I was visiting a friend Sunday, June 23, 2002 on a rooftop balcony at a
condo complex near 72 & Scott in Surrey.
I am a university-educated person with about 500 hours of my own flying
time. I enjoy observing the unusual weather we're having these days. I
also like watching aircraft, as I am an aviation buff.
The weather on Sunday June 23, 2002 at approximately 3 PM was worthy of
observation. There were fast scattered middle clouds moving from West to
East at our location - the clouds themselves were shaped like wispy Cirrus
but were at a much lower altitude, at approximately 8000 feet.
As I sat talking to my friend I also looked up occasionally to observe the
changing weather. I was surprised by a UFO sighting at approximately 3:05
- a disc (which I approximate to be 20-50 feet in diameter based on the
scale of a passing aircraft as I shall describe below) which appeared to
be solid, and shiny hovering at approximately my 1: 00 middle.
As per my diagram, the object entered a hazy stratus-type cloud by
accelerating into it, and climbing in a loop shape to the top inside
center of the cloud, at which point the object hovered again for about a
second. At this moment I uttered an expletive. The object then descended
rapidly out of the cloud, and upon exiting the cloud, continued a 'cruise
descent' to the West while accelerating at an unbelievable rate.
I was able to determine that the object was not a conventional aircraft
because of a) the shape. b) the 'performance envelope' it exhibited -
silent hover, silent acceleration and climb, very rapid maneuvering, and
unbelievable acceleration. It was all silent.
The total time of the sighting was between 7 - 10 seconds.
Within a few minutes of my sighting, a 747 flying its downwind left leg to
YVR flew past in the same airspace; I was therefore able to estimate the
size of the object with a familiar aircraft.
The weather changed significantly within the next forty minutes. A solid
layer of cloud formed, and the surface wind changed significantly from
light and gusty to heavy gusts. My host almost lost the rooftop umbrella
to a gust of wind.
