Portland Oregon: Triangular Craft Glides Over Downtown at Rooftop Altitude

At approximately 00:30 on 10 October 2009, a retired U.S. Army officer standing on the 15th-floor outdoor terrace of the restaurant Departure at the Nines Hotel in downtown Portland, Oregon, observed a large, flat, solid black triangular craft with rounded corners glide silently from west to east across the city skyline, then execute a 40-degree banking turn to the south, following the Willamette River corridor. The object flew approximately 50 feet above the downtown building rooftops at significant speed.

The craft displayed three gray lights on its underside; the witness's companion reported seeing five additional white lights between them. A faint heat-shimmer effect was visible above the gray lights, similar to road heat distortion. No sound was detected. The witness estimated the object's width at roughly 75 feet based on apparent angular size (approximately 7 inches at arm's length) and estimated distance of 500 feet to one mile. Total observation time was roughly 20 seconds.

The witness noted that his LASIK-corrected vision normally produces halos around all night lights — but the three gray lights on the object produced no such halos, unlike every other light source in the cityscape. A stranger's Canon PowerShot camera, which had been malfunctioning before the sighting, failed to capture the object and then resumed working afterward. MUFON conducted an on-site investigation on 22 October 2009, recording GPS bearings and compass data from the observation point.