Capitola:témoignages originaux

s.f. bayarea craigslist > south bay > general > BIZARRE "thing" in the sky in Capitola, CA... WTF is this?


BIZARRE "thing" in the sky in Capitola, CA... WTF is this? (capitola)


Reply to: comm-334875066@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-05-20, 3:18PM PDT

I was in Capitola with my fiance at her parent's house this week and we saw this thing. We were eating with her family and they saw it too. What the hell is this? Did anyone else see it?!

I was able to grab some pictures and made a Flickr account for them. There's more info there. Here's the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8418528@N06/sets/72157600236430072/


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This week I was visting my fiance's parents in Capitola (we were actually there to tell them about our engagement, in fact). We were eating dinner on the back porch when we noticed this "object" sort of hovering in the sky. The camera was still out from earlier so I grabbed it and tried to get some clear shots of it. It took off over the roof shortly after, so I ran into the street in front of the house to follow, trying to get more shots without wobbling around too much (which was harder than it sounds). It then came in lower over a telephone pole, where I was able to get a few more pictures, before it finally took off into the distance pretty fast. I thought it was gone but noticed it was still visible, so I grabbed a few more pictures.

At one point a car stopped to look as well. No one had any idea what this thing was but everyone in the car was visibly freaked out by it. Once it was gone they told me to call the news and drove off. :) I'm not sure who else saw it in the neighborhood since I don't live down there, but I'm sure at least a few others must have noticed it. It was way too werid and way too close to go unnoticed. Once it was gone and I caught my breath I could barely stop my hands from shaking for the next hour or so. Needless to say, this is all we talked about for the rest of the night. None of us can figure out what it was (and that's saying something, because my fiance's dad is a mechanical engineer).

We sent a copy of the photos to their newspaper but haven't heard back yet. I dunno how long that kind of thing takes.

There's also some writing on this thing, which I didn't recognize (and I read both English and Hindi). You can see it in a few of the pictures.

Anyway, I created this Flickr account for the best of these pictures. I have no clue what this thing is so I'm putting it out there to see if anyone else saw it.

Re: UFO -'best yet'? up close and detailed

Hello everyone!

I have been invited to this forum to discuss the photos. I apologize for being a little late. My Memorial Day weekend was definitely one to remember, although I will take my friends/fiance's words for it as I can not remember all of it. :) But that's always the best sign of a weekend well spent, correct?

Anyway, I am AMAZED at all the discussion here! I knew the pictures would be thought-provoking (they have certainly given all of us here at home a lot to discuss) but this is really something! Clearly there are a lot of questions and ideas and I must confess I did not have time to read everything (that might take a month!) instead I have tried to hop around in the discussion and see where it went. So I have a general idea but I am probably missing many details.

If you would like to ask any questions, please do so and I will reply. As I said to forum member Brendan, this will be a light week for me so I should be a little bit more responsive than I have been.

Brendan also asked if I have been having any headaches or anything like that. I have not noticed anything of the kind, nor has my fiance. I didn't imagine any such things might happen, but I have since read about Chad and his experience (!) and am glad I'm not having quite the same situation.

Speaking of Chad, I'm not surprised someone else has seen this thing, but I had no idea pictures of this thing were already floating around the web. The differences between what we have seen, however, are fascinating to me. Also of interest is the lettering on his "craft", which is obviously the same as mine.

That's about it for now I guess. Any questions you may have, I will do my best to answer. For some questions I may have to ask my fiances parents (remember I do not actually live where these photos were taken), which might delay things a little but I will do what I can.

Talk to you all soon!

Raj

Re: UFO -'best yet'? up close and detailed

WOW, what a turnout. Maybe I should have thought twice before agreeing to answer questions! :) I probably won't be able to get to all of them, but I will do my best:

1) The object did rotate as it moved, but it was almost like the rotation and the movement were unrelated (if that makes sense). So imagine it moving in a straight line, but rotating very gently in such a way that the "arms" don't ever really match up with its direction. Also, the speed of the rotating would change every time it stopped or changed direction. So if it was moving in one direction with a very slow spin, it might then stop to turn in another direction, and the spinning would accelerate. I'm trying to think of an example of this kind of motion but none come to mind. The rotation was never very fast though, even when the craft flew away at the end.

2) It did not appear to interact with the power lines. It flew over them, and stopped for a brief period, but it didn't touch them or anything like that. I guess we'll find out if my fiance's parents get a big spike in their PG&E bill this month. :)

3) I didn't hear it make a lot of noise aside from some very faint pops and snapping sounds. Definitely no "engine noises". But I could "feel" something that was like when a car next to you at a red light is blasting the bass. It was like a vibrating I could feel in my chest. Nothing unpleasant or painful though.

4) Many have asked about the original camera photos. I uploaded them to Flickr but it won't let anyone download them! Since so many people have requested them, I am wondering if someone has a place where I can upload them so anyone can download them? It would be a pain to individually send them as email attachments to a million people. If you have any ideas please let me know.

5) I have no idea what it was, but everywhere I have read about it now, I hear people call it a "drone". My fiance's dad is an engineer and he suggested something similar. At first glance, before I even had a chance to process what I was seeing, I thought it was a remote control toy or something. I definitely wouldn't mind playing with a toy like that. :)

6) I had never thought much about aliens and UFOs before this event. I always figured there must be life out there somewhere but I have never been convinced that they are coming here. However, after this, who knows? I reserve judgement until I know more about what this is. This is already weird enough as it is!

7) I can't even guess why it was hanging around Capitola, or what it was after. However, my fiance's parents mentioned that in the 60's or 70's, a bunch of birds went crazy in Capitola and were attacking people and flying into walls. They say that's where Alfred Hitchcock got his idea for "The Birds". Of course I don't think it's related, but it proves that weird things happen in the area every now and then. :)

8) I have not heard from the "Men in Black" yet, nor has anyone else in my family.

9) The 6 photos I posted are the only ones that have the object in them. We had been taking photos all evening and my fiance's parents are KNOWN for never clearing their memory cards and then running out of room at the worst time. This has already happened on two separate vacations in the couple years I have known them. :) So when I reached for the camera, I was thinking to myself "Here is some crazy thing in the sky, and I bet that I won't even be able to take a picture beacuse they haven't downloaded their photos to the computer!!!" Luckily it turns out that I still had room for about 12 more shots, but I tried to make each shot count. It was nerve wracking enough chasing this thing around, but it's even worse when you are worried that your future in-laws have already filled up the camera! I could have taken a few more than I did, but I didn't expect it to fly away so abruptly. Also, I took a few more like the last photo, where it is off in the distance, but in the last two shots it is already gone.

10) I have been asked by a few people why I did not take video. Of course, I didn't have a lot of time to think about what was happening. They have an old Minolta (they got it like 7 years ago) and I'd never even used it before that evening. I never checked to see if it could do video but even if it does, I didn't know how to do it at the time. I do video with my digital camera (a Cannon) all the time, but I didn't have that with me. Plus knowing them, there was probably only room for half a second of video. :) And remember, this whole experience was over in a matter of minutes. I think some people overestimate how clearly I was thinking!

11) As I said in my original Flickr page, the only people that I KNOW saw it are me, my fiance, her parents, and the people who stopped in the car. I assume many other people must have seen it, but I don't know of anyone in particular beyond us.

12) They still have the memory card. I downloaded the photos and have a copy of them, and knowing them, they STILL probably have not erased the card. So if you guys want 10,000 pictures of us eating dinner on the back deck, you are in luck!

13) I posted the pictures originally to Flickr beacuse I didn't know of any other way to get them online for public viewing and I have a lot of work friends that use it all the time for their own photos. As for Craigslist, it was the first idea that came to me when I tried to think of ways to ask a lot of people in the Capitola area if they saw this thing. One funny thing was that we had been talking so much about UFO movies since it happened, and when I went to post the question, for a second I misread "casual encounters" as "close encounters". That was definitely NOT where it was supposed to go. :) Before the last week or so, I had never visited any UFO sites so I didn't know of any. I definitely would have started here though if I did.

Raj