Last week we got a letter about someone driving home late at night and seeing "a really weird vessel being towed into Elliott Bay." The letter writer described it as having a "big white orb on top, probably at least 10 stories tall. It was on top of a platform being tugged by a half dozen tug boats. It looked like a... I don't know, but alien invaders definitely came to mind."

Today for lunch I went to Pike Place Market and saw the thing with my own two orbs.

When I got back to the office, I called the port to ask about it.

"It's a sea-based radar system," according to Peter McGraw, the media officer for the seaport. "It can detect something as small as a baseball from 2,500 miles away."

Here's a fact-sheet for the Sea-Based X-Band Radar. McGraw added that the Seattle Times and the PI (first sentence: "It looks a little like the Death Star, but without the planet-destroying laser...") and a few TV stations covered its arrival, and explained, "It's getting some maintenance and a couple of additions."

Like extra alien pods?

"No, it's going to be able to be shore-power capable so it doesnt have to use its engines when its in port. It does use low-sulfur dieseal while on port."

Does the port have any information about alien invasions it can share?

"You know, I don't," McGraw said. "There hasn't been any that I know of."