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. 

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?

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

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.