NUFORC Sighting 175804

Occurred: 2016-11-20 14:00 Local
Reported: 2023-05-16 13:19 Pacific
Duration: 30 seconds to one minute
No of observers: 2

Location: Sylmar, CA, USA
Location details: Foothills north of Sylmar, from my driveway.

Shape: Unknown


Metallic and silent, slowly rotating object passes over my house in the afternoon.

I went outside for something, and looked east and saw something just above the horizon (somewhat of a hill behind our house). It was not moving very fast at all. As it got closer it passed by almost directly above me, but I still had enough view of the side, as I was not directly below. I live near a hospital and a freeway, and often see helicopters for the hospital, the traffic news, firefighters, and police... so i'm quite familiar with how they look and the altitudes they typically fly at. The craft I saw appeared to be at or below what a police helicopter would fly at, and it was roughly the same length as one. It was metallic, and shiny (reflective) and was roughly the shape of a Manta-Ray... but on it's side. There was a small protrusion coming out of the (bottom?) and then extending toward what I would call the "back". I would say that it almost looked like a Mylar balloon, however it was more of a brass or copperish color. It was slowly rotating along a vertical axis, at a consistant speed and did not roll to the side at all, and did not pitch up or down. It simply rotated (roughly 1 revolution every 8 seconds) as it slowly passed overhead at a steady rate. After it passed over and was moving away from me, I realized I should take a photo but I didn't have my camera, or my phone with me. I ran inside, and grabbed my Canon 5D Mk2 and my 70-200mm lens but for whatever reason all of the batteries were dead (nothing else was affected like this, i'd say the dead batteries were my fault and unrelated) so I grabbed my phone... and let my daughter (only 4 at the time) know there was a UFO outside and she should come outside and look. I ran out to the driveway, and she saw it and said it looked like a manta ray (otherwise I would not have come up with how to describe it). By this time it was much further away, and had gained altitude. I started recording with my iPhone 7 Plus telephoto camera... and by this point it was pretty much just a dot in the footage, but I zoomed in, and you could somewhat see some shimmering of the light off the reflective surface, and can somewhat tell it is rotating because of the blurry dot changing shape. Watching the footage later on, it appears that the object changes direction right before I stop.

Asking my daughter about it now, she does not remember the event. She said she sort of remembers going outside to see something but cannot recall any details now.

I created a map of where I was, and roughly the path the craft took. Lining up where I was standing with my neighbor's roofs in the footage shows approximately where it was. I labeled points where I saw it, where I ran inside, and when I came back outside. Here is a link to the map, and I've included an image of it in the files.

I'm also including a video of a 3D model that I just made of the object, trying to remember as best I can what it looked like in the files, as well as an image of the file.

I have never seen anything this shape, even in UFO videos.

What stood out the most was the constant stable rotation, it was silent, and had to have been at least 20ft long, maybe longer. If it was even half the size I'd just dismiss it as a large mylar balloon but there's just too much about it that doesn't supprt that. I saw no fins, wings, ports, windows, lights. It was shiney and had a sort of shimmer to it.

I don't mind if someone contacts me, but I'm not sure I can remember much more than this.







Posted 2023-05-19

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