NUFORC Sighting 85884

Occurred: 2011-12-14 23:00 Local
Reported: 2011-12-16 11:54 Pacific
Duration: 4 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Berkeley, CA, USA

Shape: Cigar
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object

Fast moving craft in the Bay

Wednesday night after leaving a local Berkeley coffee shop, I headed (on-foot) down San Pablo Avenue towards Cedar Avenue just shortly before 11pm.

Suddenly, something prompted me to look up and to the right into the night sky (admittedly, this alone was odd because I rarely if ever look into the night sky and also because there was no sound triggered me to look).

Immediately I saw something moving fast, directly crossing into the moon’s glow. My first thought was that it was a meteor but before I could even complete that thought, it changed.

What I saw is difficult to explain. It was massive. Clearly looked like it had a cigar shaped body. And it was moving really fast. Faster than anything I’ve ever seen. And it was completely silent.

I’m terrible with distance but in terms of height, it was up not that high up and it was descending fast at a sharp angle.

Over the next few moments, my mind kept asking what type of craft is that? There were two red lights, lights, on its rear and it looked powerful.

Into entered into a cloud formation and disappeared.

I’m a writer; my entire education is in film. While I do believe in the UFO phenomena, that our universe must compliment life that is not only human, and that our ancestors possibly were visited and interfered with by beings from other places.

All of that said, I am a rational man. I want what I saw to be explainable within the framework of our scientific understanding while at the same time, if I trust my instincts and the awe, jaw-dropping moment this created, I can’t help but believe it was something else.

The entire time, all of four to five seconds, tops, I stood there asking myself ‘What ((deleted)) is that?’ I have seen shooting stars and meteors. While there is a chance that this was a meteor, it didn’t look like one. There was no streaks left in the sky, there was nothing protruding outward from this at all. Only two red lights, and this thing looked like it was firing towards earth.

Sadly, Berkeley is like most suburban neighborhoods where so few people walk the streets at night. Thus, when I turned around to see if anyone else just witnessed what I did, there was no one.

If it were a meteor, there seems to be no reporting from the science community. This would have made some impression because of its magnificence.

A friend found this discussion forum (http://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/ndio4/i_think_i_just_saw_a_meteor/) where a woman in San Jose speaks of seeing a meteor but then she says that it looked like a bottle rocket shooting towards earth. I think her mind is trying to make sense of what she witnessed, and seemingly we witnessed the same thing.

All I have. It was so brief and brilliantly impressive.

Posted 2011-12-17

© 2023 National UFO Reporting Center. All rights reserved. Use or reproduction within any application without written consent is prohibited.