CNI News has received a number of UFO reports from California in recent weeks. Many of these reports come from the coastal areas of Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties, between, north and west of Los Angeles. Don Robertson, a writer for the Coastal View newspaper, provides details on these events. Another report comes from San Francisco area resident Vic Gonzalez.
Don Robertson reports that a videotape shot on December 3, 1996 by MUFON investigator Mary Helen Corrado clearly shows a UFO that had appeared over a ranch in the Camarillo area for five consecutive nights, starting on Thanksgiving evening, and then again on the 3rd.
"It is a wonderful tape," Don declares. "The object [is] very bright, plainly visible against a blue sky. It appears to be emitting its own light, and at one point there is a great contrast as the UFO is brightly lighted on one side and darkly shadowed on the back side.
"A considerably smaller object appears to emerge from the top of the larger craft and moves upward, to the left of it, then comes slowly down and hovers at the 9 o'clock position. Shortly after this, the larger craft emits a stream of smoke-like material, and then splits, vertically downward, into three balls... and fades out of view. Poof! Its gone! It is a stunning performance... indeed perhaps meant to be just that.
"But also stunning," Don continues, "was the analysis report on the video tape. In a certified report issued by SVP DIGITAL SYSTEMS of Studio City [California, dated December 21], Jerry Barber finds:
'Analysis of the above video indicates object is of a solid nature. It appears to have a gaseous shroud surrounding its core. Its ascent rate, based on frame calculations, indicates high velocity movement. Still photos supporting the video eliminate camera of lens aberrations. This video has similar characteristics of footage from Florida, Arizona, and New Mexico, all of which were videotaped independent of this video.
'This object's speed can be calculated by its movement across the video frames (there are no exact reference points). Considering this frame movement (30fps) its speed is in the 4000 to 6000 mph range... It would seem the object was operating on a system that is of unknown origin. Furthermore, its light characteristics seem to be self emitting (light spectrum analysis) as opposed to reflections. I would classify the object as unidentifiable.'"
On Christmas day, December 25, Don received a further email report from MUFON's Mary Helen Corrado. The Camarillo object had appeared again to the same family at 4:45 pm on Christmas eve. Don later learned that it appeared again on Christmas day, and yet again on December 27 and 28.
But others in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties were having sightings as well. "The day before Thanksgiving," Don told CNI News, "a MUFON member driving east along Highway 126 near the Los Angeles County line pulled to the side of the road where a group of people were watching a large white object, similar to the ones seen in Camarillo, moving across the sky.
"In Carpinteria (15 miles east of Santa Barbara), at about 6 am on December 12, a man jogging on Foothill Road near Toro Canyon saw a large white object appear above the mountains and slowly make its way down the slope and continue out over the Santa Barbara Channel. 'It was big as a house,' said the jogger, who is also a contractor.
"Yet another sighting was reported by a Simi Valley woman on December 12: 'Yesterday I witnessed a sighting at about 3:30 pm. The object was traveling at a most amazing speed. It was headed somewhat in the direction of Malibu. It was witnessed by two other people,' she wrote in email to MUFON. 'The object streaked across the sky, then rapidly slowed to a stop. After maintaining a stationary position for a few seconds, it went straight up and began doing zig-zag maneuvers for quite a while, before shooting off in a Northeast direction.
"'Sunlight glinted off the top and bottom of the craft, which appeared to be a slightly flattened egg shape,' she continued. 'There was no noise coming from the object... which left no contrail, while all the other planes in the sky had been leaving contrails. This is the first daylight sighting I have had,' she concluded.
Don's report continues: "Yet another couple, in Santa Barbara, watched on December 18 at about 5:53 pm as a bright white object drifted eastward from a location of about 60 degrees south. They guessed the altitude to be 30 to 60,000 feet. About ten to fifteen minutes after sunset, the intensity instantaneously diminished to where it was barely visible as a dot in the clear but darkening sky. Then, as [they] watched, it started emitting a short linear cloud-like trail about 10-20 times its length with a defined end to it, not the usual dissipating end of a jet's contrail... Then the object and trace just disappeared, almost instantly!
"On December 6, a man at his home in the Santa Monica mountains watched from his yard as a large black triangle passed over him. The object was thick, and lighted around its periphery with red, green, and small dim, white lights. One week later, December 13, a couple watching a meteor shower from Canalino School playground in Carpinteria saw 'a large, thick, black triangle... outlined with dim white lights around the edges.' The first [witness] said, 'The only sound it made was like the wind blowing by you when riding down a steep hill on your bike.' According to the couple in Carpinteria , 'It was low, and quiet... the only
sound being like a large night bird flying overhead.'
"I told the Camarillo family about these sightings," Don reports, "and how the man in the mountains had done paintings of the triangle he had seen. The family all looked at one another. The mother reached out and took a pad from a hutch. She handed it to me. It was a pencil sketch of a classic black triangle. 'A friend of ours drew this after seeing our object through binoculars! What we are seeing is a triangle!'
"Another man watching the sky the night of [December] 13 from the Carpinteria bluffs saw a dark, Manta Ray shaped object pass silently overhead," Don notes.
Meanwhile, CNI News has also received this report from Vic Gonzalez, recounting a sighting he experienced while on board a commercial jet, a United shuttle from Salt Lake City, circling the San Francisco airport waiting to land at about 6:30 pm on November 22. Vic writes:
"The captain announced that we were in a holding pattern due to excessive traffic at SFO and we were waiting for clearance for landing. To pass the time, I started looking out the window to mark the lights on the ground so that I could keep track of how many times we had to circle around. It was after sunset. I had a great view above the partially cloudy sky below us. We were about 32,000 feet in the sky.
"On the fifth time we circled, the plane rolled into a slow turn that was hardly noticeable to us passengers. The only reason I noticed it was because of the view I had out the window and I could see the right wing lift slowly as we were turning. After the wing leveled out, I noticed a bright star that appeared high above the horizon. I watched it because I had not noticed it before on the many turns we had made. It appeared to be very bright, but after a couple of minutes of watching it, suddenly it became very dim. There was no cloud cover to obscure my vision and I thought that very unusual. I continued to watch it as it quickly grew bright and dim, like a light switch dimmer being turned higher and lower.
"Suddenly, the light, which appeared to be a round globe, streaked straight down in a vertical dive. It startled me because of the suddenness of this movement. It went straight down and I thought it was going to crash into the dark ground. I saw a plane fly by where the light had originally been. As it passed by and started to leave the area, the light came straight up in a verticle manner to the same spot it had previously been.
"I asked the oriental lady sitting next to me to look out the window and tell me what she saw. She looked and said that I was looking at a star. As we both looked out the window, the "Star" grew much brighter again and I asked the oriental lady if a star could do that. She looked confused and said that it must be a plane off on the horizon turning its light brighter, and she went back to reading her magazine.
"I felt like an idiot because she obviously was not interested or concerned about what we both saw. I continued to glare out the window at this object that appeared in the same position and did not appear to be moving in the sky. Suddenly, two additional light objects appeared on either side of this light and started moving in a counter-clockwise circular motion around the center light. I watched this action for about five minutes until the captain announced that we were given clearance for landing.
"I could feel the plane start its descent but continued to watch these light objects in the sky. As we were descending, the two light objects on either side of the center light darted up into the sky and disappeared. The center light did not move. I lost sight of this object as we descended into the clouds.
"When we landed, I asked the captain if he had seen anything unusual off the starboard side of the plane. He looked very stern and serious and said, 'There was nothing there in the sky by us.' I was surprised by his quick response and felt that maybe he had seen it too, even though he denied seeing anything. I left the plane with a feeling that there are indeed UFOs in our skies watching us."
CNI News thanks Don Robertson and Vic Gonzalez for these reports.
Original file name: CNI - Camarillo Object.Don R
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