Cone over Davis, CA
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
1995 Saucer/cone shaped UFO over I-80 West Causeway Betweeen Sacramento and Davis, CA
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center. Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
Ask for the records
What would the paper say?
For a dated, located U.S. sighting, FAA radar data and ATC communications are the records most likely to exist. Through Aletheca, the house instrument, anyone can commission the request — filed, chased, and published in the open, refusals included. The draft goes over already written: the records sought, and the date window they would live in.
Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 1995-08-12 → 1995-08-29
From the same sky
Related entries
July 30, 2023 · 12:20 AM · LIGHT
Davis, CA
At approximately 12:15 AM, I was standing on the roof of the Social Sciences and Humanities building on Davis campus and looking out in a north/northeastern direction. I noticed some bright lights in the sky, which struck me as being a few miles out; they were more luminous than any plane, star, or planet. At first I assumed they were planes coming directly at me, but I quickly realized that they were moving parallel to me rather than perpendicular. I took out my phone and began filming at 12:20. The two objects, moving in opposite directions, completed two long ellipse like maneuvers where one would pass over the other when they met in the middle. I also noticed at one point that the object to the right (east) appeared to stand still for about 20 seconds (at the point in the video where I point this out it appears to have just started moving again), although it is possible that it was just moving very slowly. About 9 minutes into filming, both objects dipped below the tree line in front of me (as I said they seemed some miles out, so I didn’t think they were as low as the trees, it just appeared so) and disappeared from sight. At 12:42 I saw one briefly reemerge above the trees. At 12:49 both reappeared and I began filming again. I still thought they might be planes executing some kind of long bank maneuver, because at one point the object on the left (west) appeared to glow the brightest at approximately the time that it changed direction and began moving the other way. They performed one more ellipse, and at this point I noticed that the light on top was red and the one on the bottom was blue or white. Shortly after this final maneuver, first the blue and then the red light disappeared below the tree line one more time, not to reappear for me. I noticed another bright light, but it was directly over Sacramento and heading my way, so I assumed it was a plane. I’m a history major at UC Davis, but I’ve always loved the cosmos—my favorite Christmas present ever was a telescope. I’ve become interested in UAPs specifically over the course of the last few years. I'll post a screenshot of exactly where I was in the images section. Here are the videos I took: https://youtu.be/VQUbBljYdWk https://youtu.be/8C0Sv6PjoXA
January 17, 2023 · 12:14 AM · CIRCLE
Davis, CA
Orangish circle object landed in a field. Near UC Davis and the outer urban fields.
June 4, 2022 · 6:25 PM · DISK
Davis, CA
I was walking along a gravel trail from west to east at the Wildhorse Agricultural Buffer on the north edge of Davis, CA. It's a re-wilded nature area along a golf course. The sun was still high. I stopped to video bees swarming around a large 15' foot tall bush. Turned off the camera and looked up. There was a metallic object silently moving from SW to NE maybe 100 yards above me. At first I thought it was a balloon, but no; it was too big, probably 6'-8' in diameter. It reminded me of the type of clam shell with spikes or protuberances coming out of the rim. Also looking like the animal, giant sea star, but the arms (spikes) were very short. It looked organic and crown-like, but was dark metallic. It looked like copper or bronze with a dull matte finish. It was cruising along to the NE at only 200-300 feet above the ground, wavering, but never flopping over and maintaining it's altitude. Here's the weird part: I raised up my phone, turned on video and said "Thank you" out loud, because I knew this was really unusual. Held up the phone to the object, observing both it and my screen at the same time, but the object would not show up on my screen. Even though I was staring at it in the sky. I zoomed in and out, noted where it was with reference points of cloud edges and nearby trees, but it just wouldn't appear on my phone screen. I kept shooting and watched it cruise out of sight to the NE at maybe 30 to 50 mph. I walked back to my car and checked the footage. It wasn't there. When this first caught my eye, I felt elated. Now I felt uneasy. It was like this thing saw me and didn't want me to take its picture. I felt like a lab rat, and I've never felt that way before. I took the images home home and ran them through photoshop, trying out filters that can find edges of things, but they found nothing. It's my word against the world on this one, but I know what I saw, and I wasn't hallucinating. I will keep looking skyward. I'm a private pilot. That doesn't make me an aviation expert, but I've got a somewhat trained eye for estimating distance, size of craft, elevation, and speed. There are weird things flying around up there in the sky.
August 14, 2021 · 6:00 PM · OVAL
Davis, CA
My racing pigeons were flying around the property and while watching them I noticed a bright object in the sky coming from the south. I assumed that when it got closer it would turn out to be an areophane, but something compelled me to keep watching it. When it did get closer I saw that it did not have wings and was somewhere between oval and Tic Tac in shape. It had a metallic appearance and had bright lights at either end (this could have alternatively been reflection from the sun to the west). As it got closer it gradually changed directions and began heading east. It did not change orientation as it changed its direction of travel by 90 degrees. As it moved away the lights appeared to switch back and forth between the two ends. I continued watching it as it got further away, but I looked away briefly as the property owner’s dog had seen me and began barking. When I looked back to the object it was then dark with no bright areas and after looking away bri! efly again I could no longer find it. I estimate the time of day to have been between 18:00-19:30 and the duration of the sighting to be approximately 5 minutes.
August 15, 2020 · 5:00 AM · LIGHT
Davis, CA
I was lying down on my bed and gazing the night sky through the window. The sky was clear and there were many stars visible which appears stationary. It was early morning time around 5am when I noticed one star moving slowly and then increasing its speed. I notice that there was at least 7 such stars following it and all these stars were at the same distance from each other and moving at the same speed. To make sure I was not dreaming, I woke my wife up and she also witnessed these stars moving. They were moving in the direction of the moon. Next to the moon we also noticed a bright star. The view from the bedroom was limited so we decided to go to our backyard and view it more clearly. By the time we were out and looked up the sky, we could not see them anymore. We were able to witness these UFO for at least 2-3 mins and they looked spectacular. We could still see stars in the sky but all appeared stationary. This was truly remarkable and wonder if anybody else noticed this.
April 14, 2020 · 4:00 AM · SPHERE
Davis, CA
(I live on an airport in the Central Valley. If I am facing north, to my left, about 7 miles away are the mountains containing Lake Berryessa. Because the ground is flat, to my right I can see all the way to Sacramento, thirty or so miles away. At night I can see sky scrapers. Where I am, in the sticks, is mostly void of city light. Also have you ever gone camping, away from the city, to where the sky is fuller of stars than you’ve ever seen? Have you ever spotted a satellite flying over you, on its singular strait pathed orbit? Or perhaps the international space station? It has a different path and is faster and brighter than satellites. The only reason you see the satellite, is because the sunlight is reflecting from the sun, off of them to you. And on its path, if it happens to duck behind the earth as you’re watching it. Shows the sunlight slowly start to fade as it does. Otherwise you can watch satellites travel their path for many many miles until they become dim from the curvature of the earth. They absolutely look like one solid point of light just like the surrounding stars. Get stars kind of have a slight red blue flicker to them if you really concentrate on them. I’ve also spotted what seems to be a high-altitude jet that must be secret, really high up in the stratosphere, yet leaving the usual ice trail that any regular jet would leave. I am a skydiver. I live on an airport. I grew up next to an airport. I was a ship look out in the Coast Guard. If I don’t know about anything else, I should at least be able to spot a craft in the air, on the land or sea. And be able to hypothesize as to what it is.) It was 4 am. I walked out my door facing east. Out of the corner of my left eye, my attention was brought to a satellite looking type of light. But if was almost at a fourth five degree angle from me. I turned to loo at it. It was not an aircraft. It was not blinking. It had no running lights. It was as if I was looking up in the sky and spotting a satellite way up above our atmosphere. Yet, this thing had to be about a mile away from me, at 20,000 to 30,000 ft. It was heading towards my right, with is a path towards Sacramento. (Interesting fact. At night, during normal not virus. You can watch the commercial jets flying in and out of the Sacramento airport in the way of my view of the city. All day, all night. Difference with this night. We are all coincidentally all stuck at home. No jets. No one getting up to go to work. No one to see what I was seeing.) As this thing passed me, I realize it’s being followed by another one, about a mile to three miles behind it. Same path. Same speed, which is under a hundred casual. As that one passed my position, another one behind that. Now I’m watching seven, eight, nine go passed. One of them was different. The only one out of the entire night. It was spinning in a different direction than the path it was on with its buddies. The side I was looking at, was just as bright as the rest. But once it spun its other side around. It was as bright as a strobe. Not strobing, solid light. Nothing about these things were blinking. Just a bright period floating by. At one point a second path was formed, to the side of the original path and light points. It was closer to me, and started a pattern of the same spaces light sources, but staggered from them. Now they were coming in bulk. Same configuration, but continuous. After about ten minutes, I counted fifty of these things before running back in for my iPhone. When I came back out, I had lost count. But they just kept coming. I’m in the parking lot trying to take pictures of them, but the light is too low for the phone. I start trying to call people in my area. No one picks up, other than the owner of the property I’m on. I tell him to go out and look at these things. I explain to him what to look for and he goes. These things were coming from what my perspective saw as the bottom half star of the Big Dipper. At four in the morning, if I’m looking north, the Big Dipper is to my north west. The handle is sticking strait up, ladles open in facing right to the north. The handle would be positioned over what I’d say is in the direction of Calistoga. If you follow that path, it probably brings you to the ocean after Jenner going north, and fort brag. All Mendocino county. Forrest and open land forever. No one but sleeping farmers to see. The path to my right takes them south past Lake Tahoe. If you follow that path. Well. Area 51. Over the the hour that I was out there watching. They must have realized the path they took was a bit close to sac, and too close to the ground. Because by the time the end was wrapping up, their path had gained altitude, and had corrected more south heading towards Lodi (south, the direction of the moon and Jupiter/mars). That was taking them right over my head! about a mile up. I took a picture of the last two that were together, but with an iPhone it’s garbage. I watched this go on for more than an hour, and had watched more than a hundred go past. When I was able to get my landlord up, he text me about ten minutes later and said he saw what I was seeing. By then, it died down to just about one a minute. They were still coming in when dawn broke and I could hardly see them anymore. So I went back to bed. The next morning I woke up at four, just to see if I could spot anything. I was out there for ten minutes. I spotted three. This morning I tried again. I stood out for about twenty minutes. And did spot two. But everything was so overcast. It could have been anything.