NUFORC Sighting 174586

Occurred: 1980-01-03 16:50 Local
Reported: 2023-02-15 15:44 Pacific
Duration: Approximately 10 minutes
No of observers: 5

Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Location details: Mulholland Jr High School (now Mulholland Middle School)

Shape: Disk
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby

A huge brightly-lit aerial object approached and moved behind school buildings and quickly ascended in front of the witnesses.

Thursday, January 3, 1980
Some time after sunset (4:56 pm)

CC, L (C's 13-year-old daughter), KW, S & D (K's sons, ages 5 & 4), drove to Mulholland Jr High School (now Mulholland Middle School) in Van Nuys (now Lake Balboa) CA, to inspect the school that L would be attending. C was driving.
Going east on Vanowen St, they passed the school and turned in at the eastern school boundary. They immediately turned back, going west on the school road fronting the north school boundary. Upon reaching the parking lot next to the football field at the eastern end of the campus, they encountered people getting into cars. K and C asked the people which school they were at and were told the name and that a basketball game was ending. (They were departing the game.)
K and C turned back east to where they had entered, looked at the school buildings, then turned around to head west again, back toward the football field. It was dark at this time.
Upon arriving at the parking lot near the field, they pulled in and stopped, with the car still running. Immediately they noticed bright lights approaching from the north-east, very low and close to the school buildings. Their immediate thought was that a very low-flying helicopter was approaching, but the object "tilted" up and it became clear that it was not a helicopter but a massive circular object with a ring of very bright lights near its center. The object was as wide as the building it now hovered over.
The object then backed up a bit and suddenly flew up and away. As it ascended, airplanes seemed to have spotted and flew toward it. At this point, the object looked like a small red light. It was joined by 2 other small red lights and all three then disappeared.
The entire event, up until now, took approximtely 10 minutes. The sighting itself approx 3 minutes.
K was terrified and they drove quickly back out to Vanowen St, heading east, and turned left onto Balboa Blvd. They saw a telephone booth near a McDonald's restaurant and pulled over. First, K attempted to call her father, VU (then a MUFON field investigator), but he was not home so she left a message. Then, she phoned her brother, MU and gave
him the report of what they had just seen. Next they drove back to their shared home where K called her sister, JW. TW, J's husband, drove to K's and she followed him, with her children, back to the W home.
Sometime between 10 and 11 pm that evening, VU reached K at the W home and conducted a phone interview, which he taped and later transcribed. (I have that transcription)
A few weeks later, AD, VU and 2 other MUFON investigators came to C's home to conduct separate interviews with K and C under hypnosis.
K is releasing this story now after many years because she had previously been afraid of stigma and reliving the trauma.

Posted 2023-03-06