1980-03-31 - Canoga Park, CA - Disk

Saucer shaped craft hovering near Zody's dept store in Canoga Park

I don't recall the exact date. I believe it was early 1980. I was 12 years old at the time. My mother, grandmother, brother and myself were going to go shopping at Zody's in the Canoga Park area of CA. Zody's is no longer around but the location at that time was at the corner of Topanga Canyon Blvd and Roscoe Blvd. The sun was setting so it was still fairly light but getting dark quickly. After we parked and were heading to the entrance of Zody's, my brother and I were lagging behind my mother and grandmother. I then realized that my brother was not beside me and so I thought he stopped to tie his shoe so I stopped and turned around and that is when I saw the lights flashing. My brother was looking at it too. The craft was a disk shape, appeared to be made of metal and had white lights around the perimeter that flashed in sequence and gave it the illusion that it was spinning but it was close enough and still light enough outside to see the underside of the craft and I could tell that it was not spinning. It hovered completely still and made no noise at all. I watched it for about 10 seconds and then realized that mom and grandma may have already gone in the store and I didn't want them to miss out on seeing this. I turned and looked towards the entrance to the store and saw that mom and grandma were also watching the craft as were a bunch of people who were either on their way into the store or had just come out. I don't know the size of the craft because I don't know how close it was and I don't know the altitude because I don't know it's size. From my perspective it was the size of a dinner plate held at arms length. After watching the craft for about a minute it suddenly began to move to the right without changing altitude. Then it slowed to a stop and just as it came to a stop it suddenly shot straight up and was gone in only about 2-3 seconds. The entire experience lasted approximately one minute. By the time it took off it was dark enough to see the stars. We stayed there and watc! hed the sky for a little while thinking it might come back but it didn't, at least not while we were out there. My family acted different after that. They were more quiet than usual and I kept wanting to talk about it and I'd say, "Wasn't that strange? What was it that we saw?" but nobody said anything. It seemed like we should have had more time to shop but it didn’t feel like we were in the store very long when they were announcing they were closing and that we’d have to bring our purchases to the front. I don’t know if this was an indication of missing time or not. After we did our shopping, on the way home I still couldn't get anyone to say anything. It was as though my family were in a trans-like state, except me. It wasn't until we got home and we were getting our purchases out of the back of the car that my mother started saying, "What was that thing we saw? Wasn't that strange?" There were many witnesses but I don't know if any of them reported it at that time or since then. We didn't report it at that time..


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