Confessions of a UFO Skeptic.

Confessions of a UFO Skeptic

After 28 years, I am succumbing to the argument that certain sightings--seen in the sky--should be reported regardless of what we believe them to be, or not to be. My specific sighting was an unexplainable, nighttime phenomenon that took place in 1987, in the city of San Juan Capistrano, California.

I lived in a large house at the time, not far from the ocean, and while sitting in the living room looking out a very large picture window that faced a sparsely lit, dark expanse of hills and neighboring rooftops, a streak of yellow light shot from somewhere overhead and angled downward, across the frame of view afforded by the window.

The beam of light was essentially a brilliant ribbon of considerable size, flat rather than vertical, utterly silent, that shot across the sky and ended with a sudden, but not particularly bright flash. Rather than the shower of sparks and arcing trails of debris that one would have expected from such a display, the event was more notable for its lack of detail or fancy after-effects.

The explosive spikes of light that radiated from the center of the explosion, if it was indeed an explosion at all, showed no signs of gravitational arcs, as if residual remnants were falling to earth. After viewing many modern videos of meteors, bolides, and returning space junk, the luminous event I witnessed bore no resemblance whatsoever to any of the aforementioned displays.

As an amateur astronomer, and a consummate skeptic of UFOs, I have always believed the event I witnessed to be some type of high-altitude bolide, a midair, exploding meteor with its own unique characteristics separate from more typical meteors and meteoritic strikes.

I further assumed that no two bolides should be identical in how they might appear to different observers, thus the lack on my part of any immediate need to report anything. Over the years, however, and especially now, it has grown apparent that such a sighting as I experienced, should be mentioned regardless of how unimportant I may believe it to be, or not to be.

Also, better late than never, it recently occurred to me that the source of the spectacle may well have been governmental or corporate in nature. By this, I refer to a satellite projection of some kind, or some sort of ground-based laser display.

Any number of experimental operations might have been in play, so to speak. And given the short-lived span of the event, this would certainly account for the lack of burning debris, sparks, or other characteristics we might associate with returning space detritus

One last description of the seeming physicality of this object as it streaked across a very dark sky, is the peculiar fact that, as I said before, it possessed no real details. I mean this quite literally. The ribbon, as I call it, was entirely uniform in structure, in color, brightness and shape, with no irregularities as would be expected by a completely natural event. It was as if a stripe of solid yellow, similar to a painted, highway lane marker, zoomed across my field of view, then came to an abrupt stop as it silently “popped” and faded into the darkness.

It all happened very fast. The stripe also bore its own perspective, meaning I could tell that it was nearest when directly overhead, and as it trailed far and away, grew more narrow, like train tracks leading off into the distance. Thus the display traveled some distance beyond my location before it seemingly exploded and disappeared.

This was the strangest phenomenon that I, personally, have ever witnessed and it has never been repeated. For what it’s worth, please add this odd little anecdotal tale to the pile, where it can find some meaning, perhaps, for those who truly care about such things.