1976-09-01 - Ahwahnee, CA - Fireball

Huge fireball hit and one big or three smaller crafts with blue lights came from where it hit the ground

My two young daughters and my fiancee' and I had gone to our 750 acre ranch above Ahwahnee to our camping spot for a couple nights before school started again in the fall. I believe it was in early September but I'm not positive about the date only the occurance. It was either '75 or '76 and had to be late in tne year because it was cold! We had a small camp trailer there and also an old bedstead which you could put a mattress on so you could sleep outside if you wanted. The girls chose to sleep in the back of our new Datsun pickup and we clamped a sheet on the roll bar to the tailgate so they would be warmer as the wind was really cold. They were sleeping and we were hanging a sleeping bag over a clothes line which hung above the head of the bed where we were going to sleep as a sort of windbreak also. It was about 11:00 P.M. and a crystal clear night. All of a sudden the sky lit up like it was 12:00 noon! We looked toward the east to which we had a perfect view of the mountains of Yosemite amd sailing across the sky at a rapid rate was the biggest fireball I have ever seen in my life! Not thart I have seen any before or any since this thing was HUGE and it was whistling and had a huge, long firey tail! At first I thought it was lightening until we saw it! I litterally thought the sun was falling out of the sky! It takes some time to register these things because you don't believe your eyes! I am glad someone was there to see this with me. So this huge fireball sailed from the east to the north towards Mariposa and we watched it for about 20 seconds or less even until it HIT somewhere over the mountains to the north of us. When it hit the whole ground shook! So as we were watching over where it had hit with our mouths hanging wide open before we could say anything here comes right over the top of us three lights in a triangle pattern. We could not tell if it was one huge object or three fkying in formation. I finally spoke first as by then I was totally freaking out and said what the ! F--- kin d of plane is that but I knew when I said it, it was no plane. It or they or whatever made no noise what so ever and they were almost grazing the tops of a couple pine trees next to us. The light in front (one in front and two behind) glowed bright white and the two behind were an odd blue green color. As they flew over a couple oak trees going from north to south, we ran along side through the trees which took us about 5 seconds till we reached a clearing where we could see the whole sky and all the horizons and they were totally gone! No noise, no nothing! We spent the whole night trying to decide what to do. Should we tell someone? Should we call the cops and what the heck are they going to do? We asked a lot of people if they saw anything-it was so hard to miss as it was lit up like broad daylight! During those years, though, the area was very sparsely populated. I have always wanted to know if anyone ever saw the same thing becauyse I know something hit the ground in that area.

((NUFORC Note: Date is approximate. PD))