The Red Bluff Police UFO Incident - August, 1960.

I am very familiar with that area.
I wish the accounts in the Red Bluff case were more detailed in the location. 'On a back road south of Red Bluff' does not help. That is farm and ranchland. There are farm service roads crisscrossing all over that part of the state.
One mention was 'as we approached the Vina Plains Fire Station'. That would be the Vina CalFire station on Highway 99. Now there is a helicopter stationed there. At the time of the incident a helicopter was not stationed there, and certainly did not conduct night flying operations.

East of there as the valley turns into foothills lies the Ishi Wilderness Area on Lassen National Forest. The Ishi Wilderness has some strange magnetic anomalies that makes compasses go awry for hikers, and there are a disproportional number of aircraft crashes and reports of pilot disorientation when flying over the Ishi Wilderness. Could there be a connection? IDK. Merely an observation on my part, filling in some details on the area that may or may not be relevant.