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UAP Nexus
As reported

Light over Los Angeles, CA

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

The report, as filed

I took a trip from Boston, MA to Los Angeles, CA 8/13-23, 2015 and stayed with my friend in Sherman Oaks. He had tickets to attend the Hollywood Bowl Friday 8/21 to see the rock band Heart. We arrived around 6:30pm and sat at his box seats in the garden section in time to eat our picnic dinner before the 8pm showtime. Just before 8pm I was looking around because I have only been to the Hollywood Bowl once before and I was excited to be there again. Behind me was a half moon in the SSW sky. By now the sky was dark but it was a clear night and the weather was perfect. A bit cool but I was comfortable wearing a sweatshirt and long pants. Just before the show began I happened to look up. There were Klieg lights crisscrossed right above the stage where they intersected creating a giant "X". My eyes followed them to where they met above in a crystal clear sky and I was amazed to see this UFO! It was right above the "X" of lights and stationary. I could clearly see two round red lights to the right and two round green lights to the left. I could not see a craft but I felt the lights were part of the same structure. It was about the size of my thumbnail held at arms length. I was amazed. It was so obvious that I wondered if anyone else saw it. By 8pm the Hollywood Bowl conductor Thomas Wilkins took the stage and led us in the National Anthem. Afterwards he introduced the first act before they took the stage. I could not keep my eyes off this UFO. I wanted to watch the show but could not help looking up. Then it dawned on me to take some video with my iPhone 5c. I lined up the image and hit record. This is when I recorded the first video at 8:07pm. I recorded the second video at 8:08 which was zoomed in to the lights and gives you a good idea of how it looked. Since it was shot with an iPhone at night it is a bit blurry. I have submitted two very short videos of the object as well as a still shot. You can hear the conductor in the background speaking to the audience in the videos. The unusual thing for me was that I was sure I recorded at least 10 minutes of video but when I looked later I realized I only captured less than 20 seconds between the two videos. I use video all the time so I was very surprised this happened. I must say I was VERY excited because I have seen UFO's in CA before but they were not this impressive. I almost felt as if this thing was watching us. I must admit I was also a bit nervous and tried to pass the lights off as a drone or balloon yet it was neither one of those. It was stationary most of the time right above my head, facing North about halfway up the sky. Because It was above me I had to strain my neck to watch it sitting there. After a while my neck hurt so I began watching the show instead. When I looked back up again I was surprised to see it gone! I searched the sky and saw it moving toward the NNW horizon. It was moving rather fast but as I watched it, it stopped, again I felt it knew I saw it. I got goose bumps. This is when I thought I recorded another 10 minutes of it. Just below the lights in the WNW are large trees and through the trees I saw a strobe light flashing on & off. I thought it odd but it could be manmade, the object was heading in that direction. After about 10 more minutes it fell behind the trees and that was the last I saw of it. It was in the sky for about 45 minutes! I feel it was too large to be a drone and the fact that it stopped and started on it's own would rule out a balloon. Also the eerie feeling I got watching it watching me was uncanny. There was a sellout crowd at the Bowl that night and I wonder if anyone else saw what I recorded. I went on the internet to see if anyone had posted anything on Youtube and found this video which is very close to what I saw. It also was shot in CA so maybe what I saw was indeed a UFO. You can watch that video here http://youtu.be/JRr3bFWfO6o Thank you for your time.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #121602). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.

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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2015-08-18 → 2015-09-04

From the same sky

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