NUFORC Sighting 118176

Occurred: 2009-05-01 22:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2015-04-02 10:18 Pacific
Duration: 1 second
No of observers: 2

Location: Bakersfield, CA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object

My sighting was in Bakersfield, California. I was leaving work late one night with my girlfriend (at the time) and another friend—we worked in a performance theater, and had finished a show. It was around ten at night.

As we were preparing to get into the car, I happened to be facing the North-Western sky. My girlfriend also had a general view of that sector, but the other friend was distracted and looking elsewhere. The sighting lasted no more than a second.

Very suddenly, I see a light zoom over us in a north-westerly heading (I couldn’t discern any sense of a body—just a light as if from an afterburner). I judged its distance from its trajectory: it wasn’t travelling “across the sky” but very perceptibly forward. Also, the size of the light subtended the same amount of area as, say, a golf ball held at arm’s length (as it passed overhead). These observations together led me to believe that it was relatively close to the ground-at least within 500 - 1000 feet. That’s just the sense that I have, judging by how it moved across my field of view. I didn’t feel like it was very far above us (not as far as a helicopter would be, for example).

Its speed seemed notable: it appeared and disappeared within less than a second, which, given I had a clear line of sight for quite a distance, is remarkable.

The color of the light (or afterburner) was also notable: I remember it being not orange but a pale blue/green.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of this sighting was the sound—or lack of it. As it passed over us, I heard no sound. Not an engine, not even the sound of a body moving quickly through the air. Even a commercial airliner can be heard from the ground at some heights. Judging how close this seemed from its trajectory, I was so surprised that there was nothing. The night was as silent as before it appeared.

After the quick moment, I exclaimed to my friends. As hinted earlier, my girlfriend had also seen “something”, though my other friend had not been looking at the sky (and without a sound, there was no reason to look up). My girlfriend didn’t know what to think of what she had seen—she would only ever say that, sure, she had seen something—I think she was less willing to attribute the sighting to anything and more comfortable with shrugging her shoulders.

But I was surely confident that it was something extraordinary. It may well have been just an advanced aircraft tested by the military, but it was certainly something you wouldn’t reckon you’d ever see.

NUFORC Note:

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

Posted 2015-04-03