NUFORC Sighting 88636

Occurred: 1966-11-15 19:40 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2012-04-24 15:20 Pacific
Duration: 10 seconds
No of observers: 3

Location: Huntington Beach, CA, USA

Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Lights on object

Ring of blue lights approx 200 in diameter slowly flying cross night sky at 500 feet in 1966

Some background on me in 1966: This happened in 1966 when I was 10 years old. My father was a professional pilot and owns his own small plane so I grew up around aircraft and airports. Also, nearby our home was a spot called Mile Square where the Marine pilots practiced in Helicopters prior to deployment to Vietnam so I can say I saw all kinds of Hellos daily. Living in Southern California, Fountain Valley, if you didn’t see the Good Year Blimp at least once a week It was only because you never look up. I am now 55 and retired from a fulfilling career in aviation and have seen a lot of things but nothing like what I saw when I was 10 and I would like to share this long kept sighting.

The Event: It was early November 1966 a Friday night my parents are out to dinner and my big sister wants me to ride to the store with her, I check the time it’s 7:20 pm, I tell her sure but we need to be back in time for a TV show I want to watch at 8, ok. We leave and arrive at Savon Drug Store on Brookhurst and Adams in Huntington Bch. Ca. As we are pulling into the parking area its dark out and they have one of these old WWII Spotlights with its own generator on a trailer sweeping the night sky back and forth. My Sister parks the car 2 isles back from the front door and I start to sweat the time, it’s now 7:40 and my show starts at 8.

We get out of the car and start to walk to the front door of Savon and for some reason I decide I want to turn around and see if the spot light is shining on anything and what I saw was nothing less than amazing! just outside of the beam in the sky was this large circle of blue lights coming our way and very low and slow. I jumped up and down and quote yelled “LOOK AT THAT THING, LOOK AT IT!” I just could not believe I was actually seeing what I was seeing, I glanced to my Sister and she was just walking away and a few other people maybe 7 of them nearby were just walking ahead looking straight forward, I yelled out again, now the lights were right beside me, I guess it was at about 500 feet altitude and about 200 feet across in size judging from how big the parking lot is and how low it was over it. I was just at its port edge now as it slowly and quietly cruised by at what I estimated to be maybe 40mph. One last scream to the people and my sister “LOOK AT THIS THING!” and no one was in my area anyway now only me. As it was passing beside me I heard this very low low continues metallic gong sound, it lasted about 5 seconds then the craft was gone from sight and weird now I could hear the spot light generator running again. My sister was waiting for me at the front door and I ran up to her and said did you see it? Di! d you look at it? and she said look at what? I said the UFO li! ghts! ev erybody around was staring at us now and my sister promptly told me to quit embarrassing her. SO I hushed up at least until we got back into the car and then I gave her the full description of what a once in a lifetime sight she missed and it went like this.

Description of the Craft: Now my view of the craft was from the ground looking up so I can only describe the bottom of it as it went by and it went by very slow maybe 40mph and altitude of approximately 500 feet and the port edge was almost directly above me as it passed by from my right to left (or headed East). The craft was a round circle of evenly spaced blue lights; maybe 24 to 30 of them which made it look to be about 200 feet across in size. As it came closer I noticed 2 pairs of red lights 180 degrees across from each other slowly rotating just outside of the blue lights counter clockwise at maybe 30 rpm. I was looking hard to see or hear a helicopter or blimp that thing was hanging from but there wasn’t and it was completely stable. As it came directly in front of me it was only then that I could see there was a body to this thing, it was extremely hard to see even with the blue lights around it. The color was a charcoal black thinly streaked by a storm cloud gray color. The center/middle b! ottom came down in a concave arc maybe 20 feet across and possibly 20 feet lower than the blue lights on the edge. At this point I was fascinated by the clarity and beauty of the blue lights, they were so bright yet they gave out no glow and projected no beam, they appeared to be behind faceted lenses. Then there was the pair of 2 red lights rotating. They appeared to be on white colored very short winglets or tabs and were rotating just outside the blue lights and slightly higher and brighter. Other than color they were the same size and brilliance as the blue lights, I estimate the diameter of all the lights to be 2-3 feet. Then as it came beside me there was the barely audible metallic gong sound humming and lasted till it disappeared from my sight beyond the roof tops. And that is what I saw and heard as clear as clear is, it was a fascinating sight that I can still visualize like it happen last week, must be true what is said about how some things can make a lasting ! impressions.

Sighting Confirmation! I will tell you that weekend around my family was not a highlight for me. When I got up Saturday morning everyone had heard my story from my sister and were ready to have fun with me and did, all except my Dad, he just gave me a one eyebrow raised high expression when I told him about it. So I learned real quick this was a sighting that I would not share with many.

It’s now Monday and my sister comes home from her job around 5:20 pm. She comes up to me with a serious look and tells me she heard something at work I might be interested in knowing? I feel a setup coming on but say sure! She tells me her coworker told her of a story her Dad and Brother shared when they returned home late Sunday excited with this story of what they saw while they were out camping. They describe the exact same thing I saw to a Tee! but my sister says that’s not the only interesting thing, they were camping in a remote area of the mountains that is located about 300 miles from where I was when I saw it, she said they had checked their time and they saw it at 7:50, 9 minutes after I saw it 300 miles away ! YES! I did ask my sister if she was just trying to make me feel better and making this up. She said absolutely not! And for the next 45 years she never doubted this sighting again.

Hindsight from 45 years later: I’m really amazed that this craft was able to cruse right over the most densely populated area of Southern California and it didn’t make headlines but it was very stealth. The shape lends itself to electronic stealth, and if the blue lights were not on I never would have noticed it because the color blended into the night sky so well. I think the lights were on to facilitate some type scanning process. Then the sound it made was very quiet and low pitch almost like the metallic body of the craft was resonating from giant magnets vibrating at a low frequency inside of it. And the fact that as this all was going on I remember everything else being so quite except for my yelling that I heard, I think it had a way of doing noise cancellation so most likely no one could have heard me yell. When it disappeared over the rooftop that is when I could hear the generator for the spot light running again and street traffic.

NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that date of sighting in November 1966 is approximate. PD

Posted 2012-05-13