1988-11-27 - El Dorado Hills, CA - Unknown

drive-by close encounter

Leaving Sacramento on HWY 50 going back to Lake Tahoe early Thanksgiving morning aprox. 1:30am as I begin to climb the second set of hills, several miles down the road I notice what looked like a plane or a helicopter slowly circling above the highway at the top of the hill I had yet to climb. It had a searchlight shining down on the cars at the top of the hill much like a search helicopter would normally do. Except as I drove closer to the flying object I soon realized some strange things about it. It was unusual to see helicopters flying outside of Sacramento at that time of night, and I noticed it had no flashing strobe lights whatsoever - only two bright white "wingtip" or "landing" lights. The object became clear to me that this was not a helicopter as it had wingtip lights, however, it moved as slowly as a helicopter. Getting more closer, I think this is a very large and low flying plane with a wingspan of a B-52 or larger. Still, no flashing lights. Now it has turned off it's searchlight and moved to fly along the right side of the highway. At this time I am making my way towards the top of the hill and the object is about to come along side of me on my right side going down the hill as I am driving up the hill. The object is less than 100 feet above ground and about 100 feet out from the road flying slowly just above some power lines that were part of a large Sacramento radio antenna at the top of the hill. "What the hell is that thing?" I kept asking myself. It was too dark to make out anything. It was way too big to be a large plane with just two lights and no strobes flying way to low and slow. It wasn't until I was directly alongside the object, I rolled down my window to see if I could hear any engine noise when I saw enormous light between the wingtip lights. Rows of red, clear, and like a neon purple in tubular sections, and there was purple lightning dancing between the bottom of the object and the ground! I screamed I was so scared because I was so close to it and yet I! had no answer to what it was other than alien being a real possibility. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I honked my horn and tried to get the people in the car passing me to look at it as I waved my hand pointing frantically at it for them to see. Once I had passed along side of it and passed it, I could no longer see the colored lights between the wingtips anymore, only the two white wingtip lights. I tried to pull over but couldn't so had to wait until I reached the top of the hill. I got to the top and pulled over and got out and looked, but it was gone. Shoook my head got back in the car headed home and I saw it again in my rear view mirror. It was just too low to see when I got out. I watched it for as long as I could in the mirror as I drove off in fright. The object stayed on it's course heading for Sacramento, slow and very low to the ground. The entire drive back home was strange, I kept looking up at the sky as I drove thinking there was maybe a mass invasion going on. When I got to Tahoe it was 5:30am. To this day I still have no idea why it took that long to get home. It's only a 2hr. drive. I only stepped out of the car for a minute or two at the top of that hill. I wanted to get a better look at it. I KNOW others had to have seen this but might have thought it was just a plane. If I only had a passenger or a camera at the time. I actually went back one week later during the day and took photos of the site and made documentations for myself.