NUFORC Sighting 02236

Occurred: 1997-05-07 01:00 Local
Reported: 1997-05-22 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Santa Monica, CA, USA

Shape: Disk

Summary : On May 7, 1997 I was looking north to the Santa Monica mountains and saw what I believed to be a helicopter shining its lights down on the ocean or the mountains. I live in a penthouse where I have a wonderful view of the Santa Monica Mountains, the ocean and the city. On a clear night, as this was, I can see very far. I often sit out side to relax and look at my surroundings. It is not uncommon to regularly see helicopters and planes from my view, especially with LAX so near. This particular evening I saw what I thought to be a helicopter and it really caught my attention. I noticed that this helicopter was silent and usually they make quite a bit of noise. I was looking at the object that I believed to be a helicopter and there was a direct light that it was shining on the mountains, like a spotlight, and moving low towards the ocean. It was in a two to three mile distance of me, which is common for most of the helicopters in the area. The light that I was watch!ing closely, without suspicion, disappeared, leaving puffs of smoke. This was a trail of smoke that I had never seen a plane or a helicopter leave before. The smoke was thick as if the object that it was coming from had been idled there for a long peroid of time and it had not been. A few seconds later the object took off with enormous speed, heading north to the sky. this is when I realized that the object could not be a helicopter at all. Within seconds it was "parked" next to a star, very far away.. It probably reached its location next to the star in under five seconds. It was a clear path that it took and it was as if it was trying to camaflauge itself next to that star. Then I saw a flashing red light that was actually revolving. From the distance where I was I could see the object and I could tell that it was revolving with a red light.. A few seconds later it took off so fast that I could see it going north for about two seconds but it was going so fast th!at it just disappeared. That is when I realized that I had seen a UFO. I immediately called a friend and left a detailed message on her voice mail, as to not leave out any details and record it while it was fresh in my mind. The next day I had to go out of town and did not know of your service until now. I feel very relieved to have reported this and hope that someone may have seen something also.I have lived in California for a little over a year. I moved to California from South Carolina for a job. I am twenty four years old and am fairly concervative in my beliefs. I was raised an "Army Brat", therefore traveling is nothing new to me. I run four miles every morning before work and consider myself to be very social. I have never looked up the UFO website before.

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Posted 1999-01-28