Possible alien craft over San Francisco Bay Area right now! (2350 4sep09)

I wouldn't consider myself an expert but I am certainly very familiar with air traffic patterns in the area. I'm an ex employee of two major airlines and have lived over 20 years in the Bay Area.

I was travelling by car, just now, 11:40 to 11:55 pm, on 280 Freeway between Redwood City and San Jose, CA. I spotted 2 blinking lights and my first thought was it was a strange place for Southwest to be flying; sometimes on approach Southwest airlines pilots will blink their lights alternately. The lights were not on standard approach for either San Jose or for San Francisco Int'l. It's difficult to tell altitude based on just lights, specially not knowing the size, etc but the craft seemed to be between 5,000 and 10,000 feet.

I lost sight of the lights and had sort of dismissed it - a plane outside of what I consider normal flight path isn't that big a deal. But! It was still there about 4-5 minutes later as I turned facing South again!

I watched intently for the next several minutes and this craft was going far too slow to be a 737 (what Southwest exclusively flies). I was excitedly travelling right towards the lights. About 5 miles later I went directly under the lights and was unable to see any sort of aircraft! I should have seen something given it's a full moon but not entirely sure.

The lights continued on their slow path northward up the San Francisco Peninsula for over 10 minutes. They covered maybe 30 miles distance in 12 minutes and were still very visible when I arrived where I was going.

I don't have any video or pictures of the event but hopefully someone else caught this!

Very interesting. What color were these lights? And in which city did your journey end?

If this was a plane, could it have been headed for a smaller airport, such as the one in Half Moon Bay or Belmont/San Carlos?

This is probably unrelated, but earlier today, there was a lot of unusual, low-flying helicopter activity here in Pacifica.

reply to post by flightsuit


The two alternating lights were white. There were also 2 smaller lights in the same spots that remained sparkling as the main light went off. There seemed to be two red lights at what would be wing-tips but they weren't there/visible consistently.

It was still in the air over Stanford university roughly; still at same altitude. It's possible it could have been going toward SFO but it was not aligned to the main runways. It was also going roughly 10-15 miles per hour! Definitely not a blimp, helicopter, or airplane in my opinion.

It seemed to be a straight-line trajectory from South to North, San Jose/Gilroy to San Francisco

My destination was San Jose area.



[edit on 5-9-2009 by notreallyalive]

reply to post by notreallyalive

G'day notreallyalive

Is it this.........


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/88887afa58b5.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/980e3e480780.jpg[/atsimg]

www.airshipventures.com...


.......or something similar?

[edit on 5-9-2009 by Sam60]

He said, "Definitely not a blimp..."

I believe that would probably cover Zeppelins as well. Does that thing even fly at night?

Its Moffett Field base of operations is certainly in the neighborhood, but if it was the airship, it would have had FAA colision-avoidance lights, which would mean both red and green.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't any known aircraft operating legally and at night have the red and green FAA safety lights?

[edit on 5-9-2009 by flightsuit]

Originally posted by flightsuit
He said, "Definitely not a blimp..."
I believe that would probably cover Zeppelins as well. Does that thing even fly at night?
Its Moffett Field base of operations is certainly in the neighborhood, but if it was the airship, it would have had FAA colision-avoidance lights, which would mean both red and green.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't any known aircraft operating legally and at night have the red and green FAA safety lights?

G'day flightsuit

I'm just having a go at eliminating possibilities.

Perhaps a blimp/zep is just hard to see properly at night.

I'll see if I can find some info about blimp/zep nav lights, flying at night, etc...

reply to post by notreallyalive


Further to my previous posts, above.....

Here's a couple of videos of airships on approach at night.

The nav lights show well.





Does this help to ascertain if it could have been an airship flying at night?

They covered maybe 30 miles distance in 12 minutes and were still very visible when I arrived where I was going.

It was also going roughly 10-15 miles per hour! Definitely not a blimp, helicopter, or airplane in my opinion.

30 miles in 12 minutes = 150 mph. Fast for a blimp but about right for a small plane.

Our perceptions can deceive us. Especially when all we are looking at is lights in the sky. With no reference points we cannot judge how high, large, far, or fast they are.

[edit on 9/5/2009 by Phage]

Originally posted by Phage
Our perceptions can deceive us. Especially when all we are looking at is lights in the sky. With no reference points we cannot judge how high, large, far, or fast they are.

G'day Phage

I must agree with that.

The op's description is problematic for either a light plane or a blimp.

My thoughts were more towards the blimp scenario because I feel the appearance of a blimp at night can be more confusing than that of a light plane. Therefore I felt the op would have more easily recognised a light plane.

reply to post by notreallyalive


I live in Palo Alto, CA and often drive down 280 and 101 late at nigh. In the past few months I've started noticing more and more strange lights in the sky. On two separate occasions I saw an orb very high in altitude, almost seemed like a star, but it moved extremely fast and changed direction like nothing I have ever seen.... suddenly it disappears.

damn, I am in the bay area and i missed it . but since you mentioned it I will keep an eye out now every time I go for a smoke . I usually do look at the sky but its really foggy and hard to tell whats up there.

Originally posted by Phage

30 miles in 12 minutes = 150 mph. Fast for a blimp but about right for a small plane.

Thanks for correcting my latenight math =)

That would be about right for a small plane. But as also pointed out by Flightsuit, above, it didn't have the red and green lights as required by the FAA and others.

Concerning a blimp - I see the blimp based at Moffett almost daily. It's mainly for tourism and advertising and we could assume it doesn't go up at night. Even if it was it didn't have any lights similar to a blimp. The second video of the night time blimp landing does slightly match the description I gave though; thanks for adding.


[edit on 5-9-2009 by notreallyalive]

It's frustrating how little of the sky one can see when in a car. Reason enough for any UFO hunter to invest in a convertible!

My take on this observation, given that you could have very easily misjudged the distance from your point of observation, altitude, and distance traveled is that this is a man-made craft of mundane origin.

What I'm curious about is you see a few lights in the sky that you can't identify, and you go right to the "Possible alien craft" without passing go or collecting $200?

I mean, sure I guess it could be a possible alien craft, but I can't understand how to leap there first. Just because you can't identify something straight away and might have misjudged what you actually observed (well all do, no big deal) doesn't mean you run to the Alien explanation next. There are far too many snake oil peddlers and complete tools that depend on people who think like this to make their living, all the while making us all look bad by peddling their tripe to begin with.

reply to post by IgnoreTheFacts

G'day IgnoreTheFacts

I wouldn't like your strong commentary to stop people from posting reports such as this & asking questions as to what might have been seen.

However I do agree the op's use of the term "possible alien craft" is unfortunate.

It makes the op sound over-excited & biased to one view-point & I can only imagine what it makes ATS look like to people looking in here out of curiousity, new members, etc...