NUFORC Sighting 146901

Occurred: 1988-10-15 15:45 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2019-06-18 18:54 Pacific
Duration: 3 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Monrovia, CA, USA

Shape: Diamond
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object

Diamond or Pyramid shaped craft sighted in Los Angeles County, in the fall of 1988

PREFACE: It never really occurred to me until recently that I could submit this UFO report ‘retroactively’ because it describes an event that took place in 1988 when I was about 9 years old — and that I probably should go ahead and upload it, as my tiny contribution to the greater good, as part of the historical record — As I’ve heard many times, that for all those who witness something unusual in the sky, only a mere fraction actually take the time to report it.

Herein contained is the one and only unusual event that I’ve experienced, or sighted, that can only be described as a “UFO” — I’ve never seen anything even remotely close to this before, or since.

It was a benchmark moment that was permanently burned into my memory and I can recall it today, as clearly I could on the day it happened. Even then, at the time, I had no doubt that what I was observing was something extremely strange.

MY UFO SIGHTING: So this took place about 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles, California, in the San Gabriel Valley, in the suburban city of Monrovia. It was in the fall and I remember school had just started a few weeks back. I remember that It had been cold and wet for a few days, and had rained for most of that day while I was at school. Toward the end of the day, it was kind of gusty but seemed like it was clearing out.

So after school, I did what most kids in the neighborhood did, and jumped on my bike, and met up with a couple of friends that lived around the block. In addition to riding our bikes all over the place, one of our favorite things to do was “explore” around construction sites. Luckily for us, right around this time, on a lot directly next to our friend's house, there was an old small house with a massive yard, that had dense avocado trees in the back, which they had recently bulldozed some time ago (with us watching delighted at all the excitement) and they were now in the process of building four attached Townhouses on the site.

At the time when this happened, it was basically just a two-story wood frame construction site, with about half of the roof built, a couple of fiberglass bathtubs, exposed pipes and such; as the floor plan and rooms were barely discernible and just beginning to take shape. But they had constructed a couple sets of stairs at this point, and I recall we were excited about the prospect of being able to climb up and check out the second floor. Anyway, so along side all of this, was like open trenches with wooden sticks, concrete framing and the usual stuff that one would find when building a house — but since it had rained, there was this very huge area of mud. We thought was the cool because it was like super thick, and had pooled in such a way that there was an undisturbed ‘skin’ on the top of it, and had the consistency of chocolate pudding.

So it was just two of us, my friend from school and myself. Having checked out the site, we were now outside on our bikes, taking turns driving through this muck, completely coating our tires with this stuff, and seeing who could make it the farthest (without peddling) by rolling into this mud, and trying not to slow down too much, or we’d loose our balance, and have to put our feet down into it. Anyway, we were having a ball, and enjoying ourselves completely.

Then, at almost the same time, something super bright caught our eye and our attention. I remember us both standing there and now looking up at something shining in the sky. Something so bright, something so huge, something completely inexplicable and totally strange, something gleaning and shimmering, and something that just seemed propped up, poised, or ‘hanging’ way up in the sky.

The sky was overcast with dark grey clouds, and it being the later part of the afternoon, it was on its way to being dark in a short amount of time. So against that dreary backdrop was this exceedingly bright, totally out-of-place, totally abnormal, gigantic ‘thing’ — My friend was standing to my left and was the first to say something, and said “Woah, WHAT is THAT?" ….I said, “I don’t know, ….I have NO idea”. I had no clue what it was we were looking at, but perched high up in the sky, roughly to our 2 o’clock (Northeast) and partially obscured at the bottom by clouds, was a diamond-shaped (somewhat faceted) or for lack of a better description, basically a pyramid-shaped object. The shape of this object and the dimensions were semi difficult to make out, because it was glowing so brightly. It was as if it was encased or enveloped (in what I would now describe as similar to a plasma-like light) that surrounded it, and was radiating and reflecting from it. [*Correspond! s to Position #1 in attached drawings] It was shimmering, dazzling and sparkling, and seemed to reflect every color of copper, silver, gold, white, yellow, orange, fiery red, etc. — all those colors all at once!! I used to describe it as almost “cartoonish” …Like it was an animated creation that someone created in Toon-Town and it escaped. Whatever it was, it was a remarkably brilliant display. The light off this thing was backlighting some of the surrounding clouds, and making the clouds around it on all sides glow. I thought then, that without a doubt everyone in Los Angeles, much less the entire western USA, must be seeing this anomaly too! I mean, this was something I imagined would be impossible to miss, or so I thought. I naively surmised that this was going to be the leading story on the nightly news, without a doubt.

So I remember staring at this thing, and it’s like your brain is quickly spinning your mental Rolodex, but can’t really classify or quantify what it is you’re looking at. We had no frame of reference for something like this. I had a slim knowledge-base about anything to do with UFO’s in general at that age, but was vaguely aware of pop culture ‘flying saucers’ and the like, and so my brain could wrap itself around the notion that those things, as seen in movies, at least resembled ‘vehicles’ or spaceships, and that I could somewhat envision people, or beings, or whatever, zipping around in those type of crafts. However, this thing we saw didn’t register with us (at the time) as being any type of aerial vehicle, spaceship, or anything of the sort. Certainly not something you could ‘ride’ in, I remember thinking. It was just this crazy big glowing weird-shaped thing sitting there. (Who flys around in a glowing pyramid I thought to myself?!) Immediately, I remember the very firs! t thing that popped in my head, was maybe it was hot air balloon, because I remembered seeing on TV once, these balloons flying in the evening time and how when someone pulled the cord, the fire would light up, and once airborne, it would make them look like floating Chinese lanterns. But just as soon as this thought came, I could quickly rule it out. This thing although appearing quite some distance away, was massive. Like I’d estimate it was 1.5 times the diameter of the full moon. It was obvious to us within milliseconds that this was not a plane, and not something ordinary or conventional. We were spellbound and speechless, with our necks craned just staring at this thing.

So from this point, where we had first sighted it, along the western edge of this construction site, we then made our way maybe 20-30 yards south down toward the street, to continue observing the object, and to try to get a better unobstructed view. I remember vividly wanting to get someone’s attention and as soon as I saw anyone, I had planned on shouting “Look, LOOK at THAT!” — and as I quickly scanned up and down the block, but I was astounded that there was nobody out — no cars coming, nothing, no one. [*Corresponds to Position #2 in attached drawings] We continued looking at this object, as we slowly moved from the middle of the street, walking with our bikes diagonally toward the sidewalk, where we stood and then, just as oddly as it appeared, it was gone. Just like that. [*Corresponds to Position #3 in attached drawings] This entire sighting lasted no more than 3 minutes in total, from start to finish. It never moved, or did anything. It made no sound whatsoever. It was literally there, and then it was literally gone. It never ”did” anything. Apart from a couple of milliseconds spent looking around for a neighbor, or anyone else to call attention to this thing, we both never took our eyes off of it. It was there, then it was not; just like that.

So, needless to say, we were totally pumped up and excited — exclaiming “WOWS” and “WOAHS” back and forth to each other. We stood there for a few minutes, baffled and perplexed about what that was, where it had went, and if it’d be coming back.

So we jumped on our bikes and rode around the block toward my friend's house, and a couple of houses down from his house, we spotted our mutual friend who was on her porch, saying goodbye to her mom, and standing there with grandmother (who owned the house). I remember that her mom worked at the clothing store ‘Mervyns’ and was hastily getting into her car to leave for work, just as we pulled up. Of course we told them all what we had seen, she sort of chuckled and was kind of dismissive and backed out in her car, in a rush. [*Corresponds to Position #4 in attached drawings] However our friend’s grandmother said that she absolutely believed us, and went on to tell us how she once saw something really strange in the sky decades ago, and then proceeded to ask if we’d like to borrow her husband’s binoculars to scan the sky to see if our object returns. We naturally thought this was an excellent idea, and emphatically accepted. So we went out to the sidewalk and sat around passing these big clunky binoculars around, trying to figure out how they worked and if we could see anything at all, but of course we didn’t. I also recall going home that night and drawing what I had seen, and show it to my mom, and tell her about it. I remember she was less-than-receptive about it, and was more interested in us getting ready for dinner, which she was in the middle of preparing.

So slowly, but surely, I kind of forgot about it. From time to time, I would occasionally think and reflect on it. I would say having seen something like this may have kickstarted, or helped in laying the groundwork for my broader interest in such topics, and assisted with my keeping an open mind to items of high strangeness. The world is full of very strange things, and my personal belief is that there is a lot more going on around us then we could ever imagine.

NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD

Posted 2019-06-20