“UFOs Over Topanga”
by Preston Dennett
Most everyone understands what
UFO means—Unidentified Flying Object.
And back in 1973, a Gallup poll
established that the majority of Americans believe in them. That majority seems
sure to have grown even larger as the years pass by.
Still, there are millions who are
not convinced—and even those who are don’t take each and every UFO report
seriously.
I myself was a UFO skeptic, until
a series of incidents in Topanga Canyon started me on an investigation I never
meant to follow....
It all started when I was
watching the news one day, and heard about a UFO in 1986, sighted by Captain
Kenju Terauchi of Japanese Air Lines over Alaska. The UFO report received
international media coverage, and was confirmed by radar.
I was sure that the UFO report
was provoked by a reflection off the ice, ionized exhaust, or an ice cloud, but
it interested me enough to pick up a book on the subject. In the book, I
expected to find that UFOs were easily explained as misperceptions or hoaxes. I
found the opposite. I couldn’t believe the stories I read, so I read every UFO
book I could get my hands on. But I still couldn’t believe in UFOs.
Space-ships? Aliens from outer-space? No way!
That was when I figured if UFOs
are as real as the books say they are, then I should know at least a couple of
people who have seen them. So I asked everyone I knew that key question,
sneaking it in at any opportune moment, “Do you believe in UFOs? Have you ever
seen one?”
The responses I received from
family and friends dealt a fatal blow to my life as a UFO skeptic. Some of them
(even friends of friends) began to tell me UFO experiences that they didn’t
tell me before because they knew I wouldn’t have believed them. And they were
right!
So far, I have investigated four
solid UFO incidents in the Topanga area, with the possibility of several more.
I have also uncovered evidence in other UFO books that UFOs have visited this
area.
Topanga does have a history of UFO
sightings. In a used book store I found a shabby old UFO book published in
1954: Harold T. Wilkins’ FLYING SAUCERS ON THE AT- TACK. In it I found this
amazing quote by an engineer, Mr. Frederick G. Hehr, of Santa Monica:
“Three-quarters of an hour before
sunset, on a June day in 1953, I had a unique experience. Twice in one day I
saw saucers, and witnessed a whole squadron of them go through various
maneuvers, lasting ten minutes.”
A few pages later in the same
book, I found the following paragraph which astounded me:
“...Freda owns a house in Topanga
Canyon. One night, she was waked by the flapping of the blind. She got up,
looked out, and saw a silver bar hanging in the sky, quite near, with a
pendulum movement, a slight movement. It hopped around, here and there. It would
vanish, then return, as if quartering the neighborhood, looking for
something.... A number of people have seen a round object showing different
lights and colors, moving fast through the clouds, by day or night.”
In Raymond Fowler’s book, THE
ANDREASSON AFFAIR: PHASE TWO, I found the following short piece of information:
August 15, 1957: Woodland Hills,
California / Disk hovered for six minutes. Rocked from side to side.
In Richard Hall’s excellent book,
UNINVITED GUESTS, I found the following disturbing report:
July 25, 1979; Canoga Park,
California. Features: Vehicle encounter, time loss, abduction, physical exam.
Shari N. a housewife and cocktail waitress in her 30s, was driving the short
distance home from work when she saw an object that she thought was a plane
crashing. She arrived home unaccountably late.
Under later hypnosis she
described getting out of the car and approaching the object She recalled being
examined while lying on her back; her back was hurting. She was bound around
the stomach, and a being (not clearly described) probed her shoulder and
stomach, inserted something in her leg, and dabbed her eyes. Finally she was
returned to the car.
Although I have been unable to
locate the source, I remember very distinctly reading about two scientists who
were measuring geo-magnetics on Mulholland, when a UFO appeared over the
horizon.
The two men had a movie camera
and were able to take a good amount of footage—which they promptly turned over
to the Air Force. The film was never returned.
Reports in the books go on and
on, spreading throughout Los Angeles. In fact, an entire book has been written
about a series of dramatic UFO encounters in Tujunga Canyon. The book, by Ann
Druffel and D. Scott Rogo entitled THE TUJUNGA CANYON CONTACTS, reveals many
sightings in the Los Angeles area.
One of the earliest is outlined
in Timothy Good’s book ABOVE TOP SECRET, where in 1942 a UFO was sighted by
thousands of witnesses. The object was the target of a massive artillery attack
by the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade. Three people were killed, three died of
heart-attacks, and homes and buildings were destroyed as “...the object
eventually proceeded at a leisurely pace over the coastal cities between Santa
Monica and Long Beach.”
The book even provides a photo of
the object as it hovered over the Culver City area, bombarded by 1,430 rounds
of ammunition (according to General George Marshall, Chief of Staff,
Washington, D.C.) for a period of five hours as search lights covered it from
the ground below.
Only a few of the UFO incidents I
have investigated have taken place in Topanga. Some of the most dramatic took
place right in the middle of the San Fernando Valley. Unfortunately, I only
have room to discuss the four Topanga incidents.
UFO OVER DIX CANYON
The first case occurred around
1973 or 1974 near the top of Fernwood Pacific at Saddlepeak. The sighting
occurred at around nine or ten o’clock at night, and there were two witnesses:
Topanga resident Sylvia Walters; and her girlfriend D.G. I’ll let Sylvia
describe what she saw in her own words:
“This happened a long time ago. I
was about fourteen at the time. D.G. and I were in my room and we heard this
humming noise. We looked outside and there was a very bright, oval-shaped light
that seemed to be floating and moving down, and going over—not over, but down
behind the ridge.... It was a yellowish light. It was oval.... It was moving
fairly slowly.... I’d say it was about two or three miles off.... And I could
hear it.... It was like a steady rumble or hum... kind of like a low dial tone
or something like that.... At the time I was going, Wow! That’s a UFO! and D.G.
was saying, ‘No, no, no, it’s not a UFO. It’s a meteorite.’”
Did Sylvia and D.G. see a UFO?
It’s hard to say. It surely couldn’t have been a meteorite. Meteors don’t make
humming noises like a dial tone. And further, the light Sylvia and D.G. saw was
moving much too slowly to be a meteor. It probably wasn’t any airplane or
helicopter, as the description of the object— both in sight and sound—match
neither. Unfortunately the sighting was of short duration, at the most five
seconds long. So it’s hard to make any firm conclusions.
UFOS OVER MULHOLLAND
This UFO Incident occurred on the
north side of Topanga, about six miles east of Topanga Canyon Boulevard on
Mulholland, a dirt road The incident occurred in 1982 at around one or two a.m.
There were two witnesses, Mark Grant and his friend R.H. Here is Mark’s
description of what he saw:
“Well, basically a friend of mine
and I were driving around on dirt Mulholland late one evening, and we had
parked to stop off at the side of road and what-not, and look at the view. And we were both kind of
looking out towards the sky and saw some lights. It was very strange because
they were in like a triangular pattern. We observed the lights and watched them
for, I’d say, maybe fifteen minutes or so. At which time, you know, we had been
talking about it, looking at these lights, and we thought it was maybe
helicopters or something like that.
“About fifteen minutes after we
first observed them, they started coming towards us all at the same time. And
the two at the bottom looked like they went like straight at us, around our
periphery. And at the same time they looked like they were going away too. They
just kind of disappeared.
“...The colors—there were colors
when they were moving. And as they were steady, they were very bright, but like
a white on bottom to top, in that order. And they kind of changed colors as
they moved. They seemed like they changed colors—almost streaked, I guess
because they were moving so fast, I couldn’t catch it with my eye or something.
I guess that’s why they were moving so fast or whatever. They could have been
lines of light, or just moving so fast, I couldn’t catch it with my eye or
something. I guess that’s why they were going towards us and away from us at
the same time. It was very strange.”
This sighting is very hard to
explain away as a misperception or hallucination. Mark was deeply impressed by
what he saw and admits that he was frightened by the incident He said that he
had the feeling they were being watched, but he didn’t know what it was, or who
to tell about it He admits he didn’t tell anybody about it for three years.
UFOS OVER ENCINA
Encina is a side street off
Entrada, and is divided into upper Encina and lower Encina. One summer night in
1986, at about eleven o’clock at night, three teenagers, Gabe Aldort, Vadja
Potenza, and A.W., were walking down upper Encina when they spotted two UFOs
high in the sky above them.
Here is Gabe’s description of
what he saw:
“The first one I saw was with
Vadja and this other guy named A.W. And we were walking down—I think we were
just walking around at night. It was about eleven o’clock.
We were playing like ‘dodge from
the cars,’ and I guess we were looking at the sky or something. And we saw
these two—they looked like stars, you know, and they were going fast, too fast
to be a plane. They were going really fast. They didn’t have any lights on
them. They weren’t blinking or anything. And they came together and then they
stopped. And then they circled—it’s like they circled around each other, like
in a circle. And then they both just went pshewww!!!—took off really fast. It
was really weird, and I knew planes couldn’t do that. They just stopped, like
they looked at each other, and then they circled around each other, and then
they just split They just took off.... It was pretty freaky. We thought they
were going to land or something. It was really weird that that happened,
because I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Gabe is obviously convinced that
no plane or helicopter could perform the maneuvers he witnessed. He further
described the objects as being about as bright as the brightest star in the
sky. He estimates the sighting lasted about thirty seconds. Vadja reports
seeing essentially the same thing as Gabe. Here is Vadja’s description of the
event:
“I was with two of my friends,
A.W. and Gabe Aldort. And we were walking down Encina I think—it’s up Entrada.
And we were just running around. It was nighttime. We were just running around,
and I was looking up because there were a lot of stars out And I looked over,
and there were these two things that looked like stars that started moving
together and rotating around. And I said, ‘Oh look!’ And they looked up and
said, ‘Whoa!’ And these two star-like things came together, rotated around each
other, and then separated, and then just sort of disappeared off into the
distance.... They were moving the whole time. I mean, when they rotated around
each other, it was kind of like in one place. It was like they were both
attached to an axis or something. And then they just split.... I didn’t think
it was a plane, because I’d never seen any plane that could do that.”
Both witnesses are convinced they
saw something very strange, something that convinced them that some of those
crazy stories they had heard about UFOs just might be true.
UFOS OVER OLD CANYON
Just a few miles up Old Canyon
Road from Topanga Canyon Boulevard, an amazing incident occurred. It was a
summer evening in 1987, and four persons became witness to an event they’ll
always remember. They saw a veritable fleet of UFOs.
As many as five unidentified
flying objects were sighted, including one very large one with colored lights
coming quite close and shining down a beam of light next to the stunned
witnesses. The four witnesses were Gabe Aldort (who saw two UFOs over Encina),
John Heldman, Ivan Eason and Leif Eason. Each of them were interviewed
separately. Here are their descriptions of what they saw.
Gabe: “This one’s really weird.
You’ve got to bear with me. But this was in Topanga too. And I was with three
other people. It’s on Old Canyon. We were at their house, this guy’s house, and
I was with a guy named John, and a guy named Ivan, and his brother Leif. And we
were sitting on his porch, and uh... this is really weird... we saw a star. We
were looking up in the sky and we saw a star in the distance. It was going
about as fast as the first one I told you about, you know. And it looked like a
star.
“Then suddenly it came. It’s like
it was really far off in the distance, and then it just came really fast. It
came like over the sky, and it came right over this guy’s house, not right over
it, but up in the sky. And it passed overhead. It was just so far away it
looked like a star, and then suddenly, whoosh!!! And it came right up and just
went right over this guy’s house.
“All I could see was just a
shape. It was like it wasn’t a saucer or anything. It was like... sort of like
a weird-looking sports car shape. I couldn’t see, I could only see a shadow,
you know. But it looked like that. I could draw it I’ve drawn it before when I
told other people about it. But that was only one of them. I saw four more at
the same time.
“And then, oh man! And then two
more came right next to each other and went right over his house and went by.
They were just like the one that just passed, and went over his house. They
didn’t have—they didn’t sound like engines, but it just had like a low buzz.
And they went by.
“And then—I think this is what I
think it is—the mother ship came, okay. Trip out on this. This thing came and
it was BIG! It was so big. And it came, and it wasn’t a saucer or anything. I don’t
know. I’d have to draw it.... Alright, listen to this. It didn’t have any
lights on the bottom. All we saw was a shadow. It came over, and it came like
right over his house, like really, really close, like when you’re on the beach
and one of those news helicopters flies by. It was like about that high. And
there was a huge shadow. And it had that same sound, mmmmmmm.... And it sort of
it went by, and it was going slowly. And his house, his mom is an artist and
she has a studio, an art studio that she works in. It’s like a separate part of
the house. And this thing, a beam came down, a light beam like in CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. And it came down right on this studio and the
beam, it came down and it moved across this particular part of the house, but
it was stiff. The beam came down, moved, nnnnnnn..., and then it sucked back up
again, vpppp! And then that ship went by really slowly. It left, mmmmmm....
“And then one ship followed it...
and the one that followed it had a spinning thing on the bottom. It was like
that sort of square shape—a circular thing on the bottom that had lights all
around it. And it was spinning. And it went by. And that’s all we saw.”
John: “Well we were just sitting
outside, and we were kicking for a little while, and we saw this little kind of
circular object, I guess, with one big light on top of it. It just kind of flew
over toward us, and then it stopped. And then it flew away. Then another one
came, and it was a bigger one. It had little lights on the outside of it, all
the way around And then it shined like a beam down on to the house... and then
we all kind of got freaked out, so we hid under like the side of the house. And
then it just flew away. And another little one came after that, and it flew
away. And then we were just sitting there going ‘What?’
“...On the first one there was a
light on the top... and then another one came, a bigger one. I just saw on the
side—it had little teeny lights around it. And then it shined a light down... that
(the last one) was just a little one. I didn’t really get to see it, because I
was kind of scared... (it was) just like one teeny little light. But it moved
fast, they moved fast We couldn’t figure out what it was because they moved so
fast that it couldn’t be a helicopter or something. It moved really fast, like
jet over here and jet right back—you know, back and forth.”
Ivan: “It was just like a little
ship, or not like a little ship, but like a light far away. And it came like
over the hill, And then we looked away or something. Then, all of a sudden, it
was right there. And we were all just, ‘Oh, what is that?’ And then another one
came, and there were two of them. They were just sitting there with their
lights and stuff, and they zipped away really fast. But then this big one—this
big old one came over with lights on the top and stuff. And it shined this
light on us, and just kind of went over, and then just kept on going. Then this
little one came afterwards, but it was all fast. It just flew by.
“They (the first ones) were
small, but they had lights on top... like blue, red, yellow, and mostly
white.... They were like—I don’t know, I couldn’t tell. It was too dark. You
couldn’t really see the thing except for all the lights. And then it just kind
of flew over.... Maybe about two minutes, and it was gone. It was just poof! It
was neat. The little ones came over the hill, and we weren’t paying attention
to them, we just thought they were airplanes. And then, all of a sudden, they
were right in front of us. We’re all just, ‘Wow, what is that?’ And Gabe was
just all ‘Wow!’.... That was the weird thing. It was quiet. No noise at all,
except for like a—well most people say like a low hum, but it was pretty quiet.
It was like you couldn’t really hear anything.”
Leif: “We were with—I think there
were four people. Four people, and we were outside on my patio, and there were
no houses around. And we were looking up, and this like—this light—like this
fast light came by. I mean, it was a little like a ship and it came. All I
remember is the big ship actually. This big one is what I remember. It was just
like a big—it wasn’t going totally fast, but it was really quiet and just
coming. And it came, and it just shined like this light. It was like this, you
know, it shined a light like about fifty to a hundred yards away. And we were just
looking at it, going wow, that’s a space ship! And then it went. It just
like—the light came off and then it went. It hovered over the house and went
away.
“...I remember they looked a lot
different than any normal plane.... I think a few of them had colors on them....
We were just looking at it. Well, actually I thought we were getting invaded by
Mars people. Like LA, I thought they’d invade LA. The next day I was going to
hear about all these like Martians in LA. I mean, because if I heard it, I would
have been all, ‘No way!!!’ Because we saw these things.... It was a quiet
noise. It didn’t sound like a jet. Jets are pretty loud. It was like
something—a motor that was like a hovering noise, that could go slow and fast
if it wanted to.”
And so we close the events of
that fateful night. Although there are variations in the witnesses’
testimonies, all agree that there were at least two small UFOs, and one very
large one, which shined a solid white beam of light about ten feet wide, down
onto the roof of the house.
The objects looked strange, they
sounded strange, and they moved strangely.
There was a general agreement
that the small UFOs were the size of a van or a bus. All agree that the large
UFO hovered very low over the house. The estimates of its size vary, but the
average estimate is about the size of half a football field.
It’s difficult to say what
exactly was in the sky that night, but whatever it was, it made a deep
impression on the memory of the four witnesses. I am convinced they are telling
the truth.
As with most of the sightings in
Topanga, the witnesses were most impressed by the high degree of
maneuverability displayed by the objects, as well as their strange shape and an
almost total lack of sound. Whatever the explanation, it is not hoax,
hallucination or misidentification. These are honest people who seem to have
witnessed truly incredible events.
CONCLUSION
It is difficult to convince the
UFO skeptic. Despite the fact that there is voluminous evidence all but proving
UFOs such as: eyewitness testimonies of UFO sightings; testimonies of
abductees; testimonies of retired military officials involved in UFO crash
retrievals; radar returns; UFO effects on animals; medical effects on witnesses
(radiation burns); metal fragments; landing traces; sound recordings; photos;
moving films; over 2,500 pages of declassified United States Government
documents from such agencies as the CIA, FBI, NSA, and the USAF. Many people
reject the stories outright, without even examining the evidence.
UFOs have been seen in Topanga
and continue to be seen.
To date, I have heard of two more
sightings in Topanga. The first sighting involved four witnesses, one who
remembers colored lights moving too fast to be a helicopter, and another who
remembers just lights. Unfortunately, the incident occurred too long ago, and
the memories of the witnesses are too vague to make any conclusions as to what
they saw.
There was also possibly another
sighting in the Trippett Ranch area on Entrada, but the witness has declined to
be interviewed. I have interviewed more than thirty other people who have had
UFO experiences in the surrounding areas, and am writing a book on the subject.
Aside from alerting Topanga of
events occurring in its skies, the major purpose of this article is to obtain
more information about UFOs.
If you have had a UFO experience
in Topanga (or elsewhere), and you would like to talk about it, please call me
at (213) 455-2227, or write to me, c/o The Messenger.
SOURCES
