Possible UFO: Pleasanton, CA 11.23.08

Here's a still image and a few minutes of video which I captured using my Nokia 6620 smart phone's camera. Please check back with me here in a little while, as I have some theories as to the likeliest conventional (i.e., non-anomalous) explanation for the slow-moving, low-flying, lighted object depicted in this video.

UPDATE:



As promised, I'm back to discuss the details of this event and share my best guess regarding its true nature.

First, the facts as I experienced them:

On Sunday night, November 23, 2008, I was visiting a friend in Pleasanton, California. We'd been sitting and talking for a while in my car, which was parked on Mason Street near Inglewood Drive, facing North.

At about 8:45PM my friend noticed a brightly lit object moving slowly through the air at a low altitude. When she alerted me to its presence, I began to crane and twist my neck in order to look skyward without the car's roof obstructing my view. She said, 'No, look there,' and pointed almost straight in front of us, redirecting my gaze so I was looking forward, rather than up.

This underscores the fact that the object was flying at a surprisingly low altitude. It was also moving quite slowly. The sun had gone down several hours prior to this event, and the object was brightly lit, so any impression I had about its shape was based solely on its complex lighting array, which was in a roughly oval shape, not unlike that of a football or a blimp.

In addition to its dazzling and quite unusual lights, the object appeared to have an FAA anti-collision and navigation light system. This single fact would seem to strongly suggest we were looking at a conventional (or at least man-made) aircraft. More on that in a moment.

I exited my car with the intention of using my Nokia's camera to capture video footage of this remarkable flying machine. I first snapped one still picture, because my phone captures still images at a sized of 640 x 480 pixels, while its videos are limited in picture size to just 176 x 144 pixels. The still image would, therefore, naturally include detail absent from the motion recording.

The first image presented, at 0:49, is the unaltered still picture. At 0:55 I've brightened the image and outlined the ranch-style home in the foreground, hopefully providing some sense of the object's height and size.

Regarding the unaltered image, it's interesting to note that the object in the photo does not look very much like what I recall seeing. For one thing, what I observed was, as I said, oval shaped, like a football or a blimp. The shape in the picture almost looks more like what most of us would probably imagine if asked to visualize a flying saucer, with what appears to be a dome or small disc attached to or sandwiched on top of another disc with a much larger diameter.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• UFO
• unidentified
• flying
• object
• saucer
• disc
• space
• craft
• anomaly
• fortean
• art
• bell
• strieber
• alien
• lights
• drone
• dreamland
• ovni
• vrill
• isaac
• carat
• formerlyflightsuit
• Stephenville
• texas
• pleasanton
• california

[stygeanhue]

I lived in P-Town for 2 years, and it has rescently been made known to me that at least 4 of the children I grew up with that lived in the former Pleasatnon Greens apartment complex on Vineyard have had similar yet separate sightings of ufo's in the creek that runs through the heart of town. The mystery just gets deeper I guess.

[FormerlyFlightsuit]

@stygeanhue Very interesting! If you read my comments on this video, you'll see that I'm convinced what I filmed was a man-made object, and not a UFO in the truest sense of the word.

I'd be interested in hearing more about your friends' sightings, though. Pleasanton seems like the kind of place where lots of weird stuff could happen out in the open and most folks wouldn't notice.

[cronos9909]

I have seen a bell shaped ufo flying low altitude about march end of.It was flying below radar just north of Delvalle lake bewttn the livermore boarder and Pleasanton. it was not an airpalne nor blimp since it was below radar and heading toward the ge radiation plant.I havebeen seeing a lots of reports of low flying matalic bell shaped objects flying counter airstreams of the area.

[FormerlyFlightsuit]

@cronos9909 That's fascinating. Did this sighting occur during daylight hours?

[ObeeLektro]

Thank you for sharing your little gem. 

[FormerlyFlightsuit]

@ObeeLektro Thank you for commenting! I don't know how much of a gem it is, though. All I've really done is add to the myriad blurry-light-at-night-UFO videos already on the Web. I really wish I'd had a better camera on me at the time, because I feel certain a higher resolution video would have confirmed my hunch that what I was filming was a man-made object, and not something extraordinary.

[FormerlyFlightsuit]

@SortaWhiteKenya Yes, did you read my description and comments? That is certainly the conclusion I'm leaning towards.

[SortaWhiteKenya]

Prolly a blimp. My friends dad works at the airfield, said it was most likly a blimo.