UFOS | Marin City

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, 17 October 1973 in 

UFOs Sighted Over Ohio, Bay Area

Dozens of unidentified flying objects were reported by citizens and police officers in southern and central Ohio last night.

The objects, mostly described as oranged in color, were reported in several areas including Columbus, Coshocton in east central Ohio, and in the southwestern part of the state at Middletown and Greenfield.

Two police officers in Greenfield, Ohio, chased seperate unidentified objects more than five miles.

"I never believed in UFO until tonight," Sergeant Hugh Oyer said. "Some guy tried to tell me it was a star, but no star I've ever seen made a humming sound or jumped up and down in direction like that or was so near the ground."

In the Bay Area hundreds of residents saw a strange bright orange light streaking through the skies last night at about 10:20 p.m.

There were guesses as to what it was, but no definite confirmations.

Among many calls received by the Marin county sheriff's office were reports from two deputies. Sergeant Ken Froberg saw the streak from his station in Marin City and Deputy John Brunslik saw it from Point Reyes.

San Francisco police also received more than a dozen calls.

A spokesman at Vandenberg Air Force Base said no rockets were fired from the huge Southern California base last night, but he added there had been several newsmen in the Los Angeles area, where the strange light also was observed.

There were many reports along the Peninsula, around the airport.

Early yesterday morning, a rash of reported UFO sightings swept Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana. Those sightings brought appeals for a federal investigation.

A Gulfport. Miss., taxi driver reported a blue-colored space craft stalled his cab and that a creature with crab-like claws tapped on his windshield as he crouched on the seat early yesterday.

Other sightings were reported along the Gulf Coast and at Meridian, Miss.

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: Interesting--they were all orange lights. 

UFOS | Mission Street Mystery

Thusday's supposed to be a nice day, so in honor of that, a post that occured on "a bright midsummer" day.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, 16 July 1952

Mission's Flying Mystery

8 Isosceles, Some Cops, A Reporter

A bright midsummer sun shimmered yesterday in the periwinkle skies and anyone could plainly see tht it was a perfect day for a flying saucer story.

Happily, we have one for you-every cogent fact documented by a Chronicle reporter who was off with flying coattails to the Mission Police Station the moment the news of the mysterious find crackled over the phone wires.

The first bulletin came through a few minutes after noon:

"Here," he said, 'is the background. i'll start it chronologically. This thing--call it The Thing if you want to--was found by John Sneddon, of 3451 26th street.

"Sneddon is a janitor at Horace Mann High School (sic), at Valencia and 23d streets. He was coming to work at 7 a.m. when he found The Thing in the boys' courtyard at Horace Mann.

"He sayd he usually gets in early to raise the Flag, but now he forgot all about the Flag, and picked up the The Thing and took it down to the boiler room. It looks like a silver tent, kind of like a kite, you might describe it. Nobody knows what it is.

"About 8 a.m. the head janitor came in. He is John F. Connelly of 44 Peralta avenue. he took one look and he said: "My gawd, it looks like a flying saucer."

"Connelly called the supervising janitor of the Board of Education. He is Stanley Laevell, and he said, 'Call the police.'

"By this time it was 11:45 a.m. the cop who got the call as Patrolman Allan Rosenbaum of Mission Station. That's also at Valencia and 23d streets.

"Patrolman Rosenbaum sent Patrolman Herbert Jackson over to investigate and make a report. By that time The Thing was up in the principal's office-will get his name later.

"Now they're taking it across the street to the police station. The janitors are not going with the patrolman. I'll call you back."

The next bulletin crackled through with further details of The Thing:

"Patrolman Jackson is an Air Force veteran. He says, and you can quote this, 'I never saw anything like it But it looks like a radar detection kite. Don't let that influence you, though. Because there's another Air Force man here from one of the other papers, he's gone out now to call for a photographer, and he says it's like what they use in lifeboats. But I've got one better than that. Wait a minute. They're getting the armed forces in on this."

The next call:

"Patrolman Jackson has called the Armed Services Police. They're on the way. Now this other fellow says this could be a flying saucer, but it's got markings on it. Sure I can read them. No. Sorry. They're not in Russian. But you never know. Some of those guys speak English.
"The markings say ML 307 C dash AP. That's the marking. Hold on now, here's the Armed Services.

Then, five minutes later:

"The armed services man is Machinist's Mate First Class William Hale. He's stumped. He can't make anything out of it. Completely mystified. So he's going through channels. Hold on a minute.
"Now Machinist's Mate First Class Hale has called Captain J.L. Austin. The captain has ordered a detail to come down and investigate. Soon's I'm through with this call, I'll check the captain further.

"The Thing seems to be made out of water-repellant plastic, a kind of aluminum stuff. it was a four-sided figure on it, made out of eight isosceles triangles, all equal sided. They're isosceles all right. There are eight fellows standing around me now, and they all agree that's what they are, een if the are all equal sided. I'd better call Captain Austin."

Then:

"Well, I called Captain Austin, and he won't give. he says he refers all calls to the Public Information Officer, Sixth Army, the Presidio. I called them and they don't know anything about it. Hey. Here comes the detail. Call you back."

"Well, the detail arrived. Two men in civillian clothes. One tall, thin, and dark. The other short, blond, and medium-sized. Very mysterious. They showed their CID cards to Patrolman Robert Ferroggiaro. CID-Criminal Investigation Division. Both men are unsmiling and unspoken. They've got The Thing now. Taking it out to their car. "I'll call you back."

And finally:

"The CID men took The Thing off in their car. They are Robert Boyles and Robert Middlemass of the 60th CID Detachment, Presidio, San Francisco. they don't talk. They whisper.

"Looks like that's about all out here for now. Ask the desk shall I come in."

Addendum:

"Memo to desk: Rod Ireland, a PIO at the Presidio, says the Army called the Air Force and the Air Force says the Army can take it home and use it for a toy. Army doesn't know what it is, and CID agents haven't turned it in and Air Force won't talk. Ireland says as far as Provost marshal is concerned the case is officially closed, but he'll check around further and call us tomorrow. Ireland says maybe it's a weather kite. Anyhow, not a real flying saucer. At least so far as he knows.

Ah, mid-summer.

Ah, balmy dog days.

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: Curious, after all those years, what the object was. "ML 307 C" stumps even mighty Google. I expected to get even just one hit out of that one. 

Privately, Mysterious SF says: This one really does sound like a weather balloon...or kite for that matter. 

Bigfoot in Half Moon Bay

Many years ago, Mysterious SF stopped by the offices of the Bigfoot Research Project. Founded by explorer, conservationist, and bigfoot investigator Peter Byrne, the BRP was based in Hood River, Oregon. They were probably the most professional of all the "research groups" that have attempted to work on the bigfoot mystery. The BRP shut down in 1999. 

The BRP, as it was called, was featured in newspaper articles worldwide. It collected sightings via walk-ins, field interviews, and a national 800 number, 1-800-BIGFOOT. The BRP probably got forty phone calls a day on this number. Predictably, most were crank calls by teenagers.

But some were not. For each claimed bigfoot sighting, the BRP filled out a standardized questionnaire booklet. The booklets were fascinating reading, and included many eyewitness sketches of Bigfoot. People with no artistic training drawing pictures + bigfoot = fun times. 

Mysterious SF rooted through the files and made note of sighting reports that intrigued him. This one in particular struck him. 

[Note: some details of this report have been redacted--in particular, the names and contact information of the eyewitnesses.]

Bigfoot Research Project

[witness #1]

Half Moon Bay, California Sighting

Category B Sighting Rating

[witness 1# name]

[witness 1# street address]

[witness 1# address city, state, zip]

E. Palo Alto, CA 94303

Sighting in Summer of 1976

Notes from Bigfoot Research Project Communications Log

Name: [witness 1#]

Reporting: Sighting

Date: 1976 (Summer)

Location: Half Moon Bay Airport, near the radar station, an open field

Notes taken 2/7/94 @ 1510 Hrs.

Incident #1043

2588- Mapped

Eyewitness was:

-In car

-Dog barking viciously.

-Bigfoot leaped/stepped over barbed fence; moved quickly; ran w/arms down—long strides down hill; 1 week after sighting area closed to everyone; well built but slender, larger upper shoulder, ape like, right on const. (?), swing arms.

Returned in day—could not find footprints; large holes (3’-4’) deep scattered around field where it had crossed. 

Comments (by interviewer) Mr. [witness #1] presented as a very honest and simple man, probably not capable of fabricating such detail. Recall of incident was very good.

How did you hear of us? Via Bigfoot Research Project #800 number.

What publication/contact? A & E Television Special "Bigfoot"

Interview BY PHONE

Initials: [phone interviewer].

Incident Report

Date: 2/7/94

Name: [witness 1# name]

Address: [witness 1# street address]

City/State/Zip: [witness 1# address city, state, zip]

Telephone #: [redacted]

Occupation: x-roofer, injured

Age: 40

Sex: Male

Additional witnesses: w/girlfriend, [witness 2# name], South City, CA

General oudoor experience: hunter, camp

Incident Date: Summer 1976

Time: 0100

Incident Location: Half Moon Bay Airport

Activity @ Time of Incident: parking, star gazing

Weather: Bright moon; hot

Temp: 70 degrees F.

Vegetation: fields; cabbage, spinach, fruit farms

Wind: 0 mph

Sighting Report

Duration: 10 minutes

Distance; 150’

# Creatures: 1

Gender: ?

Color: Dark brown/black

Hair Condition: straight 3”long all over

Body Shape: well built but slender

Head Shape: cone; gorilla-like, not as hair-covered

Face: Light color—no other features

Neck: Shoulder even w/ear—hunched

Stride: Walked over barb wired fence; long leaping stride w/arms and legs travelling very fast toward bush cover

Smell Report

Describe: Dirt-like smell; musty; left in woods too long

Duration: Simultaneous w/sighting

Source: Creature

Sensation: Mildly unpleasant. 

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: It's obvious to everyone why Bigfoot *shouldn't* be sighted around Half Moon Bay. But why would he be? Well, for one, there's plenty of food there in the fields, especially in the summertime. Further, it's only a short distance from the largely rocky shoreline of the Half Moon Bay area. It's much easier to forage for food in rocks and tidepools than it is at the beach. Third, there are isolated houses and ranches out in that area that are easier to approach with the intent of raiding garbage cans.

Privately, Mysterious SF says: Mysterious SF has a saying he invented himself. It is: "Bigfoot is seen everywhere Bigfoot has business." 

The Water Horse of San Francisco Bay

Mysterious SF does not go to a lot of parties, but the ones he does go to are interesting. Several years ago, at a party MSF met David, who claims his friends have seen sea serpents in San Francisco Bay.

Mysterious SF asked David exactly what his friends saw. David started to describe the head, but before he could get anything out, MSF asked him, Head like a horse, right? David looked at your area blogger funny and said, Yeah, exactly. 

Several years ago, Mysterious SF was sitting on someone else’s toilet, flipping through a copy of Outdoor Life Magazine. He read a letter from an woman who claimed to have seen a sea serpent while on a boat off the Farallone Islands in the 1960s. The creature, seen from the neck up, had large eyes, a mane of long hair, and generally looked much like a horse. After observing it for a period of five minutes, the creature slowly slipped underneath the waves, never to be seen again. 

Soon after she saw the creature, the eyewitness spoke to another man who claimed to have seen an identical creature ten years earlier and hundreds of miles south off the Santa Catalina islands. The accompanying illustration, done by the magazine's cartoonist, was of a smiling cross between a horse and a whale. 

In August of 1997 Mysterious SF attended a lecture by Prof. Paul LeBlond of the University of British Columbia on the subject of cadborosaurus willsi, or "Caddy", a sea serpent-type species that has allegedly been seen several times in and around Cadboro Bay, British Columbia, for so long the local Native Americans have record of it. LeBlond thinks that Caddy is not only a zoologically sound species, but that it actually exists. 

According to LeBlond, eyewitnesses report Cadborosaurus' head looks like--you guessed it--a horse. 

Mysterious SF grilled David rather thoroughly about what his friends had told him. David related  the following:  

1. The creature is long and serpentlike, with the head of a horse. On both occasions the creature was estimated to be at least 30 feet long. 

2. The creature is seen in the very early morning, usually around 5 or 6 am. I didn't find out where in the bay, exactly, and it was implied that the persons who allegedly saw such a creature were on a boat.

3. These two individuals have seen the creature at least two times, in 1960s and 70s.

4. There are allegedly "a lot" of people who have seen the creature over the years. 

5. The two individuals were writing a paper on their experiences, and claim to have photographs of the creature.

I decided to dig a little deeper into the subject. Benard Heuvelmans, a zoologist who wrote the 1965 book, In The Wake of The Sea Serpents, mentioned not only a Caddy-like creature, but also of a creature seen off Santa Catalina island numerous times by sport fishermen. Heuvelmans repeats a passage from the book Tight Lines, authored by veteran California fisherman Ralph Bandini. In the 1930s, Bandini had been secretary of the elite southern California big game fishing club The Tuna Club, and in his book wrote of sighting the creature while fishing for marlin. 

All of a sudden I saw something dark and big heave up. I seized my glasses. What I saw brought me up straight!

A great columnar neck and head, I guess that is what it was, lifting a good 10 feet. It must have been five or six feet thick. Something that appeared to be a kind of mane of coarse hair, almost like a fine seaweed, hung darkly. But the eyesthose were what held me! Huge, seemingly bulging, round at least a foot in diameter!

We swung toward it. Then, even as I watched through the glasses, the Thing sank. There was no swirl, no fuss Just a leisurely, majestic sinking and it disappeared, about a quarter of a mile away. 

The time of the sighting is recorded as eight a.m. Most Caddy sightings take place in the early morning or dusk. And as David reported, the San Francisco Bay serpent had only been seen in the early morning or at dusk. 

Comparing sightings of Caddy, the Santa Catalina monster, and the creature seen in San Francisco Bay, further parallels emerge. Firstly, they are generally described as having horse or camel-shaped heads. A mane is always mentioned, as are large eyes. Most eyewitnesses describe a critter between five and fifteen yards long (although as noted Bandini says he only saw a ten foot long neck.) Finally, the creature's preferred means of escape from the view of humans is not to spectacularly dive underneath the surface like a whale, but instead to gradually sink out of view. 

Publicly, Mysterious SF says:  Points #4 & 5 are usually the last one ever hears from someone who claims sightings and the evidence to back them up. Usually the hoaxer, realizing that he has painted himself into a corner, slowly sinks from view, never to be seen again. Just like the water horse. 

Mysterious SF is all for this creature existing. The correlations of physical characteristics and behavior could have a common point of origin. Furthermore, he's all for it existing outside of San Francisco Bay. (More on that later.) And occasionally, some such animal may enter the bay following the seasonal fish migrations--anchovies, herring, salmon, striped bass, halibut, etc. But he has an awfully hard time picturing this thing as a permanent resident. 

Privately, Mysterious SF says: I have this sinking feeling these things are smarter than most people think. 

Mount Davidson, Again.

From the San Francisco Chronicle, April 8, 1950.

3 Batches of Saucers Turn Up

Flying saucers may be piloted by little greeen men from Mars, but don't worry about them. They're obviously fun-loving little creatures.



Of three batches of saucers reportedly seen yesterday, only one V-shaped formation of three was sticking to business.



The rest were playing tag.



About 8 a.m. Mrs. Gordon J. Grey, wife of an insurance salesman, spotted two saucers coming toward her Mission street home at an "incredible speed" from the direction of Mt. Davidson.



And then, while she listened to a 15-minute radio program and gazed out the window, the disks rose vertically, swooped, and hovered in a game of tag that looked like loads of fun.



Over at Terra Bella in the San Joaquin Valley, a little later, Ralph Burke, a rancher, spotted the second batch of saucers while he was irrigating a field.



He said they were accompanied by a flight of airplanes, but were much faster-a distinct edge in a game of tag. Like Mrs. Grey's disks, they circled, dipped and rose vertically. But unlike hers, they let out spurts of nasty black smoke as they climbed.



Two 15-year old high school students spotted the third batch of "things" while riding on the Big Dipper at Playland-at-the-Beach.

While Bob Jones, of 628 25th avenue, and George Elkington, of 763 47th avenue, rose vertically and dipped on the roller coaster ride, they saw the formation of three saucers whizz over from the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge and out toward the Farallones.



"They were very high," said Jones, "looked about the size of a dime and were a dirty gray color."



Meanwhile, the saucers, disks, and "things" received whimsical attention from San Francisco's representatives in the Assembly at Sacramento.



Assemblyman Edward M. Gaffney, taking note of Mayor Robinson's "frantic trip to Washington to seek succor for civillians in his city," asked Assemblyman Thomas Maloney to give the Mayor "his plan for transporting the Southern California smog to San Francisco to aid in the blackout if such a measure is necessary."



Two pilot members of the Assembly were asked to scour the California skies and bring back a saucer for the inspection of Mayor Robinson and Assemblyman John B. Cook, a submarine veteran, was asked to "lay aside his cigar and forthwith bring in the mysterious subs that are prowling the Pacific."

The last sentence is interesting. Few people remember this, and it isn't widely known, but at the time there were numerous scares about "mystery submarines" prowling the western coast of the United States. The implied source of these submarines was the Soviet Union, doing everything from preparing to interdict shipping at the start of World War III to landing communist agents meant to infiltrate American society. Some believe that these "mystery submarines" were actually UFOs, which have a long history of being seen entering and leaving bodies of water.

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: Mt. Davidson, again. This is probably less significant than it sounds, as Mt. Davidson is a prominent reference point for people describing things in the sky. Mysterious SF doubts there are any secret UFO bases there.

Privately, Mysterious SF says: UFOs that rose vertically, spewed out nasty black smoke, and were accompanied by regular airplanes. You don't say?

Those Little Green Grooloos

From the archives of Mysterious SF, an article from what he considers the northernmost reach of his jurisdiction.

Originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Tuesday, March 12, 1968.

Sebastopol

Sonoma County

High school students call it the "Grooloo".

They've seen the dancing green light in an apple orchard. So have the owner of the orchard and a high school teacher.

John Morrison, a Greyhound bus driver who owns the property two miles from here, said the Grooloo is about as big a large flashlight beam.

"When the light moved toward the fence," said Morrison, "I heard a loud screeching sound of wire. Afterwards I found my pasture fence damaged. And there weren't any footprints."

Russell Beach, a teacher at Analy High School, thought it was either marsh gas or one of his students' practical jokes, and went out to investigate.

"It was a green light," said the former Air Force pilot. "That's all I can say."

"Sheriff's Sergeant Joseph Jackson said the green light could have been the reflection from a deer's eyes. But he couldn't understand how a deer could skip around a pasture without leaving any hoofprints in the damp soili. 

Sheriff's Sergeant Dick Gore, said yesterday that deputies have been called to Morrison's orchard three times since the Grooloo  was first reported Wednesday.

"But none of our men has seen anything," said Gore.

Our Correspondent.

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: Flashlight beam. 

Privately, Mysterious SF says: Really, who knows. 

Unexplained Falls

Sometimes in the San Francisco Bay Area it rains chunks of flesh and rocks. (You were not...aware of this?)

"According to the San Francisco Herald of July 24, 1851, blood and flesh, with pieces ranging in size from a pigeon's egg to a small orange, descended in a two-to three minute shower on an Army station at Benicia, California, covering a spot of ground 30 yards wide and 300 yards long.

Source: Clark, Jerome, Encyclopedia of Strange and Unexplained Physical Phenomena, Detroit: Gale Research Inc, 1993, pg. 272. 

Oakland, 1943: stones fall from the sky from no apparent source.

Source: Clark, Jerome, Unexplained! Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1993. p. 125.

More on the latter if I can get a hold of it.

The Benicia location is apparently the former location of the Benicia Arsenal, and the present location of the modern-day museum. Fun tidbit: this was one of the few locations of the United States Army Camel Corps. 

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: It's hard to imagine a scenario that even makes blood and flesh falling from the sky even remotely plausible.

Privately, Mysterious SF says: More artifacts from Magonia. 

The Black Panthers of Marin

Most people don't know this, but there's a long history of black panther sightings in the Bay Area. Not the "Power to the People" type of black panthers, but actual black cats. No, not cats as in guys with berets and shotguns, cats as in real cats. Black--look, black mountain lions! Is that clear enough for you?

Yes, black mountain lions. No...they don't have shotguns. Forget about the shotguns! 

Back to our point. There have been many reported sightings of black panthers in the Bay Area, particularly around Mt. Tamalpais and Mt. Diablo. 

[Bet you didn't know about that, did you? Well, that's why Mysterious SF is here, and has been called a crackpot for years.]

Black panthers are not common to North America, and we probably don't have to tell you it would seem farfetched that one would be seen in the Bay Area. 

And yet...such sightings pesist.

A larger examination of the black panther phenomenon is for another post, but for now we'd like to just link to some (relatively) fresh news. Chronicle outdoors writer Tom Stienstra reports A BLACK MOUNTAIN LION has been sighted in Marin. 

"This lion was not darkish, not a brownish-tawny like some I've seen since, but jet black," said John Balawejder, a longtime reader and avid hiker and wildlife watcher whose daughter, Alani, has written an academic paper about the sighting

Interesting, no? On April 24th, as a follow-up, Stienstra reported that someone claims to have a photograph of a black panther, and he was trying to get a look at it. Two weeks after that, Stienstra relays a reader report of a sighting.

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: what we may be seeing is evidence of a small band of melanistic mountain lions. Melanism, a condition that renders jaguars completely black, is common within six percent of the jaguar species. However, it should be said that according to the Missouri Department of Conservation, "no melanistic (sic) of mountain lion has ever been documented by science." Rather than pound a square peg into a round hole, Mysterious SF asks, are these "mountain lions" actually jaguars?

Privately, Mysterious SF says: there may be more to the black panther phenomenon than meets the eye. Worldwide, black panther sightings have been sighted in the company of UFOs, Bigfoot, and large black dogs. No, none of it is simple to explain, and yes, it is all connected. Except none of them carry shotguns.

Bigfoot in Mill Valley

This one's a real gem. Bigfoot in Mill Valley. This originally ran in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 23, 1980.

Eerie Screams

Marin Mystery--A Night Creature

By Peter Stack 



There was talk in Mill Valley yesterday that an "animal-like" figure that screeched horribly during an encounter with two policemen was the legendary hairy Bigfoot of Mount Tamalpais.



"It was a weird thing all right, but I never said anything about Bigfoot--somebody must have made that up," said Patrolman Dan Murphy.



Murphy and his partner, Edward Johnson, were dispatched at 1:16am last Friday to investigate a report by a frightened woman that something was "screaming and screeching and growling" below her hillside home.

The woman, [name redacted long ago--MSF] said she couldn't discern whether the sounds were human or animal. 


For years there have been rumors of periodic sightings of a large, hairy humanoid prowling hills and valleys of Marin's Mount Tam region. The existence of the omnivorous nomad, sometimes known as Sasquatch, has never been confirmed, but there have been frequent reports of him throughout the Pacific Northwest.



Murphy said he and Johnson answered Morris' call like any routine assignment. 



"When we got there, we heard the sounds too. They were strange, high-pitched sounds like something was screaming or howling viciously," Murphy said yesterday. 



The two officers nervously hiked down the wooded slopes while training their flashlight beams through the underbrush. It was pitch dark and windy. 



"I heard this heavy breathing ahead of us," Murphy said, adding that there were, "crackling and rustling noises as if something was approaching through the brush." 



According to official reports, Officer Johnson warned Murphy that he heard something coming from off to one side of them as well as from dead ahead. 

The two policemen drew their service revolvers and slowly retreated uphill. But as they withdrew, Murphy caught a glimpse in the beam of his flashlight of a "large, dark-colored THING."

"It was walking on its hind legs," Murphy said. "I saw it climb an eight-foot retaining wall and dissapear into the brush." 



Later that morning, the two officers returned to the woodsy setting under the first glimmer of dawn. Once there, they found a thick trail of blood, which they followed through the heavy brush.



Suddenly looming before them was the disemboweled and badly mangled carcass of an adult deer. The animal's neck had been ripped open and its belly torn open.

"There were no tracks or anything around," said Murphy. 



The deer's carcass was removed by the Marin Humane Society, but no autopsy was made, so only speculation remained as to what killed the animal.

The humane society guessed the attack was probably by a mountain lion.

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: there is a long history of Bigfoot sightings in Marin. Development in Marin lagged for years and only really took off in some places after World War II and the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. 

On the other hand, people were doing a lot of cocaine in Mill Valley in the 1970s. 

Privately, Mysterious SF says: Several years ago, while hiking the Dipsea trail into Mill Valley, Mysterious SF was startled to see a life-sized statue of Bigfoot in the glass foyer of a rather expensive house. It was unmistakably Bigfoot, and Mysterious SF was quite impressed, finding no fault with it. Mysterious SF also thinks the statue's location is no accident. If you know of this statue, please let us know and send us a picture if possible. 

Project Blue Book and the Bay Area

Project Blue Book, the United States Air Force's seventeen year study of the UFO phenomenon,  studied more than twelve thousand alleged UFO sightings. Ninety four percent of those sightings were explained as airplanes, birds, meteorites, clouds, airplanes, helicopters, swamp gas, or the planet Venus. 

Six percent were classified as "unknowns"--that is, defying obvious explanation as any of the above. 

Several of those "unknowns" were from the San Francisco Bay Area. 

July 6, 1947; Fairfield-Suisun Air Base, California. Daytime. Witnesses: Army Air Forces Capt. and Mrs. James Burniston. Watched for 1 minute while one object having no wings or tail rolled from side-to-side three times and then flew away very fast to the south east.



July 29, 1947; Hamilton Air Base, California. 2:50 p.m. PDT. Witnesses: Assistant Base Operations Officer Capt. William Rhyerd, ex-AAF B-29 pilot Ward Stewart. Watched for unknown length of time while two round, shiny, white objects with estimated 15-25 foot diameters, flew 3-4 times the apparent speed of a P-80, also in sight. One object flew straight and level; the other weaved from side-to-side like an escort fighter.



Sept. 23, 1948; San Pablo, California. 12 noon. Witnesses: Sylvester Bentham and retired U.S. Army Col. Horace Eakins. Two objects: one, a buff or grey rectangle with vertical lines; the other a translucent "amoeba" with a dark spot near the center. The arms of the "amoeba" undulated. Both objects travelled very fast.



Dec. 3, 1948; Fairfield-Suisun AFB, California. 8:15 p.m. Witness: USAF Sgt., control tower operator. One round, white light flew for 25 seconds with varying speed, bouncing motion, and finally a rapid erratic climb.



May 6, 1949; Livermore, California. 9:35 a.m. Witness: C. G.Green. Two shiny, disc-like objects rotated around each other and banked. Then one shot upwards with a grey trail and rejoined the other. The sighting lasted 5 minutes.



Mar. 13, 1951; McClellan AFB, California. 3:20 p.m. Witnesses: USAF lst Lt. B.J. Hastie, Mrs. Rafferty. A cylinder with twin tails, 200' long and 90' wide, turned north and flew at incredible speed. Two minutes.



Sept. 6, 1951; Claremont, California. 7:20 p.m. (not really clear). Witnesses: S/Sgt W.T. Smith, M/Sgt L.L. Duel (?). Six orange lights in an irregular formation, flew straight and level into a coastal fog bank after 3-4 minutes.



April 15, 1952; Santa Cruz, California. 7:40 p.m. Witness: Mr. Hayes, brother of Master Sergeant. Two faint objects observed flying fast along the horizon for 6-8 seconds, using 20x spotting telescope.



Aug. 18, 1952; Fairfield, California. 12:50 a.m. Witnesses: three policemen. One object changed color like a diamond, and changed directions during the 30 minute sighting.



Jan. 10, 1953; Sonoma, California. 3:45 p.m. or 4 p.m.Witnesses: retired Col. Robert McNab, and Mr. Hunter of the Federal Security Agency. One flat object, like a pinhead, made three 360* right turns in 9 seconds, made abrupt 90* turns to the right and left, stopped, accelerated to original speed and finally flew out of sight vertically after 60-75 seconds.



Feb. 20, 1953; Pittsburg-Stockton, California. #1 time unknown;#2, 10:30 p.m. Witnesses: USAF B-25 bomber pilots. #1 was a bright yellow light seen for 8 minutes. #2 was a bright light which flew on a collision course, dimmed and climbed away fast.



March 14, 1958; Healdsburg, California. 8:45 a.m. Witnesses: Mr. and Mrs. W.F. Cummings and one other. A 3' round, black object touched the ground and then took off. Watched for 2 minutes.



April 24, 1961; 200 miles SW of San Francisco, California (35' 50' N., 125' 40 W.). 3:34 a.m. Witnesses: aircraft commander Capt. H.J. Savoy and navigator lst Lt. M.W. Rand, on USAF RC-l2lD patrol plane. One reddish-white, round object or light, similar to satellite. Observed for 8 minutes.



April 30, 1966; Sacramento, California. 3:15 a.m. Witness: Anita Miller. One light moved around the sky for 2.5 hours. No further detail in files.

Source: "The Blue Book Unknowns", the unexplained UFO reports from the files of the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book UFO investigations. Compiled by Don Berliner, for the Fund for UFO Research

Don Berliner, Source: "The Blue Book Unknowns", The unexplained UFO reports from the files of the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book UFO investigations. Compiled by Don Berliner, for the Fund for UFO Research. Internet, 1994

Big Bird May Have Buzzed East Bay

Mysterious SF here with another one from the archives, courtesy the San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, January 14th, 1976.

Big Bird May Have Buzzed East Bay

By George Murphy

Did Big Bird stop over in the East Bay on his way to terrorize Texas?

He might well have, said a Walnut Creek businessman yesterday.

The odds are there's no such thing as a Big Bird, said a San Francisco ornithologist.

Whether there is such a thing as Big Bird or not, along the Rio Grande valley in south Texas there have been numerous reported sightings of a bird with a reported wingspan of 15 feet, and with feet (three-toed) nine inches wide and twelve inches long.

The footprints were discovered by employees of Harlingen, Tex., TV station, the station said.

When yesterday's Chronicle reported the Big Bird story, Lloyd King, who lives in the Northgate section of Walnut Creek, was heartened to come forward.

"It was in early October," he recalled. "I never saw anything like it in my life."

"There's a eucalyptus tree, about 100-150 feet high in a box canyon near my house, and I happened to look up, and there was this huge bird sitting on top of the tree.

"He made the tree look like a bush. He was at least five feet high, and he just sat there. I called my children and the neighbors, and we looked at it through binoculars.

"The bird sat there for about five minutes, then it just sort of glided away, like you'd imagine something prehistoric doing. The wingspan was about 15 feet. It was enormous. It was sort of a motley gray in color."

At the California Academy of Sciences, Laurence Binford said "the hardest thing for an amateur to do is to estimate the wingspan of a bird in flight, because there are no reference points in the sky. there's nothing larger or smaller than the bird with which to compare size."

While California and Texas are bird flyways, they are different flyways, Binford said.

He suggested that what might have been seen in Walnut Creek was a blue heron, which is bluish white and has a wingspread of about five feet.

King said he and his family checked reference books and saw "a picture of a sand crane, which looks like the bird we saw."

Binford said: "I've never heard of a sand crane."

King's description of Big Bird was dispassionate compared with that given police of Brownsville, Tex., by Alverico Guajardo, who said it was "a strange animal, four feet tall, with eyes like silver dollars, wings like a bird, and a face like a bat."

King said Big Bird at first "looked like a condor, or a stork." He said the Texas descriptions--some of them at least--"fit exactly the description of the bird we saw."

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, January 14, 1976

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: this is the only known Bay Area sighting of what cryptozoologists refer to as "Thunderbirds". Most sightings take place in the Midwest. 

Privately, Mysterious SF says: obviously the eyewitness, Mr. King, was referring to a "Sand Hill Crane". Sand Hill Cranes are quite well known. So it's kind of baffling that Binford, the ornithologist (who Google hints is still around and kicking) had never heard of a "Sand Crane". An early example of snark, perhaps?

The Big Black Delta of the Farallones

In the UFO community, there are things spoken of known as "Big Black Deltas". While this sounds like something of Southern provenance rendered hopelessly un-p.c. in 21st century America, it actually refers to a specific type of UFO. 

The typically "Big Black Delta" is a large (600' to 1 mile) long triangular aircraft, completely silent.

Think of a giant black scone, a thousand feet or more long on the two equal sides, gliding silently through the air. Decorated with lights, like an airplane, it is sometimes so low you can throw a rock and hit it. 

And then suddenly, it accelerates so quickly that it's gone from view within ten seconds.

Sounds fantastic? Yet it's been seen by hundreds of eyewitnesses across the United States and abroad. Including off the Farallones.

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: If legit, this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that "BBDs" are actually government craft. How many aliens have called someone "idiot"? (Doubtlessly more than one UFO observer has deserved it.) Mysterious SF believes that 75% of all sightings of unexplainable aerial phenomenon are actually of government craft.

Privately, Mysterious SF says: If it is a government craft, which part of the government operates it? Mysterious SF theorizes that the craft are flown by private contractors, much like Evergreen and Southern Air Transport did during the Cold War, to give the government cover. "Of course we don't have BBDs!" the denial would go. The unfinished part of the sentence is, "...someone else flies them for us." 

And how does it fly, anyway?

Mount Davidson & Redwood City UFO Connection?

From the San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, October 27, 2005.

Residents across California and people as far east as Las Vegas reported seeing strange lights in the sky late Wednesday, according to Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central coast.

Read the article here.

Now, what ten minutes of cheap detective work will get you...click on the article link above, and look at all three of the photographs. In two of them, a green light is visible. (In one of them, a red light as well.) 

Then, check out this report at the National UFO Reporting Center. Location: Redwood City. Note the date. Key quote:

My family apparently saw a scene of two bright white objects destroyed by a green object.

What to make of it?

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: The similarity of the two reports is intriguing. If what was seen by both parties really did appear over Redwood City, the person quoted in the Chronicle article must have been north of Mount Davidson--considerably north. The phenomena must have been at a very high altitude, moved a considerable distance, or was actually two or more different phenomena for all of this to have been sighted in both San Francisco and Las Vegas. 

It's a little much. In particular, Mysterious SF is troubled by the repeated use of "a.m." to describe an event that happened in the evening. He asks, if this really happened to you, would you make this mistake? You might if you were inventing it in your head as you filled in the online form. 

The NUFORC report introduces more questions than answers. Who filed the report? The person and his family were in Redwood City, but where was the object *really* located in the night sky? Is this a hoax, inspired by the Chronicle story, and meant for someone like Mysterious SF to find and link to each other? If it is a hoax, why introduce the bizarre "space war" aspect to the story? Why say your wife and children saw most it if you aren't going to leave your contact information? Why invent the wife and children when you can say you saw it yourself?

A little advice for amateur paranormalists. Never get too excited about anything. There is almost always a rational explanation for everything. Your mind may be, intentionally or unintentionally, suppressing things that would make a rational explanation more plausible. Every student of the paranormal with a functioning, critically-thinking brain has had plenty of head-slapper, "I can't believe I believed in that" memories. (Don't even get Mysterious SF started on the first time he saw those "ghost orbs" in a night-time photograph of a haunted house.) Hint: many so-called paranormalists do not have such memories. 

Privately, Mysterious SF says: Sometimes, there isn't a rational explanation. 

UPDATE: Maybe it was a Grooloo.

San Francisco Ghost Hunt Tour

Sparkletack has a review of Jim Fassbinder's San Francisco Ghost Tour. 

Mysterious SF has taken the tour twice, and has enjoyed it. At $20 a head the price is steep, but the tour is about 3 hours long and fairly interesting. Mysterious SF found Fassbinder knowledgeable (he knew, for example, of the Great Dr. Weirde and the Montadon House) and friendly.

Ghosts R Us

When Mysterious SF was a kid, back in the 1980s, "That's Incredible!" was one of his favorite shows. Not because he was a Fran Tarkenton fan, or because of that one memorable episode where Cathy Lee Crosby got her blouse wet on live television and had to frantically cover up. No, he enjoyed it because it covered subjects like those he covers here in his blog.

One of MSF's favorite episodes was one which amazed and delighted him so much that he remembers it to this day. It was the episode featuring the haunted Toys R US store in Sunnyvale. MSF was a frequent patron of Toys R Us back then, and saw occasional local TV news segments about the haunted Toys R Us on television. That's Incredible!, however, did a full treatment of the haunted Toys R Us, and even purported to photograph the ghost. Oh look,here's the photo!

Mysterious SF has...problems with Sylvia Brown. Actually, to be more accurate about it, he thinks she has a longstanding credibility problem. This may be the last article Mysterious SF is ever going to reprint with her associated with it, but only because he wishes to honor his childhood by including the haunted Toys R Us story. (sob).

Source: Koeppel, Dan, Adweek's Marketing Week, June 10 1991, v32, n24, p17(1)

 `ghost' tramps the aisles seeking his lost love

The children have left, and the din has subsided. Another hard day's shopping is history at the Sunnyvale, Calif. branch of Toys `R' Us. Yet there might be activity inside the vast, silent emporium this midnight, none of which has to do with the straightforward business of retailing.

Inside, it is said, toys topple from the their shelves. A skateboard rolls down an aisle, clanking aimlessly into a wall. But nobody is in this Toys `R' Us this midnight. Or anyway, nobody alive.

In the tony heart of high-tech Silicon Valley, could there really be such a thing as a haunted retail outlet?

"I'm a skeptical person," says Toys `R' Us assistant store director Jeff Linden. "But something's definitely happening here."

In the past few years, store management has tried to get to the bottom of several curious developments. Linden recounts stories of objects flying 20 feet through the air and hitting employees. Shelves left neat in a locked store have been found in disarray the next morning. And then there was the talking doll that cried "mama" over and over-but would only do so when put in a locked box.

If nothing else, it's attracting curiosity-seekers. "My daughter insisted we visit when she came here from Hawaii," said a woman (who declined to identify herself) at the local Chamber of Commerce.

But that doesn't mean that store workers laugh off the matter. "Some of our employees are spooked," Linden says. "They won't go into certain parts of the store alone." He hastens to add that the "ghost" hasn't affected day-to-day store operations in any tangible way. Yet the incidents were taken seriously enough that management let a local psychic visit the store.

"I thought they were seeing things," says `private psychic counselor' Sylvia Brown. I usually find ghosts in old houses. Not in a modern-day retail store." But Brown changed her mind when she walked into the store. "I felt something," she says. "Especially in the last aisle on the left."

It was in that supernatural aisle that Brown got permission to conduct a seance, a summoning of spirits.

Brown says the whole problem comes down to one scenario, namely that "Johnny is waiting for Beth." The ghost, she says, is one John Johnson, a circuit preacher who set up his tent in verdant Sunnyvale at the turn of the century. In those days, apples grew on the current site of the store. "Beth" is Elizabeth Yuba Murphy Tafee, daughter of a prominent rancher. But his love went unrequited. So poor Johnson-or "Yonny," as the employees have dubbed him-is doomed to tramp the aisles of the orchard qua toy store. He is reduced to bewailing his plight, searching for his lost love and occasionally beaning employees with a package of rubber ducks.

Of course, many observers consider the ghost about as real as a Ninja Turtle.

"My response is `Skeptics `R' Me,'" says James Randi, a prominent debunker of psychic phenomena. "There are lots of silly people who make all kinds of declarations."

But Brown can produce a photograph (see above) from the seance that she claims includes old Johnson. He is looming in the misty background, leaning against a store shelf. Brown says there was nobody in her group standing anywhere near that location during the seance.

Such "proof" doesn't cut much ice with Randi. And some of Brown's claims don't stand up too well when checked.

Brown says police are "constantly" responding to alarms at the store.

Lieutenant Andy Pate, of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, says the store has "no more alarms than any other large retailer." But the stories persist. Local papers and TV have looked into the lovelorn spook.

"That's part of the hype," Randi says. "Why don't they install a video camera? Why don't they put the place under surveillance? Call me, and I'll get rid of the ghost in three days," says Randi. "Of course, I don't think they'd like that."

That may be the point. "Sales go up after reports of the ghost," says Linden. "A lot of people think this is a great thing."

So maybe nobody's in any great hurry to smoke out Old Yonny Johnson.

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: James Randi...what a buzzkill. 

Privately, Mysterious SF says: It''s hard to imagine an assistant director of a toy store trying to make "sales go up" with ghost stories. Children are frightened of ghosts and do not like them. That can only hurt sales. When Mysterious SF went to Toys R Us as a child and wondered if the one he was wandering was the haunted one, he wanted to know so he could GET OUT OF THERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. 

Mysterious SF Stink

Strange SF stink that will be difficult to place on Mysterious SF's Google Map. 

Source: San Francisco Examiner August 17, 1999 Page A 5

No Luck Sniffing Out Source of 

Mysterious S.F. Stink

Is a red tide behind wave of complaints?

Nobody seemed to know where it came from, and some impolite people from elsewhere said it was a natural condition, but San Francisco was stinky Thursday.

"We're getting sporadic and fleeting Bay Area complaints of an odor," said Terry Lee, Travel spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. "We have two inspectors out checking it out.

"San Francisco is not a place that normally has industrial type odors, so it's unusual." She said complaints of a smell in the air both Wednesday and Thursday came from "all over," from the avenues near the ocean, South San Francisco, the Marina and Foster City.

The widespread area where the smell was sniffed gave rise to speculation that the odor might be caused by a red tide, a phenomenon caused by algae blooming and mixing with other substances in the ocean.

Or to put it another way, red tide is a seasonal reddish discoloration of sea waters caused by large numbers of red dinoflagellates that kill fish and other organisms by releasing poisonous products that are extremely toxic.

Besides dead fish and other organisms, it causes stink.

Lee herself got a whiff of it and said the odor matched her prior experience with odoriferous red tide output. "It smells like seaweed rotting."

But a survey of red tide experts produced no reports of a current red tide affecting bay or ocean waters.

Said one official in Sonoma County's health department, which monitors red tide incidents because of their effects on shellfish and other marine life: "Have you considered it's just your normal smell? It smells great in Santa Rosa."

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: Red Tide isn't the only situation where a low tide will produce a bad smell. A combination of low tide and a hot day will bake all the seaweed, dead animals, and microbes and make the entire city stink to high heaven. 

Privately Mysterious SF says:  Don't have to be a dick, Santa Rosa.