posted on Feb, 15 2008 @ 09:59 PM
I am a witness to the event of January 26, 2008 and I believe I am the first to have reported the event online on LiveJournal (you can read it here:
gravityslens.livejournal.com...). Within an hour of my post I receieved emails from several witnesses who found my entry while
searching the web for any news on what they may have seen. I also filed a report with MUFON the following day and was subsequently interviewd via
telephone by Jan Harzan, MUFON's So. Cal. assistant director.
Just to be clear, let me begin by saying that I am a photographer and an amateur astronomer lving in Placentia, north Orange County, California.
I've spent thirty years exploring the night sky with large telescopes and creating celestial portraits with long exposure astrophotography. I've
spent countless nights alone in the desert and on remote mountaintops across the southwest and never before have I seen anything like what I saw on
the early evening of Saturday, January 26, 2008.
I was in my living room watching television. The film "Breech" was on HBO and directly behind the television are two large windows facing west.
The sky was dark and cloudy (within half an hour it would begin to rain).
I saw an unusual light in the sky and I went out to investigate. At first I thought there were several helicopters with bright lights in that part of
the sky, but as I looked I quickly changed my mind. One light was definitely a small private plane which appeared to be circling above a strange
brighter light that appeared to hover in place. Then it began to move, slowly, northward and I could see that this object was not a single point
light source (such as that on an aircraft) but rather the whole thing appeared to be luminous and had a shape like an oval. I had the impression that
I was looking at the underside of an illuminated disc tilted at an angle. Within a few seconds I saw what appeared as a circular trail of fire or
sparks (much like the trail of a bottle rocket, except it made a perfectly oval outline against the dark sky) against the clouds about 5 degrees north
(and a little above) the bright oval-shaped object. The feeling that washed over me then was one of awe. I knew I was seeing something
extraordinary. And just as that fact dawned on me, the bright oval-shaped object appeared to suddenly flash or eject a kind of wave of plasma-like
fiery light at its northward end and I could discern sparks or embers floating off of the lightwave against the dark sky. I watched as it repeated
this action at which point I ran into the house to grab my digital SLR and 300mm lens. It might have taken me 30 seconds to return to spot in my
driveway where I had been watching all this unfold, but evidently the object had increased its speed and had moved considerably farther and by the
time I was able to get to a spot and raise the camera to my eye it disappeared beyond my view forever.
I have been profoundly struck by this event andI've spent a good deal of time researching the various sightings reports that are available online.
From these and from the people I have communicated with who also saw the event, I've come to the conclusion that this was a highly localized event,
centered directly over the city of Fullerton.
I have in my possession a 54 second digicam video of this object sent to me by a man who saw it from Yorba Linda, about 2 miles east of my location.
The video suffers from the cameras autofocus constantly moving in and out due to the low light and lack of edge contrast for achieving focus lock.