NUFORC Sighting 65904

Occurred: 1997-03-27 21:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2008-09-26 06:05 Pacific
Duration: 45 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Palm Springs, CA, USA

Shape: Light

March 1997, two bright lights that hovered about 45 minutes, zoomed forward, then zoomed toward comet.

REPORT for UFO CENTER: written on May 21, 2008.

On the door step of my San Diego hotel room the morning of March 26, 1997 the newspaper headline showed a grim photo: Heaven’s Gate members lying neatly dead with black plastic bags over their heads. They believed they were going to meet the spaceship behind Hale Bopp to go to a UFO.

That was the joking talk among my group at breakfast. I knew the day would end much more pleasantly.

That late afternoon, back home in Palm Springs, I welcomed several friends, armed with binoculars and telescopes, all come to comet-watch from my front lawn, which faces West, the direction the Comet would be visibly arcing over shortly.

Wine was served and each staked out a spot. I chose a spot on my outdoor-living room wall, facing the foothills of the mountains directly in front of my house. Soon, just before twilight, the first lights of the comet, coming from the north west were visible. Everyone made trips inside for snacks and drinks and chatter until darkness began to fall. The night was very still and clear and dark, and the lights from the arcing comet were spectacular. Several of the group, once they saw the comet, had enough of that and were gathered in the living room enjoying each other’s company and the wine. I stayed at my post as, from my point of view, it was too wonderful to miss a moment of.

Leaning my elbows on the wall, I was very comfortably watching the show with my binoculars. I did notice that directly in front of me there were two very bright unblinking “stars”, just over the top of the foothills, it seemed: (it was by now quite dark, so I surmised they were right over the top of the foothills.) Suddenly about 45 minutes into watching the comet arc ever closer to the front of my house, (probably about 7 or 7:30 PM) , just as Hale-Bopp was almost directly overhead. The two “stars” shot forward, like blazing headlights, straight toward me. Startled, I almost dropped my binoculars. But I no longer needed them as these objects were so bright as to be blinding. They looked like the headlights of the largest vehicle ever and they zoomed toward me. Just as I knew they would crash into me and my house, they just as swiftly in concert zoomed to my right,( north) toward Hale-Bopp. When I say zoomed, these lights moved with swiftness and with a smoothness of flight I had never imagined possible. Obviously what I had thought to be “stars” was one object. The two lights sailed in perfect concert directly toward the comet, and seemed to disappear behind it, in moments going so fast and so far they became invisible in the light of the comet.

I ran inside to see who else had seen it , but everyone else had been inside.

I was later told that some of my neighbors down the street saw it, and that there was something in the next day’s Palm Springs newspapers. I did not see the articles.

Perhaps the members of Heaven’s Gate were in that “spaceship” behind the comet, and just maybe they got to the anticipated UFO they sought? I do hope so for them.

But that was not the only experience with strange phenomenon here in these mountains and foothills. About a year ago, in the fall of 2007, Palm Springs experienced a night of thunderstorms. The foothills and mountains were covered in clouds and thunder rumbled all night. About 3 AM the noise woke me, and going into my all-glass living room, I looked up at the mountains in front of me. I was astonished to see four huge squares of bright lights. I would estimate that given the distance from me the largest one was about 50’ square, and the smaller two were about 30 ‘ square. Each had a spectacular whiteness but while they were extraordinarily bright they were not shining the light anywhere. They were like beacons. And they were moving. They were not stationary. I could not imagine how people could possibly be way up there in those rocky foothill-mountains, and moving those huge lights about. It just would not be possible to stand up there in the darkness and move those lights about. I stared at this phenomenon for about fifteen minutes, mesmerized. I hesitated to call the police. I kept thinking perhaps the police were doing this! (Now that’s crazy sounding , I know, but that is what I was thinking.) Just as I had decided to call someone, the lights just went out. One minute they were there. Then they were out. Nothing sped away. They just went out. The next day I searched with binoculars that area and knew that it would have been impossible for people to be walking and standing in those areas, way at the top of those mountains. And no way they could have in the dark held and moved those lights. But where did they go? What were they? And a third occurrence in these mountains.

One day I was driving home from the Palm Springs airport, traveling west on Tahquitz. At one point I happened to look up, and there over the top of the mountains at the end of that street, was an enormous blimp-like object, just hovering there. It did not move while I was looking. At the next stop light I noticed it had moved slightly forward but not much. I could not see any windows or anything distinguishing about it, as it was very far from me at that point. But I could see that it was gigantic in size, nothing like the blimps we see advertising things from time to time. This thing would have fit five or six of such blimps into it. Again I notice the huge thing move slightly backward. I called Le Vallauris restaurant, as it seemed to be directly over the area where they are located. But lunch service was on and the secretary in the office was out to lunch. I drove as fast as I could trying to get to the end of the road to have a good look at it. When suddenly it just disappeared. Gone. No sign of it anywhere.

Obviously these three occurrences are connected in that they all happened in the same location. Yet they all appear to be totally different one from the other. What can any of them have been? Not one

NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that date of incident is approximate. PD

Posted 2008-10-31