NUFORC Sighting 34505

Occurred: 1996-07-17 01:35 Local
Reported: 2004-01-17 16:37 Pacific
Duration: 15 min
No of observers: 2

Location: I-5 (Firebaugh Exit), CA, USA

Shape: Diamond


Three Shiny Diamond shaped lights in triangle formation.

July 17th, Driving south on I-5 towards L.A. at Firebaugh exit, I was traveling in right lane in my '71 bug. I was doing 65 in a 70 mph, and a line of cars was trying to pass me on a small rise, but the lead car in the passing lane was unable to overtake me (it was an older late 60's rambler) so there were three cars behind the rambler pushing it down the road trying to get passed us. As we are driving neck and neck, with the couple seemingly unable to pass me, off to the left in a field, about 60 yards beyond the fenceline, three shiny diamond shape lights doing erratic swirling motions were visible to me. I notice that the elderly couple next to me is also watching the lights. This caused a noticeable reaction in all four cars as our spped was momentarily reduced to see what was causing it, and then the speed was stepped back up. The passenger was an elderly woman with horn-rimmed spectacles, and an elderly man who I assumed was her husband was driving. I look back at the road and these 3 diamond-shaped lights are now at about 10 o'clock towards the east as we are driving south. The lights would move from a triangular formation, break away and do some fast manuevers, and then regroup. This went on for a few minutes. The next manuever placed them fifty feet off to the left of the roadside, where they regrouped and instead of the diamonds revovling as they had done previously while in formation, they now deliberately and simultaneously reflected our headlights back at us, nearly blinding us. I look to my left, and the elderly couple looks back at me as if pleading me to let them over, but I continue to hold the gas pedal to the floor and maintain my speed. I loo at the cars behind them and I can see that their interiors are lit up so brightly I can make out the drivers blue shirt and red tie in the car behind the elderly couple in the rambler. I turn back and look at the three lights and say to myself, "who are you?" I then had the prescience to think they may be reading mymind, so I beg! an to chant "No, NO, NO!" The elderly couple was obviously scared and wanted over, but I continued forward at the same rate of speed. The lights grew so bright that I was blinded and could no longer see the road at all. This lasted five to ten seconds, after which the lights disappeared, the cars behind me roared by, and I found myself alone, still driving on the highway. I pulled over at the very next exit, maintaining my gaze on the three diamond shaped lights as they sped up into the sky in a rotating circle around each other until they blended into the night sky. At this point I awoke my then girlfriend and asked her if she could see the three lights spinning like a top up in the starfield. She very annoyedly said, "that's a helicopter, stupid!" and just as she said that it streaked across the entire visible mountain range to the horizon as fast as I could wave my arm. I said to her, "OK, so was THAT a helicopter?' She started yelling at me for waking her up, etc.. I told her to go ahead and go back to sleep, that I just needed her reassurance that I was not seeing things. We made it back home to Tucson, AZ. I tried to tell a few people about it, but they became very uncomfortable, and I quit telling the story. I have since travelled back through the area, and although it has been some time, I still can remember it all like it was yesterday. The most eery feeling I got upon revisiting it was I began to wonder what happened to the elderly couple who was unable to overtake my VW that night, and why they had suddenly left my field of vision so suddenly. I began to have the suspicion that they may have been abducted, because there was no physical way they could have pulled away like that with the pack of cars, otherwise they would have done just that, only much sooner, considering their obvious fright. I know the other cars in the passing lane trying to pass me witnessed the entire event. Like I said, I could see what they were wearing, as there cars interiors were also illuminated from the back reflecti! on of our headlights being shined back at us.

It was the summer that 4th of July came out and the people I told this story to thought I was acting out a fantasy from the movie, but I hadn't even seen the movie.

I also did not believe in UFO's before that experience.



Posted 2004-01-22

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