NUFORC Sighting 85317

Occurred: 1962-06-30 07:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2011-11-14 21:04 Pacific
Duration: 10 seconds
No of observers: 5

Location: Cadiz, CA, USA

Shape: Unknown

We saw a silver brushed sillhoutte about the size of a person floating about 1-2 ft above the ground with no features of any sort.

This statement is made to the best of my memory. It's about an incident that several friends and myself experienced when we were kids around the age of 11 - maybe 1962?. We lived in the Mojave Desert in a little town called Cadiz, California. This little town was a railroad living community where Santa Fe employees and their families resided. Santa Fe provided homes, water, and electricity. Most homes were cement type dwellings and a few corrugated metal garages were also built. The Santa Fe Depot and living community was approximately 1 mile West of our area, and Chambless was around 3 miles away located adjacent to Route 66. It was a great place to live.

People from both communities consisted of many races; Mexicans, Navajo, Hopi and Apache, Blacks and White people. Some workers were seasonal or transients while others remained on permanent status. I guess you would have considered us permanent. Those in the 1st to 8th grade attended Amboy School around 17 miles away and rode in a bus to school. We had quite a few kids living in the surrounding area that attended Amboy school. This above these grades would go to junior high and high school in Needles CA.

Often we would gather and play various games, cowboys and Indians, dodge ball, kick ball, and others, but on this particular night when we saw what we saw, I think we were playing Mexican Ring or Kick the can. I believe the moon was full because I seem to remember the darkness and light and shadows and the "thing" was partially lit by the moonlight because it was floating about 1 foot off the ground beside a salt tree near a fuel storage shed that was circular built from corrugated metal. Many years later I realized the best way to describe what the "thing" looks is a 500yrd Echo target used by USMC for marksmanship training. It's shape was close to the photo and had a brushed silver metallic look – not shinny. It may have been about 2/3 the size of a home entry door or a real person, width was a little less than a door. It did not move or make noise, it just floated in the air. I don't recall any distinguishing marks, just a dull silver look and of course not flat as this photo.

The building layout on the PDF may be a little off but I hope it gives a good perspective for my explanation.

We were playing between the bathrooms and showers, red area surrounding the pink area,. I think the game was either Mexican ring or kick the can, tag games. It was getting dark, mom came out and told us to call it a night.

As a group we always walked our two friends (oldest and younger brother) home after playing since their house was the furthest from the group of homes (blue line to foreman's). We were aware of a dog that sometimes got loose and bit people, he usually hung out in the area marked - we kept an eye out for him that evening. As a group we walked towards the fence and then along the fence to the foreman's house. I’m not sure who it was, but someone screamed "black dog," we all ran and somehow formed a single file and ran as fast as we could. The next day we realized it was actually some buried pieces of railroad ties that protected a gas or water line. The older brother was first, the younger second and I was 3rd and the rest were behind me. We were all glancing back and forth while running to see if the black dog was going to introduce himself, that's when I ran into the younger brother. I realized the younger brother had run into the older brother, of course it was! my turn and the others ran into me. The older brother moved quickly and had already taken many strides in the opposite direction. The younger brother was next and on his older brothers tail moving faster than I had ever seen him run, it was then when I saw what they were running from. I to ran in their direction but not as fast as they did. I recall I was curious but not scared.

I caught up with them inside and we went towards moms front door (red arrow). The others as I recall followed us but did not see a thing, they thought the back dog had gotten loose and ran away. At mom's house we explained what we had seen. Mom gave both brothers a pinch of salt to calm them down - not sure it worked at all. I recall Mom and Dad taking the two brothers home in a yellow Ford station wagon. They were scared half to death especially the older brother, I just thought it was cool. We talked about it the following day and I went to the site and checked the area for anything left behind or something unusual. I don't recall if any of the brothers came with me, they usually did, but I'm sure the older brother would not. The younger brother brought up an interesting point that I did not notice – while describing the thing to each other, he said it had what looked like a baby moon hub cap on its head. We all agreed it was like a silver silhouette of a pe! rson floating off the ground.

A few years ago around 2005, I saw the younger brother that I had not seen for many years at a family function, we talked about the incident and got some pretty good size goose bumps. Both brothers live in the Barstow CA area today; the other friends are no longer with us, most moved to the Navajo reservation and are deceased. We moved out of the desert to the big city of San Bernardino during this period due to dad's job with Santa Fe.

I had forgotten this event for many years and I'm not sure why I remembered. I'm now 59 years old, I know what I saw and want to share it with you because in the "I know what I saw" television program I saw a symbol that closely resembled the thing we saw that night. I have never ever see anything like this symbol in photos, magazines or television shows that even came close to resembling this item until I saw the program. I've tried to contact Mr. Fox the producer of "I Know what I saw" several times but he has not responded.

Cadiz is now gone and it is hard to tell where buildings were. It's sand and rocks now with a few small salt trees. I've visited the area on several occasions to see if I could discern anything - it's tough to figure the place settings today. But it sure was a brief but interesting event that several of us experienced years ago that we still remember.

NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD

Posted 2011-12-12