As reported

Light over Coalinga, CA

A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.

The report, as filed

My daughter, son in-law, his sister & kids were driving northbound I-5 about 11:30 pm when they saw something with four lights fly right over their car. She says it was too close to be a plane & when they looked back, it was gone!

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #112714). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.

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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2014-08-17 → 2014-09-03

From the same sky

Related entries

July 2, 2023 · 1:19 AM · OTHER

Coalinga, CA

My son and I were driving on I5 south. We were currently on Coalinga that time. We came from Arizona and was driving to Tacoma WA. While I was driving I saw lights that suddenly appeared on my left. It looked like strobe lights but very faint. I thought they were fireworks at first. I then saw a very faint outline of what I could only assume was a craft. It looked like something invisible but you can still see the shimmer and the outline so you know something is there. Then all of a sudden it materialized and 3 very bright lights came on. The lights were so bright they looked like spotlights you can see from afar. Then as suddenly as it appeared, the light turned off and the craft flew directly in front of my windshield then went to the passenger side. Please note that I was driving at 90mph during that time. I woke my son up and he started recording it when it was on his side. When it flew past my windshield I saw that it was a grayish brown in color and from what I saw did not look like metal. It was some kind of textured material. I would say it looked like some kind of "skin". I might sound crazy but it looked like the skin of a dragon. Also for some reason, it looked like it was flying at a 45 degree angle. Like a plane with the nose up. I may be seeing things but that's how it looked to me. For background, I am a nurse and I work for the health department. I do believe we are not alone but I am also very skeptical when someone says they saw a ufo. My son works as a service advisor and has the same outlook as me. So when I tried telling my friends and family about it, it felt like I was making it up. It was a very frustrating feeling. And made me wonder to myself if I was seeing things. So when my son finally started recording, the craft was on our left side. It was flying very low and had so sound or any exhaust that I can see. It turned a bit towards us and the three bright lights came on again. To me it looked like the lights were at the end of long tubes if that makes sense. After the lights turned on, it slightly turned and just disappeared. My son told me that he saw the underside and it looked invisible. Like when something is being cloaked but you can still a distortion or a shimmer around it. There was no sound and the way it was moving looks like it had no trouble going in any direction at all. There were other cars on the highway but they far from us. But other cars must have seen the very bright lights that came on twice. From the video it looks like an aircraft of some sort. But from our perspective, it looked very different. I am reporting this in case someone else saw it so I wouldn't think I was seeing things. As for my feelings during that time, it did not feel threatening or dangerous. It felt curious to me. Both my son and I just wanted to get home quickly and were not even thinking anything remotely about ufo's. So it wasn't that we wanted to see something that wasn't there. If it was a ufo then it was really cool we saw it. If it was an aircraft or drone of some sort, it was still cool to see the advanced technology of drones today. There is a Naval air base in the vicinity. Likely training exercise. [NUFORC annotation: Aircraft - Probable]

July 31, 2015 · 8:40 PM · LIGHT

Coalinga, CA

Traveled about 110 deg arc, just under 5 mins traveling north by north east. Possible satellite or ISS??? Not a comet as too slow. Was a steady light until disappeared faded about 20 degrees above horizon. Not the ISS, which was visible from Coalinga at 21:31, and again at 23:09 hrs. (local). PD

May 22, 2014 · 9:15 PM · TRIANGLE

Coalinga, CA

UFO Sighting May 22, 2014. California State Route HWY 152 East bound to I-5 South bound at Coalinga Road Conditions Clear/ Traffic Moderate / Temperature 65 to 70 degrees F. / Windy At approximately 9:00pm to 9:20pm, while travelling east bound from San Francisco on California State Hwy 152 towards Interstate 5, my daughter sitting in the front passenger seat of our vehicle asked if I could see an object in the sky. I was sitting in the rear driver's side of our vehicle but looked out the drivers side window and did see a huge, very brightly lit object. It was not a linear shape as I expected to see, but an oblique yet rounded object of massive size with blinding lights. My husband could not look at the object very long as he was driving, and the lights were so bright, dangerously so. My daughter clearly saw the object and was becoming somewhat excited by it's unique, unexplainable nature. I only had a few seconds of vision before it (or we) moved beyond my line of vision. My daughter in the front passenger seat continued to track the object for several minutes through the front windshield until we moved beyond it and her line of vision was also lost. Upon coming to the I-5 interstate (approx. 20 minutes later) we took the south bound exit and continued traveling towards Los Angeles. After a few minutes my daughter once again asked if we saw an object in the sky. Initially my vision was again obstructed. I could not see out of her passenger side window so instead I started looking out my rear side window. Off in the distance I could see bright flashes of light and a thick cloud mass. The flashes of light were not streaks of lightening but the kind that is more horizontal and widespread. There was a noticeable tingle in the air and the heavy cloud mass looked like it was rolling. I asked my daughter if she could see the light flashes and clouds and she said yes, then suddenly I looked towards the front the the windshield and could clearly see a triangular object flying low towards the passenger side of the vehicle. The object was moving very fast and changing directions and stopping in short spurts. There were bright red and white lights pulsating from the craft. It was not only triangular in shape but the craft moved in ways I had no explanation for. From side to side with no arching and up and down with no regard to speed or conventional pattern. My daughter was able to track it once again from the passenger side of the vehicle and she also started to film the object while describing it to me. It now looked as though there were multiple objects flying through the sky, some very high and very fast. This went on for some time and I could now smell and see cattle stockades out of my rear passenger window. The triangular object then flew back across the highway very low and ended up on the drivers side of our vehicle where it stopped near an overpass. We all exclaimed that whatever it was it could cause a wreck flying so low and over the highway with the bright lights on. The lights of this craft were not as bright as the ones on the craft we saw on State Highway 152, but they were certainly bright enough to be a potential hazard and a distraction for drivers. My daughter decided to report the object to the California Highway Patrol which she called on her cell phone. The time was exactly 10:15 pm and we were at the Coalinga exit. She explained what she had seen and was transferred to the correct person by dispatch. She told them what she had seen and of her concerns about the danger to traffic as well as the unsettling, unexplained nature of the craft. Before she could finish she was abruptly told that there was a airstrip nearby and the receiver hung up. This experience has stayed with us and has become a very real, yet unexplainable, part of our lives. We have never felt compelled to document an experience like this before. We have never before called the Highway Patrol or Police from a moving vehicle to report something unexplained. My daughter's video is very dark and it is difficult to clearly see anything but flashes of light. Perhaps someone with better technology can clean up the picture and make out discernible shapes and offer some insight into what we saw and experienced on May 22nd, 2014.

January 3, 2013 · 5:50 AM · DISK