


                              UFO Sighting Report
                             
Oak Harbor, Washington
                                January 28, 1988
                     
Principal Witness:  Jerry Lang, age 45
           MUFON Field Investigator:  
Don Olson, Bothell, Washington
      
      Narrative:
      
           I ma
rked the date down on the calendar.  On midnight of the 
      27th (or Thurs
day morning, January 28th) I was heading home down 
      my driveway when I saw these 4 lights off to the right of Ika 
      Island.  There was 3 oran
ge lights and a red light.  I saw the 
      lights to the right of the islan
d, over the mouth of the [North 
      Fork of the] Skagit River [near the to
wn of La Conner, 
      Washington].  I thought, well, the Indians fish in th
e river for 
      Steelhead--gillnetting--and I thought, it must be somebody 
was 
      missing and the Navy was out looking for them in a helicopter.  
      So I hopped out of the car 
and ran in the house and grabbed my 
      binoculars.
      
           I co
uld see it was no helicopter and I could have heard it 
      if it was becau
se the next night one came by, and I could hear 
      it from here to there.  
So then I put the spotting scope [45x] 
      on it and I couldn't see very g
ood with it because it was very 
      fuzzy.  I should have probably turned it down [it was set on the 
      highest power], but I didn't think a
bout it, you know.  So I 
      just grabbed my binoculars and started lookin
g and I thought, 
      well, maybe there are some houses there I don't know 
about, but 
      I knew there were no houses in that direction.
      
           
I watched for 10-15 minutes.  The orange lights got 
      brighter and dimme
r while the red light stayed pretty much the 
      same.  I thought, "well, that sure is odd", and I kept 
trying to 
      figure it out.  I could also see a little bit of white light 
out 
      of the bottom of it, like it was shining [a beam of light] 
      
down.  I sat here watching the lights and it never did move [the 
      witne
ss had the impression that all of the lights were part of 
      the same obj
ect].
      
           All of a sudden a "strobe light" flashed on top of the 
      thing.  Five to ten seconds later a single light appeared to the 
      
left.  Off to the left, where the little hill is in there, up 
      about ha
lf as high as Ika Island.  The light "just appeared".  I 
      didn't see it 
go over there, it just appeared there.
      
           It started getting b
righter and dimmer; it got real bright 
      and turned perfectly round, jus
t like a fish egg or a balloon, 
      and had a glow, a little halo all the way around it.  Then t
he 
      light got dimmer and started toward the ground and became more 
      
disk shaped as it went down [note:  the object could have 
      changed its 
orientation to the witness to "edge on" or the 
      change in shape could h
ave been the result of atmospheric 
      conditions].
      

      Page Two

      Oak Harbor, Washington
      UFO Report, January 28, 1988
      
      
           It went down to the ground.  I watched for another 5-10 
      
minutes, when two lights appeared, over the land, at about the 
      same he
ight in the sky, three-quarters the height of Ika 
      Island.  Both lights 
turned perfectly round like an orange ball, 
      with halos, then they star
ted down to the ground becoming disk 
      shaped about half way down to the 
ground.  One went clear to the 
      ground, the other I could see the light of in the treetops of a 

      bushy area.
      
           So they both disappeared from view.  Mea
nwhile that big 
      thing always stayed there on the right with the three 
orange 
      lights and one red light on it.  Another ten minutes or so went 

      by, while these lights on the one remaining object continued 
      ge
tting brighter and dimmer.  A strobe light flashed again, and 
      within 2
0-30 seconds started getting very bright--like the sun.  
      I could see th
e right end of the object illuminated by the 
      light, and it looked just 
like that [sketch, which shows half of 
      a small oval on top of half of 
a larger oval].  The light glowed 
      for maybe 30-40 seconds, and went ou
t.  As the light got dimmer, 
      there was a dull after-glow in the area, 
like the after-glow you 
      get from a TV screen after you turn off the set.
      
           I sat f
or another half hour watching it.  By this time it 
      was getting to be a
bout 1:50 a.m. and the dull-glowing light was 
      still there but it wasn'
t doing anything so I decided to go to 
      bed.  I set the alarm to go off 
at 3:00 a.m. to check on it.  I 
      woke up at 2:45 a.m. before the alarm 
went off and looked, and 
      it was gone.
      
           I had the feeling that when the strobe light went off and 
      five seconds later whe
n the other two lights appeared that 
      something came out of that big th
ing and went over there.  Maybe 
      when the strobe light flashed one more 
time they came off the 
      ground and went back in it or something.  I saw 
3 objects total, 
      and the one on the right was much bigger than the two 
on the 
      left.  They appeared to be round balls as big as hot-air 
      balloons, looking through t
he binoculars.  The distance across 
      [from Whidbey Island] to there is 
one and a half to two miles to 
      that flat area over the river there.  I 
knew there shouldn't be 
      any houses there.
      
           The next t
hing I thought was that maybe there was a fire up 
      on the foothills.  W
hen I got up the next morning the first 
      thing I did was use the spotting scope to look all over that 
      hillside and there hadn't been anythi
ng burning over there.
      
           So I called MacIndoe because I'd rea
d the newspaper article 
      about his sighting and that's what he said he 
saw--a round 
      orange ball, so what I saw must have been the same deal.
      


      Page Three
      Oak Harbor, Washington
      UFO Report, January 28, 
1988
      
      
           I've got an airplane up in Anacortes.  I'm a private 
      p
ilot.  Three to four days later I flew my plane from Anacortes 
      on a be
aring from my home right over the spot.  There are a few 
      little cabins 
there by the river and a couple of farms back in 
      there behind La Conne
r.  Other than that there is nothing in 
      there.
      
      
      Pre
liminary rating:
      
           Speiser Classification S4/P3
           Be
rliner Coefficient 2 (night object) x 1 (single witness)
                = 2.0

      
      Prepared by Don Olson & Donald A. Johnson


File: OAKHARBR.UFO  
6912-T
      03-APR-88
 Dir: 12  Sec: 1 - UFOlogy
From: Donald Johnson
 Acc: 
7

Whidbey Island UFO #2 1/28/88

(Download Read Quit ?): 
