Just before the oldest daughter turned 18 we thought we would take one last family trip together, they would be moving on, and having kids of their own soon.

We thought Disney Land, Arizona, and Mexico would do the trick.  So, plans were made and off we went. The first night we made it from Portland, Oregon to Stockton, California. We were lucky enough to find a new hotel, with a new pool, and very few people staying there. The next day we made it to LA and our cheap hotel. The following morning, we were off to Disney Land. It would be a one-day whirlwind tour of all the rides and attractions. We had a great time, and by 6:30 that night we were on the road to Phoenix, Arizona. We arrived at my little sister, Jackie's house around midnight.  She showed us around the area for three days, and then it was off to Tucson, Arizona, where my oldest sister lived. We did the local area tour, Tombstone, Colossal Caves, and a day trip to the Mexican border town of Nogales.

 That night when we were back to Tucson from Nogales, we were all very tired, we watched TV, and both our girls went to bed early in the back yard where a tent was set up. It was about 9:30 P.M., when one of our daughters said to come outside, there was something weird flying around in the night sky. My wife went out to investigate, returning to say, "You’ve got to see this!" So, my sister and myself got up and went outside to check it out.

There they were five UFO’s flying outrageous maneuvers. The first one I saw was low on the horizon to the right, it shot diagonally up to the left upper part of the night sky, it was the fastest moving thing I have ever seen, like a missile, but it stopped on a dime, next to the other green glowing objects. The five of us watched them buzz about, stopping and making right angle turns.

I went through the house out to our van to get the binoculars and my wife’s coat. They were still there when I reached the backyard of my sister’s house. We took turns with the binoculars, and chattered loudly about what we were witnessing. The sighting lasted about 45 minutes.

They all left together, all at once, and we scanned the sky a bit longer, 'till we knew it was over. While watching these things, several airplanes passed through the sky, with their flashing beacons, and noise. They looked very slow compared to the UFO’s high above them. I would say the elevation was just below the stratosphere, and they were coming lower too. My sister’s husband had been drinking since we were in Mexico, and he was very upset over the noise we were making in his backyard; he went back into the house, refusing to watch the UFOs with us. He said they were bats or birds.

The next day we were on the road to Sacramento, California. This is where another one of my three sisters lived. As we flew down the highway, we often talked about the sighting the night before, it was very fresh in our memory, my daughters would talk about what they had seen, comparing their stories, along with Mom and Dad. I told a few people at work when I returned home, but the response was poor, and I quit talking about the incident, limiting the story to our family involved. My sister, who is a private pilot, had the same experience at work, and kept it to herself, but for months she went out into her backyard, and looking over the night sky, seeing nothing.

1998 The kids have moved out, hooked up with boyfriends, and husbands.

My wife and I go camping on a regular basis during the spring to fall  months. Mybe 10 trips a year, motor home camping.

I built a outdoor rolling bed frame for our back yard. On star viewing nights I would bring out cushions and two sleeping bags zipped together, with pillows and everything. The cat too.

When the space station flew over in 2001 you could get online to NASA J Tracker. It shows where the space station was across the US. When we were star watching we would go in the house and check the J tracker if we saw anything. The space station was the brightest thing in the sky. We watched the space station in late 1998 before we moved to the country in 2003. We know what it looks like.  Using the J tracker was a neat tool, no the space station is nowhere around. Real time tracking.

In 2003 we moved to the country. I started watching the sky instead of the campfire.

In 2002 We had three sittings while camping at the Washington coast. The next year we moved to the out of the city, to the country, and had a backyard fireplace, and great starry skies.

The summer of 2004 was great, six sightings, four in our backyard, and two while camping at the Washington coast. This was the "wow summer", with a very close sighting over our house.

A very large Chevron shaped object, brightly glowing, came in very close. It made a large loop in front of us, then a larger loop, and arced away fast.

Very cool, our hearts were pounding for a while. Very cool . . .

It's now Jan. 2005, it is warmer than normal, so we had a fire on Jan. 22nd.  It was 56 degrees. out that day. No luck this time, spring is coming, and we look forward to warm clear nights.

Sat. night 26th. of  Feb. 2005 at Rockaway, Oregon a long neon blue glowing object moving slowly by our left side; it was heading towards the ocean. I thought oh rats its gone, it turned sharply right and flew in front of us parallel to the coastline, then turned inland, smoothly arcing around to the right, to the right of us I expected to see it come out from behind the neighbor’s house but it vanished. It did not make a sound and was extremely fast when it arced to the right, 40 long and neon blue glowing and rounded on each end.

March; Thursday, the 10th. We saw the same shaped neon blue UFO pass by while watching for them in our country backyard. This one was the same shape, rounded on the ends, long, “hot dog” the same craft as the one at the coast a few weeks before. It was long, glowing, no sound. My wife saw it just a second before me, I looked up and caught it come from behind our small trees by the back deck. I only saw it for 3 seconds, my wife saw it for 6 seconds, and then it went behind the front pine tree, out of our sight.

March was a very warm month here, 12 days over 70 Degrees. We spent many nights out watching the night sky. While talking with our neighbor, we both saw a very bright light pass by our driveway pine tree, it was larger than the space station, and grew small, then vanished, not tracking the rest of the horizon like a plane or satellite would.

             

It’s April now, we will watch when they skies are clear.

August 4th. Bright beamer, large, flashed on and off very bright about 5 times, then gone.

August 2005. The summer has been slow in the skies. Aug. 14th. In our back yard I saw one long bluish glowing object appear, my wife saw it halfway into my sighting of it, it arched and turned smoothly to the left.

August 21st. Camping at the beach, I was looking at the stars and found the big dipper, I thought I saw a satellite passing by, but it disappeared after only moving a short distance in the sky. It was just below the big dipper and was parrel to the bottom of the big dipper.

At the beach my wife said they are going to be out tonight, and she was taking pictures at dusk by the lake, small moving orbs showed up. Some moving, 15 orbs in one frame, with one in the middle of the frame. It was moving upwards and bright. These orbs were in 5 pictures in a row. We took pictures the next two nights with no orbs.

Sept. 5th. Labor Day Sunday night, we had a campfire in our backyard. I saw a bright ball of light, a beamer. I thought it was a plane, but it had no blinking lights, and was very bright. It moved slowly across the sky, then started to dim, it was flying away. Then it was gone. This sighting only lasted about 5 seconds and covered only a fraction of the sky. My wife saw the object fly away and saw the sighting after I pointed the object out.

Cold winter of 2006, we did not go out much. Too cold.

April 22, 2006. We have had a few fires in our back yard fireplace now. Tonight, we saw the space station fly by. I went in the house to check the J-tracker, a NASA web page for satellites. It showed the space station going over Washington State. My wife went in, and I stayed with the fire a bit longer. I saw a very bright long tracking shooting star. About 10 minutes after the shooting star, I saw a bright light appear in the center of the sky, it tracked slow, and then went very dim and small, it got smaller, then vanished in mid sky.

May 13, 2006. On a warm Saturday night, we had a fire in our back yard. We saw several satellites. One unusual light tracking across the sky got very bright, then disappeared, then bright, then disappeared, then a very bright light appeared by the blinking out one, then got dim and disappeared. Very unusual.

2007

Slow sightings this summer. August  27th. in our back yard, my wife and I saw a very bright light that tracked like a satellite. It went a short distance across the sky, then disappeared. I saw two that night that tracked only a short distance then disappeared. Both of these lights were high in the sky, and not low close to the horizon, where distance and light make most satellites disappear. These were high in the sky, and very large and bright.

We have nicknamed them beamers, due to how bright and big they are. Some are about 2 times bigger than the space station, and some that are 3 times bigger than the space station, we are very familiar with the size of the space station, it is the biggest thing in the night sky other than the moon.

This was a slow year for us, the summer weather seems odd, nice during the week, and crappy on the weekend. Most of the sightings of lights in the evening sky were bright balls of light,  they would appear then dim, then get real small and disappear.

Sept. 6th, 2007, we had our granddaughter spend the night. Even though it was cold, I set up the 2 two people lounger to watch the stars in our back yard. We counted the satellites and saw 2 shooting starts. Then in the middle of the sky, a very bright ball of light appeared. Larger than the space station, which we see often. When the space station passes, we go in the house and look at NASA tracker system. Yep, that was the space station. This bright ball of light tracked across the sky like a satellite but was very large. Then it started getting smaller, and smaller and disappeared in the middle of the sky. We told our granddaughter it was one of god's angles just saying hello. We all saw it, and it was pretty cool.

Sept. was a good month for weather, but the weekends were cloudy. Not much action, just a few bright lights. We try to be clear about bright  lights, we know satellites can rotate and become bright, then dim. So, we watch for lights that disappear in the middle of the sky, satellites track all the way across the sky, until they hit the far horizon, this is when they can dim due to the atmosphere.

2008 Sick all summer, disabled bad back.

Mother’s Day 2009, Sunday the 10th. of May. In our back yard we were watching the sky. An object that looked like a satellite appeared in mid sky, I pointed it out to my wife, and suddenly it got very bright and increased in size. It was a crescent shape; it traveled a short distance and became small again. It tracked across the sky only a short distance and disappeared. The size of the object was very large, about 1/3 the size of the moon, or three times as big as the space station.

June, in our back the same type of what we call beamer came into to view. It was very bright, got bigger, tracked across the sky a short distance, then became smaller and smaller, vanishing in the middle of the sky. It did not track across the sky, like a satellite.

July 16, 2009. The temperature reached 92 degrees, so we went out in our backyard to watch the stars at about 11:00 PM. While I went into the house, my wife saw a large beamer appeared in the sky over our house. This is unusual because the sky is backlit by Portland city lights, and most satellites are hard to see because of the city lights some 8 miles away as the crow flies.

The object my wife saw was very large, tracked across the sky, then became small and vanished.

When I came out of the house my wife told me I missed one. We watched the stars that night for over an hour. A short time after I came back out, I saw a bright light to our left, I pointed it out to my wife, then it went real small, tracked a short distance and vanished in mid sky, nothing, gone. We giggled with delight, two in one night. This beamer type craft has been the type we have seen for the last 3 years.

I would like to see another long cigar shaped craft again, glowing with no noise. It has been several years since we have seen a craft down close and low. I still remember the two times, a week apart in our backyard, the low flying slow moving cigar shaped crafts, and the excitement that it brought to our hearts. This came craft was seen at our beach cabin that summer, it was on our left headed straight to the ocean, and it disappeared behind a sand dune. But it turned, and parallel the ocean in front of us, then turned to the right again, curving over our neighbor’s house. I expecting to see it come out from behind the neighbor’s house, but it was gone.

Sept.22nd. 2009

At the beach in our favorite campground, Cape Disappointment on the Washington coast. The night before we saw the space station flew over, it is the brightest light in the sky. On Tue. the 22 nd. we saw a very large round light in the sky, what I called a beamer. It was 5 times the size of the space station. It tracked a short distance and went behind the trees. It came out of the other side of the trees, and it was very small. It tracked across the sky and disappeared. My wife saw it first and was very excited.

Summer of 2010

The weather is getting bad, in June it rained all month. Other parts of the country have very hot temperatures.

July the weather suddenly came on, 5 days above 90 degrees. Watch the stars 4 or 5 times.

In mid-July we had a very bright light appear. it traveled a short distance then disappeared.

At the end of July, maybe the 30th. we saw two orange balls of light pulsating; it passed over and did not look like an airplane. It did have one blinking light that I saw when it had passed. I got up to view it further. It was still two balls of light, pulsing bright then dim, but not off, back, and forth. No sound was heard, and a plane fly over, crossing this things path.

Aug. 3 rd. 2010 I went out to veiw the stars. I was looking at a bright star when a bright round light apeared to the right of the star. It traveled slowly for a very short distance, then vanished.

It went in a straight line, not like a shooting star. My wife missed this one but came out after I saw the bright short ball of light. It was 2 times the size of the star, and brighter than the star.

I had a good clean view out this ball of light, and it tracked straight for about 3 sec. then gone.

The location in the sky was straight up.

We saw 3 shooting stars, and a few airplanes.

Cold and wet weather followed that fall, not any sky watching till spring. I will still go out on the deck, and pear up at the sky. On short looks, and back into the warm house.

It’s March 2011 now, I hope spring comes soon, last year the weather was bad from Feb. to July. One of the rainiest periods on record. The summer of 2010 was hot or cold, not much in between but the rain. We still went out a lot in August and Sept.

We have only seen a few beamers do far, my back is bad and I have to carry out three cushions and the sleeping bag and pillows to watch the night sky.

July 9th. 2011 my wife and I saw two beamers in a row. Both suddenly appeared, 4 times as bright as the space station. They appeared in mid sky, traveled a short distance, dimmed, and vanished. One came from the south, and the other came from the north. The second one appeared about 10 seconds after the first. his was a cool sighting.

Aug. 20th. two more beamers in one night.

Aug. 25th. Wow, we were out watching at 10:00 pm and saw the largest beamer that just appeared in mid sky. It was so bright, it tracked for 4 or 5 sec. then went off and became small, then it disappeared in mid sky also. We saw on satellite and several high-flying airplanes that night.