California UFO Sighting- A question of 'belief'

A witness in California claims a recent UFO sighting has him 'scared and elated', 'faithful and faithless' all at once.
(See unedited report below.)


MUFON Case # 25553
Date/Time:    2010-09-24 20:33
City:    Los Angeles
State:    California
Country:    US
Shape:    Disc
Duration:    00:04:30
Location:    City
Visibility:    Clear
Summary:    Red, orange and yellow/white lights in a trailing pattern around a cyllindrical circumference with a more narrow top and bottom. I DON'T BELIEVE!!!

Report:
I do NOT believe in UFOs. I believe in the infinite possibilities of the universe, of course, so they are always a possibility, but no more than winning the lottery seems to be a possibility. I am not a person who has ever been fascinated with aliens, extraterrestrial life or cross-galactic communicative efforts.

However, last night I left my apartment for work at 8:33pm and headed south on my street for a half block, then turned east at my nearest southern street. Halfway down the block, I saw a man standing on the street, holding his phone up toward the sky. This was when it occurred to me that last night had been a harvest moon, and, not ever having consciously remembered seeing one, I looked up into the sky, thinking perhaps the pedestrian neighbor had been taking a photograph of what everyone seemed to revere as a unique moon, as many of my friends had commented on it through facebook. I looked up at the moon, which appeared to be at least almost full, if not entirely full, and I was disappointed that it seemed to look like any other full moon I had seen. As I drove down the block, I regarded it closely, looking for unique markings that would make the view special, but it was just another full moon to me.

It was then that I saw it. From my vantage point of the sky,several visual inches away, approximately between 30 and 60 degrees from the the moon's placement in the sky, was a flashing of lights from an object that initially I assumed was an airplane, becccause I saw, peripherally, flashing lights and gradual movement.

As I came to the stop sign at the end of the block, however, having been studying the sky for evidence of some breathtakingly unique moon, I noticed that the object in the sky was giving off lights in a manner and pattern that were both incongruent and seemingly gratuitous to any commercial or private aircraft I had ever seen or heard of.

As I approached the stop sign in my residential neghborhood, with no traffic behind me, I stopped and regarded the unique and discombobulating lights from the craft. As I watched, there was a series of lights which seemed to "trail" around the circumference of a disctinctly disc-like shape. This was my first indication that I was witnessing something otherworldly, or at least confusing. Like the lights of a trailing marquis that follows around the perimeter of a mass, the lights, all red and orange and yellow and white, seemed to distinctly outline the object as they traveled around its perimeter. And, I can't say for sure, as I do not know what distance lay between me and the object, but it was at least DC10 huge. It was HUGE.

At the same time these lights went round and round the widest central exterior of the craft, there was also a white/blue light, even brighter than the trailing lights, that seemed to mark the northernmost point of the craft, much like a lighthouse or air traffic control beacon.

I stopped my car at the stop sign and regarded the lights for several minutes, eagerly awaiting the moment when my persepctive would shift, I would come to my senses, and I would realize it was a helicopter, an airplane, a military jet come down from Edwards Air Force Base, perhaps, or maybe even a dirigible or even (though I have never seen one in my ten years in L.A.) a hot air balloon drifting at night.

I wanted to grab my cell phone and attempt to take video or a picture at least, but the combination of knowing that my cell phone has marginal quality regarding video or imagery (especially from long distances, and especially in the dark), as well as the extreme fascination I felt at witnessing something so bizarre that made me reticent to look away from it for even a second, I did not attempt to attain documentation in the form of a picture.

THEN... while waiting for what I was sure was a mirage or a trickery of perspective to illustrate to me how I was foolish, that it was a ghetto bird or a unique aircraft which I'd never seen before, the craft moved in a way that man-made crafts are, to my knowledge, incapable of. The craft initially seemed to be moving with jet-like speed further away, but then moved, in a fraction of a second, to the right (East/southeast), and then vertically (how many meters/miles vertically, I can't say, but noticeably and rapidly), and then hovered for a solid minute without betraying any movement, not in distance, not vertically or horizontally - it appeared to be "standing" in the sky for a full minute without any perceptible change in perspective from my stationary vantage point.

Throughout this entire time, the red/orange/yellow/white lights "followed" eachother around the circumference of the craft, as if to illustrate and underscore not only its mass and form, but its mere presence as well.

I had rolled down my drivers side window to get a less obstructed view of the seemingly ethereal craft, and there were pedestrians moving through the crosswalk, confused by my deference to their passing. I pointed at the sky and asked, "Am I crazy? Do you guys see an airplane or a UFO up there?" Well, I live in a predominantly Russian neighborhood, and while their eyes followed the direction which I pointed to in the sky, they said something to me in Russian which I did not understand, and bustled their way down the sidewalk.

I stared at the anomoly in the sky for another minute, attempting to make my brain accept that it was a plane or a helicopter, and couldn't do so. Then, a car came up behind me and blew its horn in frustration for being held up, and I was forced to go along my way., where I lost sight of it in the obstruction of trees and buildings.

This is not something I have ever believed in. I always thought those people who said "I saw a UFO once" were crazy. And now *I'm* one of the crazies too. This witness has changed the way I feel about everything - from society to politics to religion to concerns about my own human and basic biological self preservation. I don't know who WE are, as a country or a world. I don't know who God is- I don't know a lot of things - and it simultaneously stimulates, rejuvenates and terrifies me.

I'm scared. And I'm elated. I'm faithful and faithless all at the same time. This may be the most all-encompassing profound revalation any human can experience. If I get the enlightenment, I'll take the opinions that I might be crazy.

I don't believe in God - I never have - but this may be the closest thing to divinity.

*               *               *

Note: This calls into question the ramifications, the repercussions of disclosure. Is it possible to believe in a divine being, i.e., God and yet believe (know) of beings from some distant world? Why not?  Though not particularly religious, I am a very 'spiritual' person and knowing of extraterrestrial beings does not shake my faith in the existence of a 'higher power', it only serves to confirm it.  Even the Catholic Church, for the most part, has accepted the fact that other beings in our universe most probably exist and quite possibly have visited, or are visiting our world.

Then an atheist, one who claims no belief in a divine being (an all powerful creator), should by all accounts, take this revelation in stride, right?   How could the possibility of alien visitors from other worlds, or possibly other dimensions, shake their faith... or lack thereof?

I believe that the answer may be much simpler than the argument over the existence of a divine creator.  It's not a matter of who created us*, rather it is the revelation that we are not alone in this universe, nor for that matter, any other. For many, that is a hard pill to swallow and that belief speaks volumes about us as a species; one that needs to be overcome before too long.
-SW

* Some claim that we are a product of genetic engineering, by aliens who visited Earth many eons ago; aliens who will one day soon return.
See  Anunnaki & Nibiru - The Return

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