2012-07-23 - Chico, CA - Circle

Craft emitting strong white beam hovers over my road, then checks out the adjacent hills.

I live at the mouth of a small canyon on the edge of the foothills.

Around 11:30 PM on July 23, 2012, I happened to glance out my second floor bedroom window and saw a large, round, white, very bright light hovering over the narrow, rural, dead-end road that I live on. It was a little higher than the telephone poles and seemed as wide as the road. I had seen a similar object several months ago, but this time it was closer to my house. I quickly turned off my house lights and when I did that, the bright light gradually turned away from me as a searchlight might. It began to slowly drift toward the northeast, all the while moving the white beam over the foothills. I could easily see oak trees illuminated by this process. Occasionally the beam was directed into the sky. I could not discern the shape of the object (although in my first sighting I saw, dimly, a classic saucer shape). There were some red lights on the object which in the first sighting were! clearly arranged in a circle near the top of the object. This time I couldn’t see their position as clearly. The craft eventually drifted around a distant hill and out of sight.