Chased by a single light - Sacramento, CA 1964
Sometime in May, 1964 I had driven with a friend to a somewhat rural spot near my home. We were both 18 yrs old. It was probably around 10 p.m. This area was like a very large open field; today it is probably built over with houses.
We drove off the paved road (two lanes) onto a dirt road and maybe an eighth of a mile further on the dirt road went down into a large natural bowl, some 20 feet below the upper part of the land. From where we stopped we couldn't see any houses and no evidence at all of civilization. It was a typical Sacramento landscape of oaks and scrub brush. I remember that it was a moonless night.I turned off the engine and we sat and began telling ghost stories, scaring ourselves.
But after a few minutes my friend said, with great fear, "Let's get the hell out of here." I was very scared, too and immediately turned on the engine of my VW bug. As we started forward, looking to my right toward my friend, I saw a light outside the window, at a distance.
It was round and I thought it must be a motorcycle or a car with one headlight burned out. It began to move as we did. The light began to come down in a steady swooping motion as if it would intersect the dirt road where we were heading.
I practically screamed to my friend "What's that?" She saw it and got even more scared, told me to hurry.
I floored it, got to the other side of the 'bowl' and drove up the hill to the top. On the top, on the dirt road I drove as fast as I could, maybe 30 mph and when I looked in the mirror this light was chasing us. It looked like it was about ten feet above the road, maybe higher. It was still the size of a headlight.
In just a minute or two I was at the paved road. The light disappeared and we sped away.
The next day, during daylight, I went back to the scene to try to figure out what had happened. Was it a motorcycle, a car or what? I stopped my car where we had been the night before. Looking toward the hillside where the light had originated I saw a small creek not too far away but the creek basin was loaded with mounds of smooth rocks left over from old dredging operations; these mounds were easily 8 ft tall and extended many feet across to the hill. The hillside itself was covered with scrub oak. No road, no path; nothing that would have made it possible for any motor vehicle to have so smoothly swooped down towards us.
I seem to remember that next to the dirtroad where we escaped there were telephone lines, poles. I had wondered if the light had been ball lightning, but the weather was clear, no clouds.
Neither my friend nor myself ever had an explanation for this curious and scary event.
We were both college students at the time. Neither of us thought at all about UFOs (except for science fiction) or the paranormal.
((NUFORC Note: Time and date are approximate. PD))
Sometime in May, 1964 I had driven with a friend to a somewhat rural spot near my home. We were both 18 yrs old. It was probably around 10 p.m. This area was like a very large open field; today it is probably built over with houses.
We drove off the paved road (two lanes) onto a dirt road and maybe an eighth of a mile further on the dirt road went down into a large natural bowl, some 20 feet below the upper part of the land. From where we stopped we couldn't see any houses and no evidence at all of civilization. It was a typical Sacramento landscape of oaks and scrub brush. I remember that it was a moonless night.I turned off the engine and we sat and began telling ghost stories, scaring ourselves.
But after a few minutes my friend said, with great fear, "Let's get the hell out of here." I was very scared, too and immediately turned on the engine of my VW bug. As we started forward, looking to my right toward my friend, I saw a light outside the window, at a distance.
It was round and I thought it must be a motorcycle or a car with one headlight burned out. It began to move as we did. The light began to come down in a steady swooping motion as if it would intersect the dirt road where we were heading.
I practically screamed to my friend "What's that?" She saw it and got even more scared, told me to hurry.
I floored it, got to the other side of the 'bowl' and drove up the hill to the top. On the top, on the dirt road I drove as fast as I could, maybe 30 mph and when I looked in the mirror this light was chasing us. It looked like it was about ten feet above the road, maybe higher. It was still the size of a headlight.
In just a minute or two I was at the paved road. The light disappeared and we sped away.
The next day, during daylight, I went back to the scene to try to figure out what had happened. Was it a motorcycle, a car or what? I stopped my car where we had been the night before. Looking toward the hillside where the light had originated I saw a small creek not too far away but the creek basin was loaded with mounds of smooth rocks left over from old dredging operations; these mounds were easily 8 ft tall and extended many feet across to the hill. The hillside itself was covered with scrub oak. No road, no path; nothing that would have made it possible for any motor vehicle to have so smoothly swooped down towards us.
I seem to remember that next to the dirtroad where we escaped there were telephone lines, poles. I had wondered if the light had been ball lightning, but the weather was clear, no clouds.
Neither my friend nor myself ever had an explanation for this curious and scary event.
We were both college students at the time. Neither of us thought at all about UFOs (except for science fiction) or the paranormal.
((NUFORC Note: Time and date are approximate. PD))
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Orangevale
USA
Five minutes
Five minutes
38.69
-121.23
light
CA
Occurred : 5/1/1964 22:00 (Entered as : 05/01/1964 22:00) Reported: 6/5/2004 10:01:20 AM 10:01 Posted: 6/18/2004 Location: Orangevale, CA Shape: Light Duration: Five minutes
Chased by a single light - Sacramento, CA 1964