Redlands California 1968; 100-plus UFO Witnesses

The Redlands, California, mass UFO sighting of 1968 is one of forty-one cases presented in detail in the prepared statement that Dr. James McDonald submitted as part of his testimony before the United States House Committee on Science and Astronautics.

On February 4, 1968, from approximately 7:20 to 7:25 P.M., about two hundred residents of Redlands, California, either saw or heard what was apparently the same huge, low-flying, disk-shaped object as it passed overhead. The object apparently came down just west of Columbia Street and north of Colton Avenue, then proceeded slowly in a northwestern direction for about a mile or less, at an altitude of about 300 feet. Coming to a stop, it hovered briefly, jerked forward, hovered again, then shot straight up with a burst of speed. (Total time of the sighting must have been less than five minutes).

ufoevidence.org

This sketch was made by one of the four principle investigators of the case based on the descriptions of numerous witnesses who later verified that this was indeed what the object looked like:

The lights on the base appeared to expel jets of bright orange flame and were seven in number. The light on the top (eight to ten in a row) were alternating in color (red and green), giving the impression that the object was rotating.

When McDonald discussed the case in Congressional hearings approximately six months after the incident, he said:

At 7:20 p.m.. many persons went outdoors to investigate either (a) the unusual barking of neighborhood dogs. or (b) a disturbing and unusual sound. Soon many persons up and down several streets were observing an object round in planiform, estimated at perhaps 50-60 feet in diameter, moving slowly towards the east-northeast at an altitude put by most witnesses as perhaps 300 feet. Glowing ports or panels lay around its upper perimeter and "jet-like" orange-red flames or something resembling flames emanated from a number of sources on the undersurface.

McDonald goes on to note that Dr. Philip Steff - professor of geology and one of the principle investigators in the case - "told me just last week that he had encountered a Redlands University coed who had seen the object (he hadn't interviewed her previously), and she seemed still terrified by the incident."

After the publication of the Condon Report, the Redlands case was specifically mentioned in McDonald's critique of the University of Colorado study:

It omits consideration of some of the most puzzling cases on record, famous cases that persons such as myself specifically urged the Condon Project to study. It even omits discussion of certain significant cases that Project staff actually investigated (e.g., Levelland and Redlands).

Dr. J. Allen Hynek - scientific adviser to the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book for the past two decades - had this to say about the case in a letter to Colonel Raymond S. Sleeper:

"It was investigated by no one at Blue Book, superficially by a member of Norton AFB, and for a total of three months by Dr. Philip Seff, professor of geology, Dr. Reinhold Krantz, professor of chemistry, Dr. Judson Sanderson, Professor of mathematics, and artist John Brownfield, professor of art (who drew an artist's conception from the descriptions given independently by the witnesses and whose composite painting was verified by the witnesses), all of the University of Redlands. It is of interest to note that no one at Blue Book has seen fit to contact these investigators and discuss their investigation at least over the phone.

And the kicker:

You will undoubtedly be interested to know that Blue Book classified this object as 'probable aircraft.' How this was arrived at with no investigation is, of course, a striking example of methodology of Blue Book.

Hynek letter

Classic.

In the interest of full disclosure (no pun intended), while the accounts linked mention that the object was viewed by between 100 and 200 people, I don't think all of them were interviewed by the four primary investigators.

Nonetheless, their conclusions were:

The object sighted can be attributed to no known type of aircraft. Since the atmosphere was clear and the object was low, witnesses obtained a clear view; also, no known aircraft was over Redlands at that time. As far as is known, the object cannot be attributed to any known natural phenomenon.

The sound heard was that of the emergency rescue vehicle. In the excitement of seeing a UFO, witnesses naturally assumed that it was coming from the object overhead. The composite painting was obtained from witnesses seeing the object at different angles. Therefore composite is probably a very accurate representation of the object.

Classification: UFO.

Here are a couple articles from the Redlands Daily Facts:















So what are we to make of this? Experimental military craft? Swamp balloon? Mass Hysteria?

You decide.

Excellent post! I'm going to look into this further.

You have to love all the witnesses....

I can't believe I've never heard of this story before! Awesome, OP, thanks for sharing this!

S&F for you.

I'm going to do some reading and digging on this, pretty damn interesting. Got to love the UFO sightings in which multiple witnesses can all corroborate their stories and it's all very eerily similar.

Multiple witnesses always give a sighting credibility IMO, but of course the debunkers will tell you its mass hysteria or something…..

I’m going to look into this one a little more as well, but I can’t help but notice that the sketch of the craft looks a little like the Jupiter 2 from lost in space, I wonder if Irwin Allen got inspiration from it?

Mickierocksman

Thanks for the replies folks! I was surprised to see how little attention this case had received on ATS. And, Mickierocksman, I think you may be onto something.

Great research! I appreciate you digging into the documentation and posting it. S&F for you!! I'm looking forward to seeing if anything can be added to this - you've inspired some others to dig, too!!
peace,
AB

reply to post by Orkojoker


Fascinating thread my friend and I'd never really looked into this case either, lets hope people who have an interest (or opinion) on this subject go through all the information at the links you provided - particularly in the first paragraph.

Got to love Dr Hynek's comment about the case:

"The discrepancy between what was reported and the Blue Book evaluation is so great as to be laughable"

link

There are some other intriguing (and similar) disc shaped object reports from February, 1968 listed below in the NICAP chronologies section but will post back on the Redlands case when time allows - thanks for posting this great thread.

The 1968 UFO Chronology

Cheers.

Originally posted by karl 12
reply to post by Orkojoker

 

Fascinating thread my friend and I'd never really looked into this case either, lets hope people who have an interest (or opinion) on this subject go through all the information at the links you provided - particularly in the first paragraph.

I hope so too, karl, and thanks for the link. The three links in that first paragraph all lead to various sections of one of the most important and fascinating documents that a person with the UFO bug can read. For those who aren't familiar, it consists of the verbatim transcripts of a number of prominent scientists from diverse disciplines going on the record with Congress with their insights and opinions on the subject - and most of them tell the assembly that they think UFOs reports are something we should be studying. Can you imagine that happening today?

Have come across quite a few disc reports lately, from over the last 40-50 years in which witnesses have described these things flying on their axis, vertically and at great speeds and also being able to sit completely motionless at a "45 degree" angle.

You would think that truth can only be suppressed for so long, which would be 50+ years up til this point. How long is long enough?

Nice thread and very interesting case here Ork! This is a prime example of the type of case that people should be made aware of. UFO sightings come in many levels of "strangeness". When there are dozens upon dozens of witnesses and at such close range, to me its in a special category of experiences. Thanks for the education once again. Well done. SF

Hm. Here's something odd. Was anyone aware that a website called occupyilluminati.com is apparently pulling posts from ATS and publishing them on their own site? Came across this while looking for more info on the Redlands incident.

reply to post by Orkojoker


Well, nothing is copyrighted mate so I guess, they're gonna do that. on the bright side, least it's increasing exposure on what I would hope, are the more interesting threads

reply to post by Urantia1111


Thanks, brother. These are definitely the kind of cases that people should stop and think about. As proximity to the object decreases and the number of witnesses increases, the probability of misidentification becomes vanishingly small.

It also helps to have a team of competent investigators on the spot stat, as happened here. This case has solid written all over it from what I can tell.

Apparently Norton AFB tried to pass the incident off as a "light plane" that had landed at Tri-City Airport - but which was actually already on the ground at the time of the sighting.

Hynek also points out that:

...a check made by the university professors, (but apparently not even thought of by Blue Book) with the authorities at the airfield showed that the plane was coming in from Los Angeles and never approached closer than six miles to the city of Redlands and therefore never passed over the city of Redlands, whereas all witnesses agree that it was actually close over the city.

source

Originally posted by Zcustosmorum
reply to post by Orkojoker

 

Well, nothing is copyrighted mate so I guess, they're gonna do that. on the bright side, least it's increasing exposure on what I would hope, are the more interesting threads

edit on 13-7-2012 by Zcustosmorum because: (no reason given)

I'm certainly not complaining. I just thought it was strange.

reply to post by Orkojoker
I'd like to add McDonald's comments from a lecture he gave in 1968...




One thing to be noticed amongst the reports are the very wide discrepancies between witness numbers - they span a range between 4 and 200. That suggests a little over-egging on somebody's part. The number of witnesses doesn't necessarily have an impact on the reported incident itself, but we have to wonder how many of the reports were true, accurate or even existed?

This isn't to suggest that the Redlands sighting didn't happen; it's pretty clear that some people saw something. Rather, it's important to recognise that even a good quality case can be undermined by the over-enthusiasm of UFO researchers. In their attempts to emphasise the credibility of a case, they can sometimes do more damage by including unreliable accounts.

Prof Seff's investigation led him to accept that an unknown craft had been sighted by the witnesses, but didn't think the wailing sound was caused by the object. It turned out that an ambulance had sirens on at the same time. I snipped this from an APRO Bulletin (page 4):

reply to post by Kandinsky


Thanks for the contribution, Kandinsky. I too wonder about that floating number of witnesses. McDonald cites it as about 100 total with 20 actually interviewed. Then we have the account from here which claims about 200 people "saw" or "heard" it, but with the likely explanation for the sound apparently being a siren from an emergency vehicle, how many of those "witnesses" might be dropped from the total.

We also have the Redlands Daily Facts reporting that 40 witnesses had been interviewed by the time their article was published in March, while McDonald was saying several months later that only twenty had been interviewed. I tend to think McDonald would be more engaged than the shmoes at the newspaper, so his number is likely the correct one.

The reference to 4 witnesses is from an article in the Redland Daily Facts that was published two days after the event. I would guess an actual investigation in to the incident had not yet begun at that point.

Ah the uncertainty.

ps. Can you try to fix your link to that issue of the APRO Bulletin? I'd really like to read it.

reply to post by Orkojoker


That picture really does closely match the ufo from that tv show "Lost in Space". Which incidentally aired it's last episode March 6, 1968 roughly one month after the incident.

Source

Originally posted by QuietSpeech
reply to post by Orkojoker

 

That picture really does closely match the ufo from that tv show "Lost in Space". Which incidentally aired it's last episode March 6, 1968 roughly one month after the incident.

Source

I agree. Maybe the Robinson family wanted to take one last cruise around California before the show ended and CBS took their spaceship away.

Originally posted by Zcustosmorum
reply to post by Orkojoker

 

Well, nothing is copyrighted mate so I guess, they're gonna do that. on the bright side, least it's increasing exposure on what I would hope, are the more interesting threads

edit on 13-7-2012 by Zcustosmorum because: (no reason given)

I actually think you are wrong. If I remember right, if another website uses a post from ATS, they must give credit.

Alert the mods, and they will look into it.





Era. Looks like they posted the link in the article. However it still seems shady.

Great post, this is a very impressive sighting.

I am surprised it isn't a little bit more well known...

thanks for posting, star and flag