their house to see it myself. (photo 2 from an iphone xs) my car travel took about 15 minutes. i watched until the orb-like object was out of sight in the distance. night was clear with many stars in the sky, even with binoculars it was impossible to see other features to identify the object. before i arrived, one witness saw a cloud pass in front of the object while watching, with binoculars. below i suggest why it was not a helecopter, drone, or paper lantern -- although it looked like a lantern. they must have been far away since i was unable to steady the binoculars enough to get a solid look at it. but against a clear night sky, ascertaining distance was very difficult. i'd guess a mile away, but that's a pure estimate. about 15 minutes after the first sighting ended, two more objects of the same physical/visible characteristics appeared in the se sky. (see photo 1 of two lights - above the house, between trees) first saw the objects out the kitchen window, and then stepped outside to get a better look. i witnessed a blue/red flash from one of the objects as i looked out the window. but when outside, the glowing objects only looked white/amber with some pulsing of the light. hard to tell if the pulsing of the light was generated, or just light refraction. both objects were fairly close to the horizon. like the object seen earlier, there was no noise at all. the two objects moved independently. one moved left while the other hovered. then the second orb also moved left. we watched until we lost sight of them behind trees. i have phone video of these two objects in motion. sightinings ended about 9:15pm we did try to take digital slr photos with a nikon camera for better resolution, but apparently there was not enough battery life -- and sadly, the photos were not saved to the memory card the next night, two of the witness saw a similar light. however, they were not able to gather any info beyond what was seen the previous night. theories of what we saw are below. however none fully fit the observed combination of object shape, flight characteristics (including stationary hover), color, silence, and path of movement in the sky. celestial bodies? no. the witnessed lights were relatively low on the horizon and with a somewhat amber/white color except for one with quick flashes of red and blue light. like a police car color lights, except airborne. clear night and we could see stars as normal. not a meteor given hovering and slow movement. there was some refraction making stars "twinkle" that night against a clear sky, but these moving orbs were not stars or planets. the blue and red lights we saw on one were very evident during their short appearance. those were not a subtle refraction. satellites or the iss? no. ive sen many in the past. neither of these explain the hovering / slow moving motion of the orbs paper lanterns? unlikely. 1) the lights did glow and pulse like a lantern. however, each orb moved independently. when we watched a pair of them during the second part of our sighting, one was stationary while the other moved to the left. eventually, the second light followed the first. 2) could not have two objects moving in different directions if they were wind-propelled helecopters? plausible, but unlikely. the objects hovered then moved slowly as a helicopter can. however: 1) the objects were silent. was very quiet in the neighborhood. by contrast, i did hear the prop engines of a small plane as it flew over the neighborhood that night. i also heard a passenger jet's engines as it flew over too. that jet was high enough to leave a con trail. 2) one orb was stationary for about 20 minutes before moving slowly out of sight. i've never seen a helicopter stay in one place that long. 3) i called the army national guard, air national guard, kgw news, and the police station. none had choppers flying on the evening of feb 10. 4) one witness -- observing the flightradar app for iphone -- saw no helecopters noted in the sky at the time of the sighting. however some private and commercial planes were. toy/piloted drones? plausible, but unlikely. 1) more of an orb shape. 2) one was airborne for about 45 minutes total, and stationary for about 20 of them. not sure if many drones have that long battery life. 3) they all looked alike, yet one was in very different part of the sky than the other two. three identical drones coordinated to fly in different parts of the area seems very unlikely. 4) no noise at all. i welcome other theories, but i can't think of one that expains the sum of our observations. 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