Posted: July 20, 2009

Date of Sighting: July 15 (and 16), 2009
Time of Sighting: Around 9:35 PM PDT
Location of Sighting: Plains of Abraham Near Mt. St. Helens, Washington

Description: My friend C. and I planned an overnight backpacking trip to Mt. St. Helens on 7/15/2009 - 7/16/2009. We made camp at a base of a hill on the "Plains of Abraham". the temperature was around 75 degrees. The sky was perfect blue. A slight breeze of about 5-10 MPH was noted. After we had dinner around 7 PM we decided to go out onto the plain and explore some huge boulders near the base of St. Helens that were ejected out of the mountain during the 1980 eruption.

As we explored the fascinating flanks of the Volcano and the geology, we became aware that it was getting dark and started to head back to camp about 6 tenths of a mile away. As we approached camp, C. noticed a twinkling reddish orange light to the south that was low in the sky from our vantage point. C's first comment was that he thought it was a planet. I disputed this because there were no other stars in the sky at this point. The time was noted at 9:36 PM.

The light appeared to hover in the sky and at first move very slowly. From our position, we guessed it could not be more then 10 miles away in the direction of the Muddy River Lahar. It was difficult to judge distance as we were unable to determine the size of the object in the fading light of the evening.

Since we had been hearing and seeing helicopters and aircraft most of the day, we ruled out the possibility of this. We did see other aircraft in the sky, but they are easily discernible because of the flight characteristics, blinking tail lights and sound of the engines even from a great distance.

The object would seem to travel away from us because it grew smaller. I surmised that it was heading out over the forest. Then it dropped down below a ridge and disappeared. At that point we both thought that was odd and couldn't figure out what it might be. We went about getting night camp chores done, when all of the sudden roughly 15 minutes later it appeared in the sky again from nowhere. I witnessed it just appear and hover in the same spot in the middle of a ridge.

We then both saw it make jerky quick movements almost in a U turn pattern. It also would "Flare" to bright red, making it appear double in size or moving towards us rapidly. Then it would go back to the size and colors it was before, a kind of red, orange and white. This lasted for a bit, and then it moved off to the left and then again dropped down below the ridge and out of our site plain. At this point we were both fairly worked up over this and what it could be, but what followed really rattled our resolve.

At around 10:26 PM the red light just appeared again, faint at first then brighter, hovering in the same location as before and on occasion moving to the left and then drifting to the right slowly. Then it would make a rather quick U turn shaped movement. The light would again "flare" and then it went back to hovering. All of the sudden 2 white lights appeared some distance away to the right of the first object we had been watching. The 2 white lights moved closer to the red one. One white light stopped, but one kept going towards the main red one. The moving white light then turned orange-red and positioned itself directly over the first red light we had been watching. Then, the first light we had been watching descended slowly straight down and the light above it took its place on the horizon to where the previous light was. The other white light faded away. The new red light hovered there for a bit before it too disappeared down below the ridge. Time was around 10:50 PM. After that, as far as we know they never returned.

That is about as much detail as I can recall in writing, my friend C actually was writing down his observations in his hiking journal on the spot and would be more then happy to give you his contact information to maybe add more details.

Note: One of the witnesses made a lengthy description of his sighting. I at first thought the witnesses may have seen the planet Jupiter, but the two distinct sighting times would seem to rule out Jupiter or other explainable celestial phenomena. Given the description I am not sure what the witnesses saw.