NUFORC Sighting 79651

Occurred: 1996-03-15 01:30 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2011-01-12 12:29 Pacific
Duration: approx. 2 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Cotati, CA, USA

Shape: Orb
Characteristics: Changed Color, Electrical or magnetic effects

Small, clear orb that floated up the hood of our car and up the window without changing shape or being affected by engine heat.

This happening took place in 1996, in a small town called Cotati, which is located in Sonoma County, California. It is a small, very liberal and Utopian township that is very close to Sonoma State University, the university I graduated from.

I had just finished playing a gig what was then called the Inn of the Beginning, and my friend Mark was giving me a ride home. It was pretty late, at least 1am I'd say; very few cars on the road, no businesses open except a few bars beginning to close down. We got into Mark's Honda Civic and began to head down Main Street, toward the Highway 101 on ramp toward Santa Rosa. I specifically remember that we were right by the gas station that is across the street from Backdoor Records (for those of you who might be familiar with Cotati). I remember seeing just one car on the road, and it was pulling out from the gas station and onto the road, about 200 feet in front of us. It was a big, old American car, something like a Chevy Nova, early 1970s model. In other words, nothing special about the car, and I did happen to get a very good look at it. I have a fairly visual memory and can usually remember physical details of images I see very well. Anyway, the relevance of the car is ju! st to show that it was the only car on the road and it didn't look like any kind of government vehicle. Of course, that means nothing right? hahaha Onward with the story. Not more than a few seconds later at best guess, everything seemed to just stop. I saw an orb, perfectly circular in shape. I will now separate each of the details of what I saw, so that nothing gets lost: - It appeared to be about 12-14 inches wide, or I guess had a circumference of about 20-30 inches or so.

It was very similar in color and design to that of a giant soap bubble. If you have ever messed around with one of those big giant soap bubble toys, you know what I mean. It even had what looked like the oily pinkish color displays that a soap bubble typically has. [see the top for a picture of what I am thinking] - Unlike a soap bubble though, this thing did not move in the air like blob, slowly morphing its shape as a result of the shifting wind and heat. This thing was absolutely solidly round, perfectly round. It did not change shape at all.

There did not appear to be anything inside of it, like some kind of motor, or anything else you can imagine. It was basically see through I think, but yet we were not looking through it. I'll explain that in a minute.

Here is what actually took place, once Mark and I saw the bubble. To lay out the basics of the event, it is important to say that Mark and I did not compare notes on what we saw until after we saw it. In other words, we did not say to one another "are you seeing what I'm seeing?" We didn't talk to each other until after the entire event was over. And here's how the event took place from my personal perspective, and what I later found out to be essentially the same experience had by Mark: Just when I started to look at the bubble - or whatever the hell is was - and actually take notice of its characteristics on a more precise level, time seemed to stop.

I know it sounds weird, but it was like I lost all sense of time, motion, location, etc. ALL I COULD DO WAS STARE AT THE IMAGE. That said, it was not like I felt as though I was being forced to stare at the image. Instead, it was like I had no desire to do anything but stare at the image, making no judgments or even taking the initiative to think to myself what it might be.

As I stared intently at the image, it very slowly and what seemed to be deliberately, began to move up the hood of the car. It moved as straight as an arrow and even kept what appeared to be an exact distance away from the metal of the hood, hovering no more than 2 inches off the metal! At this point, I was still not making any judgments about the object, nor wondering about it or anything. All I did was watch it, very calmly, following its slow movement with my eyes more intently than I remember ever watching anything else in my life.

The orb continued to move up the hood of the car, coming closer to the windshield. When it reached the top of the hood, where the windshield meets the metal, it simply changed course and moved up the windshield in exactly the same manner it moved up the hood. That is, it moved right up the middle of the windshield, literally bisecting its width, and still at about 1-2 inches above the glass. It moved at the same speed and trajectory over the glass as it did over the metal.

Just as with the rest of the time the orb was in site, I simply watched intently with my eyes. Suddenly, the orb was gone, or at least it had gone up the window, past the view of our eyes. I remember looking out the back window to see if it was going to come down the window in the same way it came up the front window, but it was nowhere in site.

Now, here's where it all gets a little freaky. When I realized that the orb was no longer in site, I looked over at Mark and then to the road. The car was simply cruising at the minimum speed, at whatever speed it moves when you put it in DRIVE and don't press the accelerator. Mark's foot was off the pedal even. There were still no cars on the road, and nothing around us had seemed to change. The car in front of us, the Nova or whatever it was, had gone. So obviously we were cruising long enough for that car to get on the freeway via the ramp that was now about 100 feet in front of us.

I looked over at Mark and said something to the effect of, "Did you see that thing?" We began to compare notes. Both of us saw exactly the same thing, moving in exactly the same way. Here's the crazy part: BOTH OF US LOST TOTAL SENSE OF TIME. NEITHER OF US HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY MINUTES HAD GONE BY WHILE WE WATCHED THIS THING MOVE ALONG THE CAR. We looked at the clock, and we both estimated that at least four or five minutes, maybe as many as 9 minutes had passed. Point is, we were totally unaware of time, place and movement while that thing was in our sights.




NUFORC Note:

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


Posted 2011-01-31

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