April 14th, 2011 | 
Author: My first sighting took place on a mild autumn evening in October of 1982 in Taft, Calif. Taft is located approximately 40 miles Southwest of Bakersfield. It was dusk and there was a football game going on over at the Taft High School Football Field. I was visiting with my dear friend and landlady Mrs. Pearl at the time. I had recently got off from work and we were snacking while playing a game of cards in her living room.
As we played cards, we played some low music on her record player and I really wasn’t paying any attention to the background noise of the airplane buzzing over the high school football field a block and a half away. The grand stands sounded fairly filled with spectators at this game- so, I don’t know how she heard the announcement over the school’s PA system that the local paragliding team were about to land on the high school football field during the halftime rah rah. The high school was a block from our residence, with two rows of mostly modest single story clapboard bungalow houses that are between us and Taft Union High School campus.
Upon hearing the announcement, Mrs. Pearl said “Let’s go out and see the skydivers’ show during halftime!” I was a bit reluctant because I really didn’t think that was such a big deal- I never was much of a fan of anything related to football, either. We went out to the front yard and we both watched as the airplane circled over the Taft High Football Field when Mrs. Pearl asked me “Did you see something fly by?” I didn’t really catch view of anything except some motion out of the corner of my eye because I was focused on the circling airplane over the high school stadium at the time but, I shrugged it off responding with something like “Maybe you saw a flock of birds?”. I was thinking that I had caught something just out of the corner of my eye, but I wasn’t sure. Although I don’t recall seeing anything, I followed with the explanation that “Flocks of birds will sometimes fly in a V formation”.
We continued to watch as the plane as it circled above the football field with the stadium lights on, the sounds of the high school marching band playing, and stadium bleachers filled with spectators. I recall thinking it was taking quite a while for this show to start when we both suddenly caught sight of an extraordinary object consisting of 5 round neon green circles flying in a V formation, silently from west to east. It’s size was about 50 feet across and was gliding silently about 100 feet (or less) above the rooftops of the houses directly across the street from where we were standing and facing. We watched until it quickly disappeared as it headed east in the direction towards Bakersfield.
Our jaws literally dropped open in disbelief. My landlady immediately grabbed for my arm in apparent shock as we watched this object return. Now, traveling parallel to it’s previous flight path, quickly disappearing into the amber colored haze in the west.
We didn’t even have time to compose our thoughts before it returned again, flying closer to us each time, gliding in the opposite direction, now banking slightly northeast towards Bakersfield.
It’s appearance was unconventional in every way: When viewed from the side it looked to be only several inches thick (if even that), incredibly thin in fact, not having any kind of fuselage or capsule present that could contain even the smallest human being; no sign of external metal casing, no landing gear, no engines or their sounds, and from our perspective when appearing straight from behind it was like watching a long, thin, green, neon tube in the sky.
As it banked slightly northeast it appeared as a thin slit of luminescent chartreuse or a bright lime green. Almost similar in color to a green traffic light and at least as vibrant in luminescence as a traffic light. We watched as it flew away disappearing into a mostly clear sky with a full moon rising and a few patches of clouds. We could only look in disbelief at each other shaking our heads, saying to each other “What the hell was that?!” Seemed like only a quick moment had passed when this same formation returned again, flying at about the same low altitude overhead in the opposite direction now, towards the west. It’s flight path having moved the length of it’s own width south with each passing. It’s span was at least the width of Lucard Street as it passed overhead while we stood in front of my landlady’s house.
In hindsight, it could have also appeared as though it might have been conducting a scanning of the area, because of the way that it appeared to be methodically panning back and forth (traveling from east to west in our first visual contact, then returning traveling from west to east). With each passing it was also moving parallel and south, at least it’s own width, to it’s own previous flight pattern.
By now the paragliders had obviously started their own descent onto the football field and we could hear the crowds in the stands cheering them on as their smoking red flares left their trails behind them in the dusk of the early evening sky.
During this object’s last observable pass from us, we were standing underneath this craft as it flew over us standing in Mrs. Pearl’s front yard. I would describe it as a transparent molecular structure within these five precise lime green circles, which flew evenly spaced and in unison, as if it were one craft. Though from our close vantage point did not appear to be connected to each other in any visible way. The insides of the luminescent neon lime green circles appeared to be of a kinetic nature, or even electrically charged in appearance. To use a an analogy: It’s observable structure reminded me of active cellular structures when viewed through a microscope.
At this last overhead fly over, my land lady in a state of panic, ran into the house and immediately called the local police station to make a report. After which she then contacted our local airport to make another report, wanting to alert a controller there of her sighting and asked if he would inquire whether the pilots or paragliders had also witnessed anything during their performance flight over the high school. Needless to say that the response from both parties she contacted were humorously quick, if not ridiculing, to dismiss her concern about the incident. I responded at her attempts to explain to authorities with a smug “Mrs. Pearl, they don’t care about what we saw and I wouldn’t have bothered with that process, myself”. Nevertheless, she was compelled to alert the authorities while I was personally offended at how she was regarded by those very same authorities.
Personally, I didn’t care if anyone in authority ever knew or even heard about the incident because I feared the potential ridicule. I knew that we had witnessed something extremely unique and at the same time completely unnerving. We were both really startled by the close range of the sighting we had witnessed over the course of about 7 minutes, perhaps 10 at most.
During the very short telephone reports that Mrs. Pearl attempted to make with the local authorities and judging her reaction from their attitudes towards her by about her report, I could see that their response was to disregard the incident as a joke, or dismiss her as being intoxicated, which made her feel vulnerably insecure about what we both witnessed. We certainly weren’t any of those things.
It’s a strange feeling to have the same authorities who are supposed to protect and to serve you, not believe you when you are notifying them of something out of the ordinary. I wouldn’t have bothered with reporting anything to any of these local agencies in the first place and I told her that I was not surprised by their attitude. The airport ended the conversation with Mrs. Pearl by telling her that they would contact us should there be any further eyewitness reports, or after conferring with the pilots in the air, I believe. “Right” I thought. Interestingly however, that this object was actually flying somewhere between the ground and the airplane above the high school that was carrying these parachutist’s. Pilots and paragliders you would have thought might have possibly observed something during their descent towards the field. What about the pilots? Was it also observed by anyone attending the high school football stadium or field that night? I really don’t know. I have no question in my own mind that we witnessed something from another dimension of reality altogether because of it’s extraordinary look and behavior. I wonder had we not run inside to make the report would we have possibly witnessed more fly by’s?
In an unfortunate and seemingly unrelated incident after this event, coincidentally involving the same aircraft that was carrying the same pilots and the same team of Taft’s paraglider’s that we observed performing on that October evening in Taft, California, a disaster was also to occur about a week or so after our ufo sighting:
(Taken from a report I discovered that was released about findings urging NTSB/FAA regulations regarding sport parachuting and flying safety):
On October 17, 1982, a military version of a Beech D-18 crashed during takeoff near Taft, California. The aircraft had 12 sport parachutists on board; none survived. The Safety Board determined that the airplane had been overloaded with a center of gravity that was well in excess of the aft limit. The Board was concerned that the FAA was not sufficiently attentive to sport parachuting operations and that the safety of parachutists was jeopardized by companies that didn’t operate their airplanes safely. The Safety Board urged the FAA to do a better job of defining its oversight responsibilities for sport parachute aircraft.
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