NUFORC Sighting 32886

Occurred: 1999-01-23 21:30 Local
Reported: 2003-11-05 11:47 Pacific
Duration: uncertain
No of observers: 3

Location: Oakland, CA, USA

Shape: Cylinder
Characteristics: Lights on object, Changed Colo

My friends and I were approached directly by a cylindrical UFO from about three miles away to within 60ft of us, while driving.

Peter, I agree with your position regarding the submission of observations and incidents to a central point for all the obvious reasons. Please do not publish this report with my name....

I have several other incidents to report and will be happy to provide them as time allows.

It was good to speak with you regarding your concerns and I look forward to speaking with you again,

23Jan99, Oakland CA, Cylindrical UFO: I met ((male name deleted)) about 3 weeks before this sighting, below. I told him two nights before that I had seen UFOs, that I suspected there was more to it. I told him that, if he spent any time around me, he might see them, too.

((female name deleted)) has tolerated my focus on the UFO matter for the majority of our relationship. She was privy to conversations with my relatives about sightings that occurred earlier in my life so I had the semblance of credibility with her. She was also aware of my discussions with ((male name deleted)).

On January 23, 1999 myself, ((name deleted)), and ((female name deleted)) were Southbound on I-80 in Oakland, CA. I was in the front right hand seat, ((female)) was driving, and Ian was in the back. It was about 7:30 PM, dark with overcast above 4500ft. The lights and skyline of Oakland, CA were visible and reflecting light off of the overcast.

As we began the large curve leads past the Oakland Post Office I looked past ((female)) and pointed to the East and said "Now that’s unusual." Several miles away we could see a large yellow light over a white light. It was between the Oakland hills and us. We then made the curve at the Oakland Post Office and, at the point were the freeway begins to rise we again spotted the unusual light.

At this point it began to turn and changed to a cylindrical shape viewed broadside. It was emitting yellow light from its entire length. It was cylindrical but slightly tapered. There were no wings, no rotors, no thrust port and it was clearly not a blimp. On its underside, at each end were two very large white lights.

It was traveling end forward and perpendicular to our direction of travel - Southbound, from left to right us at a moderate rate of speed. It was about 3 miles away, perhaps further. On the front of the cylinder, above was a small, irregularly fluttering green light, on the front underside a small red irregularly fluttering light.

((female)), who was driving, exclaimed "Weird!." ((male)) was having some difficulty locating it. It was already obvious to me that it wasn’t anything conventional.

As we continued Southbound the object arrived at a point between us and the Oakland Federal buildings. At this time we began to make out details including four equally spaced vertical separations and a horizontal deck. Towards the leading end we could barely make out shapes. I am left with a distinct memory of this craft and crew framed against the background of the newly completed Oakland Federal Buildings. The craft must have passed with in 100yds of them as it continued to approach.

Suddenly, in a moment, faster than I could blink, the object leaped from the location near the Federal buildings and stopped about 60ft from our windshield. It covered perhaps two miles in a manner that should have killed anything living that might be inside.

At this point the I-80/880 freeway rises off the ground to about 75 feet, passes under the Highway 24 overpass and continues for at least a mile as a raised freeway. So our vantage point regarding what followed was from 40 to 75feet above the ground.

The entire side of the craft that was facing us was transparent. It was as if one half of the tube became transparent and the side facing away from us was opaque. It was emitting a very yellow light from its interior. Inside, it had a deck evenly dividing it in half, lengthwise. There seemed to be 5 evenly spaced vertical ribs against the opposite wall from the one we were looking through. The entire interior of the craft appeared to be visible. It seemed to be completely hollow, with no ‘engine compartment’, or any other furnishings. It had similar dimensions to a cardboard toilet paper tube. A width to length ratio of about 1 to 5.

I became aware of three shapes that were visible at the front end of it. The first was somewhat obscured by the large, white external light directly underneath. The other two were evenly spaced from the first. At this point I had a rush of adrenaline and my vision seemed to go telescopic. It was like this bizarre scene I was witnessing suddenly filled my entire field of vision. ((female)), who was driving, said "Are those ?" I blurted out "No!," before she could say what we both already knew- aliens. This is a scene I am not likely to ever forget. There was no mistake. These were not human beings.

At the front end of it, with their hands resting on a thin bar or table were three people. They seemed so similar that they looked like paper dolls. ((female)) and I could both could see them clearly. They were standing, you could see their legs below the bar or table, facing us. They were backlit by the yellow light and it was reflecting off the flat sides of their heads. They were staring right at us. The sensation was one of very focused attention.. The heads were oversized, their foreheads were about a third larger than that of a human being. The eyes were very large and dark and they have an occipital ridge, eyebrow, oriented like ours.. They seem to have narrow shoulders and hips and they have longer upper arm and upper leg bones than human beings. This gives them a sort of stretched appearance. They seemed to be about the same size as human beings, though I didn’t have reliable scale of comparison. The face is small, under the eyes but because of the backlighting I couldn’t see other details. It was one-step above a silhouette. Even so they were clearly not human beings.

I would like to try to describe the sensations running through us at this point. ((female)) was doing her best to maintain control of the car while being emotionally overwhelmed. Ian was counting down through the list of things the object was not. I felt like Bugs Bunny looks when he loses morale and his ears droop down over his shoulders. I slid down in the seat and made a conscious effort to stifle the fear that came with realizing that ‘it’ was happening again. The fear was along the lines of "I’ve studied hard to understand this, and based on what I feel about what I’ve already seen and what I have learned, I really wanna be somewhere else, anywhere else but here." I didn’t sense danger as much as I felt extreme self consciousness. The reality of the fantastic was scary. I have prepared myself for this type of thing, both as a martial artist and a UFO experiencer so the fear phase was very short-lived. I moved through it quickly and started observations.

I turned to ((female)) and asked her what time it was. She said "7:34." Then I rolled down my window and started really watching. She took confidence from my focus on observations and started watching closely herself.

We went below an overpass, the Highway 24/ I-880 overpass, and the craft intercepted us on the other side. It was less than its own length from our windshield. In other words, it was flying sideways from its original end-on orientation about 75 to 100 feet in front of our car. It was about 50 feet in the air.

At this point it had turned off its internal or deck lights. Now only the two large white lights located at each end of the craft and the small red and green lights were visible. Its interior was no longer visible. It was very difficult to see the structure behind the lights. It hovered for a long minute directly in front of the windshield before it slowly passed in front of us, as we did 65mph, maintaining the same distance from our car as it did so.

((male)), who was in the back and was just beginning to clearly view the craft hovering in front of our car began asking questions. "Rotors? A Chinook?" I rolled down the window. "No, no noise, too big, way too big.…" The light from the two fixtures on each end of the craft was shining through the window and casting the shadows of bugs from the windshield onto my hands. It lit up the inside of the car.

As I turned my attention from myself to the craft, I felt very 'altered.' My feeling about this is that it was a result of the adrenaline rush that had been occurring since this thing started. My sense of time went away. The experience took on a ‘slow motion’ quality. As the light poured through the window onto my hands I was aware of a long, still, silent moment. This sensation lasted until the craft began moving away. Nobody spoke as the craft began a second maneuver. I could hear everything around me. I was hyperaware. The fact the craft was soundless and was displaying other unusual qualities at such a close range contributed to the ‘weirdness’ of the moment. It left such a strong impression that even a year later it is on our minds daily.

With the window down and the object less than its own length from our car we could detect no sound. It was absolutely silent. There was no thruster ports or jet blast, no sense of anything at all holding it up. It seemed to move through the air like a fish through water. Silently. No hum, no vibration, no sound at all. It seemed to be very much under control and capable of very articulate maneuvers. All we could hear was the sound of tires on the road. Several of the cars around us slowed, we could hear the changes in tone of tires and motors. I assume they also saw the craft.

I distinctly had the internal mental impression of "Stop the car," but this is the last place in the entire state of CA that you would want to try and stop. ((male)) and ((female)) said they had the same sensation.

The light fixtures themselves must have been huge, I have yet to see any night time lamp in the entire Bay Area that big. The light itself was white to off-white in color. Maybe similar to sodium street lights with fixtures the size of Volkswagens. At the same time it wasn’t so bright you couldn’t look at it. It had a very busy quality. Almost static.

At one point I could estimate the craft spanned 8 lanes of freeway. It was about five times as long as it was wide, I’d guess 30 to 50ft wide and perhaps 140 to 200 feet long. It easily spanned eight lanes of freeway.

Even more bizarre was that at this point it was within a hundred yards of the Oakland Police station, no small building itself. It held its position directly in front of us as we did 65mph. It was now flying sideways or broadside to its original orientation about 75 to 100 feet from our windshield.

The craft then passed to my right, continuing to fly next to us in our direction of travel. The ‘back’ end swung away from us was now it was parallel to us, keeping its same close range on our right passenger side windows. It was now flying backwards with respect to its original orientation. I studied it carefully through my open window. I was alert, more so than in previous experiences.

It slowed over the Jack London Square area as we passed by it. I looked up through the open window and watched the ‘front’ end of this thing, its red and green lights fluttering on and off without rhythm, swing over our car.

Then it passed behind us, crossing back over the freeway and returning toward the East. As we drove away from it we could make out the very rectangular silhouette of a cylinder viewed side on. Susan began making comparisons between the length of the craft and the width of the buildings it was passing over.

The last we saw of it was a pair of lights above the radio repeaters in the Oakland hills, boosting at about a 45degree angle upward into the overcast..

I turned back to Ian and said, "That was ((deleted)) bizarre." Right in the middle of downtown Oakland in front of God and everybody.

I immediately began noting all conditions. Time, location, etc.. I distinctly heard cars around us slowing. Should have started noting license plates. There was a police helicopter hovering over Fruitvale avenue, in San Leandro with its spotlight on. It was perhaps four miles South of the craft as it headed upward and Eastward.

During its approach, the craft passed directly in front of several apartment complexes and office buildings as it approached. It passed by the Oakland Police station at less than 50 yards. When it left it was visible to more apartment complexes on the South side of the Oakland skyline.

Another detail concerns the appearance of the object once it had shutoff its internal lights. While it hovered in front of our car I noticed another unusual quality. There was overcast to 4500 feet, the ambient light of the city of Oakland was reflecting off of the clouds. I feel there should have been a visible silhouette of the object. There was not. Though it was obvious that the external lights of the craft were attached to the airframe, the object itself was not visible behind the lights. This bothered me, because it seemed unnatural. There was obviously something between the clouds and me. I was looking right at it, but I couldn’t see it. It is a very odd quality.

When it passed to my right, the island of Alameda was behind it. Directly across from Jack London square is about 1/3 of a mile of open water, then a marina, then a business park. There is very little light rising up from a very large area. Against this background, the object itself was visible.

When it began its turn to pass behind us, the underside of the object was clearly visible. It was only 30 to 40 feet over my head as I looked up through the open car window. The bottom was smooth, seamless with visible lateral striations that made it look similar to an aluminum thermos bottle. It was lit up by its own external lighting. When I looked back at it as it crossed over the high-rises and it returned to the East, I could clearly see the out line of a cylinder over its own lights.

The flight path of this craft was amazing. The side of the craft the people were looking out of remained facing us through the whole maneuver. The changes in direction and orientation appeared seamless. There was a sense of acceleration as it first approached and when it left us. There was no sense of ‘correcting’ maneuvers to maintain exact distances while changing direction and attitude. It approached to intersect directly in our path, then it was hovering in front of us at an even distance flying broadside to its original orientation. At no time did it wobble nor did it veer either closer or further away. It didn’t overshoot as it took its position in front of us. It moved with exact precision. The actual interception and turn might be considered a ground reference maneuver whereby a pilot picks a point of reference on the ground and flies as exact a course around it as possible. As weird as it sounds, our car seemed to be that point.

The entire experience lasted from about 7:30 to 7:37 plus or minus. It took about 6 minutes. The interception and turning maneuver itself lasted less than two minutes with the remainder taken in the approach and exit. The object was visible longer during its exit. We saw it travel laterally then directly approach us. We watched its entire exit, until it lifted into the overcast.

It is my opinion that I have seen this craft, or this class of craft on three occasions.

NUFORC Note:

This report is submitted by a person with considerable experience in the field of UFO research. We consider the source of the report to be highly credible. We express our gratitude with this individual for sharing the report with NUFORC. PD

Posted 2003-11-08