NUFORC Sighting 108029

Occurred: 2014-02-25 20:35 Local
Reported: 2014-03-22 17:26 Pacific
Duration: ~2 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Firebaugh (near), CA, USA

Shape: Formation
Characteristics: Lights on object, Left a trail, Changed Colo

Formation or cluster of five lights catapulting and zooming dramatically near the I-5 freeway at night

I was driving rapidly north on US Interstate 5 (I-5) shortly after dark, about 15 miles west of Firebaugh, California.

Ahead of me (a hundred meters perhaps) I saw a cluster of five lights in several indeterminate/shifting colors moving rapidly from east to west about 10 meters above the freeway, in a downward trajectory.

Then as my car reached the place where the lights were coming down, I slowed down, and observed through the driver's side window as the lights seemed to fold into themselves and lift up again abruptly into the air.

I looked back at the car's outside side-mirror and saw the lights continue to ascend behind me in the far distance. Then suddenly (within one second) again I saw them directly through the side window, parallel to my car, only about 10 meters above the ground; and then they zoomed across the freeway at a sharp angle in front of me (perhaps 50 meters in front of me), going from west to east, ascending rapidly and vanishing from my ! sight.

As I say, the lights "folded into themselves." What I mean is that I didn't perceive this as a solid object or "craft" with a particular shape, with lights mounted on certain features of it, etc., as one would see on an airplane. The lights were just lights, flying in a formation that remained generally triangular; but with additional dimensions.

They continued this "folding" and "unfolding" the whole time I observed, though at first I didn't perceive it that way.

I didn't perceive there to be any "mass" to it, apart from the lights. The lights sort of catapulted and cartwheeled within themselves, inside a certain defined space that itself was in motion.

Over the course of a few seconds, my thoughts evolved as follows:

1. Is that an overpass up ahead with a big truck crossing it? I think it's crashing!

2. Oh wait, it's some kind of airplane, coming in to land, is there an airport right there on the left? I don't think so... I think it's crashing!

3. Oh, it didn't crash, it's flying very acrobatically; maybe it's a crop-duster? At night?!

4. Ha!!! This is definitely a UFO! Those lights are moving very strangely! Where's my camera... OK found it... Too late, damn it, it's way back there now... I bet I see it again though... Ha! Here it is again!!!

If I were to compare the motion of the lights (& their folding/unfolding) to something I've seen before: I would say it resembled the motion of "nunchakus" (the Chinese martial arts weapon) when being used by an expert.

As you may have seen in old Bruce Lee films, nunchakus are essentially two sticks connected at one end by a short chain. Imagine that there was a light on each end of both sticks, and one on the middle of the chain; imagine that an expert was using them, but in somewhat slower motion than usual. That's roughly how it looked as they wheeled about through the air.

Another weapon that the lights and their motion resembled is the "primitive" hunting tool, the bolo. Two or three rocks are tied together in a certain way, and hunters skillfully throw this cluster at the target. It is sort of like a boomerang, but with less form.

I could also suggest that it's motion was like something you might see in a very simple kaleidoscope.

I did not notice any particular sound associated with what I saw.

If I were to estimate the size of this cluster of lights: Perhaps 5-10 meters in diameter at any particular moment? As I say, it didn't seem to be a solid object.

By the time the lights came "back" to me I had found my camera on the seat beside me. I took one picture through the side window and one through the front windshield. Both pictures came out poorly; it was dark inside the car, the lights were moving and I was holding the camera rather unsteadily as I drove. In the picture through the side window, one sees two parallel streaks of light, moving horizontally but beginning to ascend. They look like two snakes, racing. In the picture through the front, the lights look like bright parallel streaks, sort of curved, ascending sharply. At the time, I didn't perceive them this way. I think the streak-effect is from the motion of the lights, the motion of my car, and my camera's slow "automatic" shutter speed in the dark.

It should be noted that there are several military airfields in the region, including at least one where testing of aircraft takes place (or used to take place). The Crow's Landing Naval Auxiliary Landing Field, which supposedly closed in 1999, is about 70 miles to the northwest. Many experimental aircraft were tested there, including projects with NASA. I find evidence, though, that NASA may still be doing things at this base, despite the fact that its buildings have been demolished.

On a web site dedicated to "Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields" of California, there is the following comment (corroborated by a map-detail): "Even though Crows Landing is labeled as closed on the March 2013 Sectional Chart... a note still indicates “NASA flight test operations conducted in this area below 2,500' MSL.”

Another military airbase in the region is Lemoore Naval Air Station, about 60 miles southeast.

Conducting military test flights (especially of secret bizarre aircraft) at such low altitudes and high speeds, so near to hundreds of cars driving north and south on the freeway, would seem an incredibly stupid idea.

Even so, it may still have been an experimental military or NASA aircraft of some kind, perhaps a newfangled "drone." Or perhaps it was something else.

Posted 2014-03-27