2003-05-11 - Goleta, CA

Telephoned Report:

California Highway Patrol officer reports lengthy sighting of peculiar, metallic-appearing disc in the morning sky over Goleta, CA.

NUFORC was contacted by an employee of the Federal Aviation Administration, inquiring whether we had received any reports from sources in California, describing a peculiar, metallic-looking, disc-shaped object in the morning skies in the vicinity of Santa Barbara. The employee provided us with the name and telephone number of the individual with whom the FAA had spoken, a CHP Officer, who had described to them his alleged sighting earlier in the morning.

We spoke with the officer at length (25 minutes), and he described having witnessed a very bizarre-looking, disc-shaped object in the skies above "the freeway" in the vicinity of Goleta, CA. The officer that he had witnessed the object for an estimated 30 minutes, and that he had reason to believe that several of his family members had also witnessed the same object from a different location in Santa Barbara.

The officer stated that he first thought the object might be some type of kite, but then abandoned that notion, as he continued to watch it. The object was circular in appearance, and it was "tumbling, end over end." He was facing north, and the object was moving to the north, away from his location, probably passing over the Santa Barbara beach. He assumed that other reports might have been submitted to the Santa Barbara Police or Sheriff, although those two offices reported that, to the best of their knowledge, no reports had been submitted to them.

Please see sighting report from Laguna Niguell, CA, located south of Los Angeles, for same time and date. The five witnesses there described a similar disc, which moved to the southwest over the beach there, and apparently to the northwest, in the general direction of Vandenberg AFB.

((NUFORC Note: Report written by Peter Davenport, NUFORC Director. PD))