by Dennis Box

Journal Corespondent

Jan. 15 began as a typical evening in Friday Harbor for Jim Dunn. He and his wife were driving north on Mullis Street planning to attend a lecture at the University of Washington Laboratories on salmon migration.

At about 6:15 p.m. Dunn noticed three orange lights in the sky. He thought a plane was making a “very low approach” to land at the airport, which he thought was odd. He next assumed the lights must be a helicopter, but there was something weird about the movements.

Dunn said he stopped his car and pulled over by Browne’s Home Center to watch the lights.

“It was three orange lights moving independently,” Dunn said. “At first I rationalized it was a drone, but they were moving too rapidly for a drone.”

He said the lights traveled roughly west above Spring Street as if coming from the harbor.

Dunn, a retired architect who has lived on San Juan Island since 2000, said it was the first time he saw something that could be considered a UFO.

The next day he contacted air traffic control at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. The controller told Dunn he would check the radar tapes. There was a helicopter listed as being in the area, but it was 45 minutes after the sighting, Dunn said.

Dunn next filed the following report Jan. 17 with the National UFO Reporting Center:

“I stopped our car so we could watch since the lights were starting to bob up and down. I said they had to be helicopters. But then they almost appeared to be going down behind the buildings in town. They stopped getting closer and suddenly started climbing at a very high speed headed back northwest. They grew dimmer and one at a time, blinked out and were gone. The whole duration of this sighting was about two minutes. I kept trying to find an explanation for what we were seeing. I wish I had immediately reached for my iPhone to get a video. I knew they were unconventional aircraft since they didn’t have red and green navigation lights. Then the erratic flight and changing speed ruled out any aircraft I have ever seen. My wife and I are both private pilots and have flown into the Friday Harbor airport hundreds of times.”

Dunn was contacted by Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center. He suggested contacting media outlets to see if other witnesses might come forward.

“The information they have might permit triangulation on the object, which would allow calculation of how far away from you it (was), and what its size was,” Davenport said.

Dunn said he did an Internet search and found similar descriptions of sightings, but not exactly what he had seen. He considered it may be a military craft, but if it was the type of drone he is familiar with it would have taken “three separate people to fly it.”

He estimated when the lights moved west and disappeared behind the trees it was traveling more than 100 mph.

“These lights were completely disjoined,” Dunn said. “It was inexplicable.”

If anyone saw the lights on Jan. 15 between 6:15 and 6:30 p.m. contact the Journal ateditor@sanjuanjounal.com.