This is an edited journal entry from August 1993 by your Oregon MUFON Assistant State Director, Keith Rowell.
UFO Type: Gyrating, indistinct, orangeish/greenish(?), amorphous object
Sighting Duration: About 15 to 20 seconds
Date: 8/5/93
Time: About 9:30 PM
Place: West Linn, Oregon
Witnesses: Keith Rowell, Allan Rowell
My brother arrived from Albuquerque tonight (8/5/93) and we spent much of the time talking on the deck. At around 9 PM, I saw, while looking in the SE direction, a 20 degree or so long streak of orangish light lasting around a second or two. My brother did not see this streak. It moved in essentially a straight path from NW to SE direction and disappeared behind the large oak adjoining our property in the back. The streak squiggled slightly at the end just before I lost sight of it. Thinking this was a meteor, I found my Golden Book Sky Guide and read up on the Perseids, which are near in time, but their peak is on August 12. This was probably a meteor, but the second sighting was something else!
Around a half hour or so later, after I had moved my chair around to face the north since that is the radiant (point of origin) of the Perseids, I suddenly caught sight of a slow moving, vaguely luminous object. I pointed this out quickly to my brother who also then saw it. The whole sighting lasted around 15 to 20 seconds. This UFO came from the NW and disappeared in the SE in an arc of about 30 to 35 degrees. I thought the object was orangeish or reddish, but my brother thought it was greenish.
It had no obvious running lights like airplanes, many of which we spotted during our four hours on the deck. As the mystery object moved along, my brother noted that when it was nearly overhead, it appeared to wobble in its path. He thought this wobbling was nearly smoothly periodic, but not quite. The frequency of this wobbling was felt to be around 5 times a second. I thought that I observed this also overhead, but was unsure, but then I got up and looked in the direction the object was going and then did observe some wobbling motion for a second or two toward the end of its path. At the very end, I observed that the object faded from view within a second or so. It did not disappear behind anything! Our closest guess about what this mystery object was is a heron. This is a big bird with a slow, steady flapping of wings when it flies. However, we both feel that does not quite fit here.
The weather was clear with moderate haze with a temperature of 75. There were no clouds.
