1971-06-27 - Sunnyvale, CA - Other

Hard to describe floating box scared the heck out of two teenage girls many years ago

I've never told anyone about this. It's extremely hard to describe what I saw but even though it happened so many years ago I will never forget it. The best I can do is describe it in symbolic terms because it can't be explained otherwise. Kind of like Ezekiel described his wheel inside a wheel, it was the best he could do, I'll have to try to do the same using symbols that are familiar to me but that I know are terribly insufficient to the task.

That said, this was in the summer of 1971. My friend and I had snuck out of our houses around 10pm after our parents had gone to bed. Being teenagers we just liked to meet at night and go for walks and talk. We were very young, innocent kids. There were no alcohol or drugs in our lives, we were stone sober coming back home from our walk that night.

It was about 11pm when we were walking down the sidewalk on Remington Street. This is a very long, straight, wide residential street, two lanes on each side of the road. About a quarter mile or so ahead was an intersection with a four way traffic light. The night was absolutely still, there was nobody out and nobody's house lights were on. Our town was sound asleep. As we walked down the sidewalk my friend was chatting endlessly as was her way and I was looking at my shoes when she suddenly stopped and said, "What is that?" I looked up and I also stopped. On the other side of the intersection a good long way away, probably a full five minute walk ahead, there was something hovering in the sky, pretty low, about the height of the tops of the street light poles. It was absolutely silent. This thing was moving very slowly forward, and every once in a while it would stop for a couple of seconds, as if it were looking, surveying, or something. We stood there absolutely transfixed and didn't say a word to each other as we watched it slowly come toward the intersection.

Across the intersection on the left side of the street there were half a dozen two story apartment buildings, and on the right side was the open field of our old middle school. This thing that I'd say was about the size of a 20 to 30 foot boat was just slowly gliding down the middle of the street and then it turned a little and hovered over to the apartments. It hovered over the roofs ever so slowly, going up a little and then down a little, as if it were checking them out. At the second apartment building back from the intersection it was possible to get a better look at the thing.

It's extremely hard to describe this and it will sound very strange but to be clear, I can't really grasp what I was seeing. It was impossible. It made no sense. But there it was anyway. It didn't have any lights and it didn't look metallic. The closest description I can find is that it looked kind of like wood. Like a square ship made of wooden beams. It was brown, and hollow on the inside without a top. It had these great enormous arms on the sides that slowly swiveled around and they had lines on the ends, like ropes, but they weren't ropes. There were also shapes and objects inside the opening but I couldn't give a description, I was only aware that it wasn't hollow space inside there. It was as if this thing was collecting things.

While we were watching it, it did not seem to be aware of us at all, but then, all of a sudden that changed. It's angle changed and it came away from the buildings and back into the street. It began to speed up heading toward us and as it hovered over the intersection, because of the street lights, we were able to get a good clear look at it. That's when both of us became absolutely terrified. It was looking right at us. It took on an aggressive feel, its back end rising up and the front end lowering, like it was strongly checking us out. I mean to tell you we were scared. We both felt in fear for our lives. I have never been so afraid. It's hard to talk about this the fear comes rushing right back.

That thing began to head right for us and my friend said, "We've got to get out of here". She took off running and I just followed her. She was heading home. What was so scary was that between us and that thing was one side street and we had to get to it before it did so we were running as fast as we could, right towards it, and I was terrified and literally praying we'd get to that street. Somehow we both knew that if we turned that corner we'd be okay. We didn't talk about this until afterward but we had to get to that street or something unthinkable would happen to us.

We did get to that street and we ran around the corner nearly hysterical with terror when we ran smack into her father, who had come out looking for his daughter. Even though he was very angry we were so happy to see him at that moment and we quickly told what had just happened. He walked to the corner and looked down the street and saw nothing. Nothing was there anymore. He could see that we were not making things up, that we were truly scared and panicked, but he dismissed it and said it was probably just a weather balloon. If I am sure of anything it is that that thing was no weather balloon.

I know this is a very unusual description of a sighting but I am sharing it in the hope that maybe some other people have seen this thing or something like it, and they will know they're not alone and they're not crazy. I am telling it like it was and have no reason to make up a story. It doesn't matter if I am believed or not, I know what I saw.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the event is approximate. PD))