1999-01-08 - Paradiseand, CA - Diamond

1st sighted a bright white flashing lite about 6 times the size of the surrounding stars. A mile further observed a 2nd separate, independent lite. The 2nd lite split and became two lites moving together, with no sound I could hear. The 1st lite remained constant. Pulled over and stopped again, and the 2nd lites turned and became three lites in a row with the middle one flashing. It turned more and I saw a fourth lite creating a diamond shape. Then the object moved behind the hill I was parked by. I continued to drive up the mtn, and observed the 2nd lite occasionally through the trees. I stopped a third time on top of the mountain when I could see the 2nd lites again. It made a deep rumbling sound and was in a diamond shape with a darker blackness between the lites which blocked out the stars behind it. It moved to the south.

At 19:15, while driving N on Hwy 70 at the Hwy 191 exit to Paradise, I observed a flashing white lite, brighter and bigger (maybe 6 times bigger than the surrounding stars), in the sky above Paradise. I looked at the digital clock in the car. About one mile further, I saw a 2nd lite NE of the 1st. At first I thought it might have been a reflection in the windows, so I pulled over, stopped the engine, and rolled down the window. It was a dark clear cold nite. The 1st lite was still constant in the same place in the northern sky above Paradise. The 2nd lite split into two lites, fairly horizonal in the sky. There was no sound. I proceeded to drive NNE on Hwy 70, sighting both the 1st and 2nd lites the whole time, and turned W on Pentz Rd. Here, (4.8 miles from the Hwy 191 cutoff) I pulled over a second time, turned off the engine, viewed the 1st lite in the same place in the sky, now left of my position, constantly flashing on and off. The 2nd lite seemed to turn and the left lite split into two, making three lites in a row with the middle one flashing. It continued to turn, while hovering in the same place, and I saw a fourth lite creating a diamond shape, with the middle flashing lite of the first three slightly ahead of the other two. It was now 19:25, I was parked facing WNW and was viewing the lites by ducking my head a little and looking out and up of the passenger side front windowshield to the N. I held up my hand, and the four lites, if they were at the outside corners of an object, would make the object about as long as my thumb (maybe 1.5 inches). The object then moved behind the little hill I was parked beside. I continued W on Pentz Rd, nearly driving off the road to keep the object in site! Pentz Rd then turns and heads NE, up the mtn. I lost sight of both the 1st and 2nd lites at times as the road climbs the mtn. On top of the mtn on Pentz Rd, (at 6.2 miles from the Hwy 191 cutoff on Hwy 70) I again sighted the 2nd object. I stopped the car (third time), turned off the engine, and rolled down the window. The car was facing N, and the object was in the sky to the W of me traveling in a S direct! ion. Now I could hear the wind in the trees and another deeper rumbling sound that seemed to be coming from the object. It was about three inches wide in the sky and there was a darker blackness between the lites which blocked out the stars behind it. I viewed it for perhaps three minutes before it went behind the trees. It was now 19:40 and I continued on my way home to Magalia. On Jan. 9th, my husband and I traveled the route again at the same time as the sightings on Jan. 8th, and took the mileage readings. Unfortunately, there was a pea-soup fog in the valley, so at the first two places I stopped we could not view the sky.