Red Bluff UFO Encounters, Then And Now

            Depiction of 1960 UFO Encounter

Many of you may recall, or have read or seen the accounts of two Highway Patrol Officers, who in 1960, in the small town of Red Bluff, California had a close encounter with UFOs.  The official explanation, "Northern lights, a weather balloon, and refractions".

Oh, good fricken' grief...

In this post you will read of those officer's 1960 accounts, a LITS reader's 1971 sighting and a more recent sighting that took place in the sky over Red Bluff, CA, on April 17, 2010.

Northern lights, a weather balloon, or refractions?  I think not.  Something is up there and we need to know what "it" is.  No more psyco-bable, no cover-ups, no more lies.  We demand the truth, we deserve the truth, we can handle the truth.

Here are the accounts.  Read for yourself and you decide.

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The 1960 Red Bluff, California UFO Encounter

Red Bluff UFO Encounter 1960- UFO Casebook

The Red Bluff Refraction

Corning, California
August 13, 1960
11:50 p.m.

California Highway Patrol Officers Charles A. Garson and Stanley Scott were patrolling on Hoag Road, east of Corning, California when they saw what looked like a huge airliner descending from the sky in front of them. Thinking that a plane was about to crash, they stopped and got out of the car to get a better look.

They watched as the object descended in complete silence to about 100 to 200 feet from the ground, then suddenly reversed and climbed back to about 500 feet from the ground and stopped. Officer Carson described it in a police teletype report:

"At this time it was clearly visible to both of us. It was surrounded by a glow making the round or oblong object visible. At each end, or each side of the object, there were definite red lights. At times about five white lights were visible between the red lights. As we watched the object moved again and performed aerial feats that were actually unbelievable.

The officers radioed the Tehama County Sheriff's Office and asked Deputy Clarence Fry to contact the local Air Force radar station at Red Bluff. Deputy Fry reported back that the radar station verified that an unidentified object was visible on radar.

As they continued to watch the object:

On two occasions the object came directly towards the patrol vehicle; each time it approached, the object turned, swept the area with a huge red light. Officer Scott turned the red light on the patrol vehicle towards the object, and it immediately went away from us.

We observed the object use the red beam approximately 6 or 7 times, sweeping the sky and ground areas.

The object then began to move slowly to the east, and the officers followed. When they had reached the Vina Plains Fire Station, the object was approached by a second object that came from the south.

The second object moved near to the first and both stopped and hovered for some time, occasionally emitting red beams. After a time, both objects vanished below the eastern horizon. They had observed the first object for a total of about two hours and fifteen minutes.

When they returned to the Tehama County Sheriff's Office, they found that the object had also been seen by Deputies Fry and Montgomery, as well as by the night jailer. All described the same thing.

The next day, Officers Carson and Scott drove to the Red Bluff Air Station to discuss the sighting and to speak to the operator that had seen it on radar. The Air Force, however, now denied that the object had been seen on radar, contradicting what the radar operator had told Deputy Fry the night before.

The visit was completely unproductive.

More information regarding the sighting was obtained by NICAP(National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) advisor Walter N. Webb, who contacted Carson and received a copy of the report, drawings of the object, and a letter from Carson.

In the letter, dated November 14, 1960, Carson said:

We made several attempts to follow it, or I should say get closer to it, but the object seemed aware of us and we were more successful remaining motionless and allow it to approach us, which it did on several occasions.

In the original report, Carson also mentioned that:

Each time the object neared us, we experienced radio interference.

Again, from the letter to Webb:

The object was shaped like a football, the edges, or I should say outside of the object were clear to us...[the] glow was emitted by the object, was not a reflection of other lights.

The Official Explanation

What was the "official" explanation for the sighting? In a letter to a NICAP member, the Air Force said: The findings [are] that the individuals concerned witnessed a refraction of the planet Mars and the bright stars Aldebaran and Betelgeux. . . [temperature inversions] contributed to the phenomena as the planet Mars was quite low in the skies and the inversion caused it to be projected upward.

They also said:

A contributing factor to the sightings could have been the layer of smoke which hung over the area in a thin stratiform layer. This smoke came from the forest fires in the area hung in layer due to the stable conditions associated with the inversions.

When NICAP pointed out that Mars, Aldebaran, and Betelgeuse were all below the horizon at the time of the sighting, the Air Force changed the star involved to Capella, which was slightly above the eastern horizon at the time.

They neglected to explain the fact that, as the sighting progressed, Capella would have risen in the sky, whereas the objects disappeared below the eastern horizon at the end of the sighting.

Officer Carson had this to say about the Air Force explanations:

... I have been told we saw Northern lights, a weather balloon, and now refractions.

… I served 4 years with the Air Force, I believe I am familiar with the Northern lights, also weather balloons. Officer Scott served as a paratrooper during the Korean Conflict. Both of us are aware of the tricks light can play on the eyes during darkness.

We were aware of this at the time. Our observations and estimations of speed, size, etc. came from aligning the object with fixed objects on the horizon. I agree we find it difficult to believe what we were watching, but no one will ever convince us that we were witnessing a refraction of light.

A check of the meteorological records of the area for that night by atmospheric physicist James E. MacDonald failed to find any evidence that would indicate the presence of a temperature inversion.

Over the next week, similar sightings were reported, including another sighting the very next evening by Deputies Fry and Montgomery that was also seen by a Corning police officer.

(Loy Lawhon)

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A LITS Reader's 1971 UFO Sighting in Red Bluff

Hi Sunny

I have read a bit on the UFO sighting in 1960 by goggling Red Bluff to see if anything is going on there and just noticed there was a sighting this year. Thought I would send along a little of what I seen in 1971.

I was working with 2 other friends in a restaurant. It closed at 11 but we were tasked to do some cleaning and painting until the bar closed a 2. We were underage but got the bartender to sell us a six-pack and needed a place to hide out and drink it.

East of Red Bluff was a residential area know as Antelope. Going through this on 99E a turn left would take you through houses, small farms then wind up hill to a spot where the road dead ended at a fence. This was called Hill 9. I believe this was maybe the road that would be moved to the present day Highway 36. There was a private road that went down to a house on the river at the top but  the perfect place for kids to drink a beer or make out. You would be high up on a hill and be able to see anyone coming from a mile off.

We were sitting on the road at around 3 or 4 in the mourning. A couple miles off and below us was a grammerschool with a Spanish name. On the edge of where houses got thick again. It had a streetlight or two.

For may 10 minutes I had noticed a light over that school that seemed brighter than it should be but did not pay much attention. The light was white and at some point there became a white cloud around it. When I noticed the cloud there was a smaller cloud off to the left of it that was dissipating downward sort of like dry ice in a bowl. That got my attention and we all started watching the light in the middle of the cloud. The Light did not seem much bigger than a street light but brighter. Hard to say but the cloud looked about the size of a movie screen and maybe 1 or 2 times the height of a telephone pole above the ground.

The light started slowly moving to the left or west out of the cloud and the cloud started to dissipate toward the ground like the first one. We were really watching now.

It moved maybe a 100 yards or more and shot northwest and upward to be maybe above Id Adobe Park across the river. I do not think it was to much farther out as it did not get vary much dimmer. The speed was amazing and it stopped instantly. Stayed there half a minute and shot south east and up and stopped again. Now it was very far away and very high. The brightness was down to a medium star. Stayed there half a min. or so when the light turned red. The red light shot across and stopped for a moment, began to blink. It was now so far out it was getting hard to see. The light then went in circles going up and south until it was out of sight.

A long time ago but I think this is pretty accurate. The speed was amazing. Like watching a falling star but having it not fade out, have a tail and stop instantly. The red light was very red. The time frame is hard to say. From the time it started to move maybe 3 minutes before it was out of site.

All the best, XXXX

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A more recent sighting in Red Bluff, CA

Cloud disguised boomerang shaped UFO seen in California

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The Miners UFO Incident- Red Bluff/Brush Creek 1953

Red Bluff has been a hotbed of UFO sightings, beginning in early April 1953.  John Black and John Van Allen, two titanium miners, were working just outside of their mine near Bluff Creek, when they both observed a “metallic saucer” hovering over the mine area. 

The "saucer" returned on four other occasions, during the next few weeks.  On April 20, 1953, Black watched the same craft, which was less than a quarter mile distant.  It became quite clear to the two miners that the strange object had a keen interested in their mine.

Then, on May 20, as Black returned to the mine, he saw the same saucer hovering only a few hundred feet above the ground.  As he neared, the saucer rapidly flew away and disappeared.  When Black approached the area where the craft had hovered, he found several small five-inch footprints.

One month to the day later, on June 20, 1953, Black witnessed what he thought was a small child with a bucket, not far outside of the mine.  When Black approached, he saw that the large saucer had landed on a nearby sandbar.  Black studied the small individual, suddenly realizing it wasn’t a child at all.  Instead, it appeared to be "an unusual-looking small man wearing unusual clothes and carrying a cone-shaped bucket."  Hearing Black's approach, the "small man" turned and ran into the saucer, which then promptly flew away.

Black reported these events to the local sheriff.  From there, the story was leaked to the press.  Due to the apparent 3 month schedule of the saucer's appearence, a July 20th landing was predicted.  Over 200 people showed up on July 20, 1953, at the site of the mine.  Newspaper reporters, cameramen, saucer enthusiasts and local residents all prepared for the saucer's arrival.  The site had the feel of a circus, with snack bars, chairs and an audience, just waiting for a chance to see the little man in the "flying saucer".  Alas, no space craft, no odd little man showed up, bringing the excitement to an abrupt end. 

Several major researchers, including Gray Barker and Paul Spade (both jailed by the Brush Creek Sheriff’s station for attempting to conduct a UFO stakeout), have investigated this case.  Now it resides, as do many others, as a classic in UFO history.

Source- UFOs Over California, by Preston Dennett
Excerpt re-written by SW

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