We were traveling north to San Francisco. Coming down the grapevine from LA we encountered pea soup fog but kept going slow because of drinking a lot of coffee, wanting to get to San Rafael on Thursday before Grateful Dead Halloween shows (Marin County civic center). Just about every other vehicle had pulled off because of dense fog. We finally came out of the fog and I was remarking how the sky was so clear, stars bright like in the desert when Janis asked “what are the weird colors off in the distance?”. I was just joking, playing with stereo and stated it was a flying saucer. It looked like it had landed on little landing feet West, SW, some distance away in fields. Well, I joked it was a UFO and maybe only less than a second later, as if it knew what we were discussing, Janis started going “don’t look now it’s right behind us!!!!!” it was following (pacing) just behind to the left of my car, then pulled right up alongside, (Janis going ‘I TOLD YOU NOT TO LOOK!!), started doing every most outrageous seemingly impossible flying stunts you can imagine, including circular flips, just showing off all the stuff it could do, for over 5 minutes. It had a day-glow green color that emanated from it like fibers of light, more bright near what I assume was the metallic object. It was as close as a lane and a half, or 30 feet the whole time, just off the ground barely, so close it made all the hairs on my body stand straight out, like from static electricity. We were going “oh, sh*t” and stuff like that when it took off like a slingshot, disappearing in horizon to left of very straight road goes all the way north. Well, we were discussing it at length, saying I never imagined one like that could truly be until we saw it like 30 feet away. I think it was about the size of one and a half Lincoln continentals, round, saucer shaped, domed, we both think it may have had some portholes. We were wondering how on earth it could do somersaults and stuff like that, when it came back, a little more higher, flying (facing from underneath sort of) us from directly ahead for a minute or so, we were going “whoa…” again, when I think something came on or opened underneath it, only time it made any noise, and started the bright spotlight on my car, which had of all things, a bumper sticker that said : “STARSHIP” on the front (for rock band Jefferson Starship). Well, it made a noise like a hatch opened, then the white light started, with a vzzzzzzzzzzz sound that got louder until it was as bright or brighter than sunlight, like a spotlight on my car, pacing ahead (little higher this time, yes) until it got to it’s full brightness and loudness, by then going VVVVVAAZZZZZZZZZ, when I seized the opportunity to tell her to wave at it as a friendly gesture, as now it had given me a feeling of inner peace, knowing there must be life elsewhere, then it made a Kkuh sound, and the buzzing noise subsided at the same time the light dimmed, I think I heard a hatch close, then it repeated the taking off like a slingshot again, just to left of road, then took off in the horizon, a little more left (didn’t need a road). Well, we were feeling a bit too overcome to stop at the windmill truck stop as we came up on it, but called ok, time out, and pulled it off in the rest area just past windmill a ways. We were feeling a bit weirded-out, when some French guy I swear looked kike Marcelle Truffaut or something right out of the movie close encounters, just like the saucer, comes running up frantically waving his arms, hollering something about a “phenomena fantastique!!!!!”, just gave him a weird look, like, yeah, we saw something like that back there. Yes, I think it was Thursday morn’ way early then, just before Halloween of ’83, so we kept going north, starting to feel a bit haggard. Going back after visiting friends in Mendocino, we tried to tell where we first saw it, just past the fog, well south of the air base, and realized there was nothing there for maybe over a hundred miles or more except some cattle, they were making colored lights of all colors for some cattle?? Well, I shrugged it off as just an ‘ornry cattle saucer’ but looked up much researching over the years to this day to see who else may have seen that saucer, far as I could tell, just her and I and this French guy maybe and maybe 2 or 3 trucks headed south maybe saw it zipping by, don’t know. Janis, being a bit of an artist, drew a picture of it with the words “genuine ufo” underneath. I didn’t need to have made any photography anyways, as I have a DVD where it is called one of what are known as the “Guardian Saucers” in Vancouver, Canada, I think, where it had all the multi-colors from underneath, yeah, made my skin feel like it wanted crawl when I first saw the video, yeah, like it was just like something we saw, for real. She won’t discuss it anymore because she said she had some bad dreams about it. Had some strange dreams myself, except more friendly, and peaceful, seeing all these drawings and video stories about grey extraterrestrials with enlarged heads and large black eyes that stare into a void or something. Now I have a friend Susan, who tried at first to keep changing the subject, but with my ongoing research, she’s been saying “Malcolm if I saw something like that I think I would be so SCARED” to which I replied yeah?, I guess if you think it would make you so scared it would, if you think it would make you have bad dreams it would, and yes, as in my case, if you think it would give you a feeling of inner peace, probably WOULD. I know, I had always studied astronomy since I was a youngster so interested in it my family bought me a telescope. I joined the San Francisco amateur astronomers, had always had a more Saganistic approach towards the subject, even though many friends had pointed out “things in the distance” or had even related their own encounters, just thought, sure, sure, bah. Now I wonder, what would Carl Sagan himself had thought if one of those came up and did a lot of aerial acrobatics from like 30 feet away, it’s unmistakable. Your welcome to forward my sighting to carlsagan.com, etc., get tired of relating it or finding WHERE to. Still have an intense interest in cosmology, even more now although I think many cosmologists views would have or will change after seeing a thing like that from only 30 feet. Some friends may feel my Star Trek stories are more real in their view, I really have nothing to prove and don’t care if they like astrophysics, x-files or Rael. I know I had the SETI screensaver for some time. I’d just like to find out if anyone shared our sightings that night other than us, I’d appreciate if you could in exchange for my story email it back to me so I don’t have to keep going over it, I will have my official story reported and on file now, special thanks.
Thanks to UFO Evidence.org and the witness Malcolm Barker. NOTE: The above image is a rendering.
