NUFORC UFO Sighting 78629
Occurred: 2010-09-25 21:43 Local
Reported: 2010-10-29 19:44 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA, USA

Shape: Light


White light on the gold coast.

At 9:43 PM I was looking out my window and I noticed 2 flames at first. I thought It was a launch from VAFB but 20 seconds after I seen the flames they went out and a lite came on. I watched for about twenty more seconds and it went dark. About 15 - 20 seconds later the lite came back on, but the object had increased it's altitude as it came in my direction. It appeared to make a 60 degree right turn as it was moving out over the ocean. This occured over the channel islands. There are 7 radars stations between VAFB and John Wayne airpot.

I've lived in the county for 24 years and have seen launches from VAFB and this was unlike anything I've ever seen. VAFB is about 85 miles from where I live. When the lite first came on it was about 3/8's of an inch in diamiter. This nite had a wisp of clouds but otherwise was clear. There is a great deal of air traffic in this area, but all planes and jets have red and white strobes unlike this object which had a lite that p! ulsed slightly.

Posted 2010-11-21

NUFORC UFO Sighting 5675
Occurred: 1999-02-23 02:29 Local
Reported: 1999-02-24 00:00 Pacific
Duration:


Location: Vandenburg AFB, CA, USA

Shape:


From Santa Barbara: No LA fireball, VAFB missle launch Peter and Art, I've seen them from as far away as Vegas in the past. 70 miles west of here, vapor trail was STILL visable 100 miles east over LA when I ran at the beach at 6:30am, Love you guys anyway...Story below:

VAFB launches Delta 2 rocket on 11th attempt 3 SATELLITES ON BOARD 2/24/99 NORA K. WALLACE NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER After more than a month of delays and 10 scrubbed launch attempts, the first satellites built by Denmark and South Africa were boosted into orbit Tuesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, with both nations gratefully heralding the start of their own space ages. On the 11th launch attempt, the Boeing Delta 2 rocket burst into a clear sky at 2:29 a.m. Tuesday. The rocket carried into orbit the Danes' Orsted satellite, the South African SUNSAT and the ARGOS, a global environmental and military space project that is the largest and most sophisticated research satellite ever taken into space for the United States. The rocket's fiery ascent through the stars could be seen by onlookers for more than three minutes, as the booster reached speeds of 10,000 mph. "Thanks to the people of America, this is the first small step of ours into space,'' Garth Milne, SUNSAT project manager, said at a January press conference. It was a long road for the foreign satellites. The launch, originally scheduled for early January, was continually delayed because of bad weather and various mechanical problems. The launch was a highly anticipated international venture, but the more than 100 dignitaries, industry leaders and students from South Africa and Denmark who spent the first half of January on the Central Coast returned home weeks ago. South Africa's satellite quest began in 1991 at the University of Stellenbosch. Initially, 14 graduate engineering students were involved Ñ a number that grew to more than

Posted 1999-04-02

NUFORC UFO Sighting 61710
Occurred: 1971-06-30 01:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2008-02-19 14:26 Pacific
Duration: unknown
No of observers: 0

Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA, USA

Shape: Disk
Characteristics: Lights on object, Emitted beams, Aircraft nearby, Electrical or magnetic effects

UFO's buzzed High Security Air Force Base in early 1970's.

Vandenberg AFB was placed on full alert at the time due to continuous sightings of UFO's buzzing and illuminating the missle lauch complexes. I do not remember the exact date but a record of the incident at the time would still be in the Lompoc Record newspaper and the base newspaper.

I was a Sgt. who escorted missles on base to the lauch complexes. While waiting for arrival of missle, talked to gate guard (SP) who related personal info of incident. At the time he was guarding a launch facility when it was "lit up" by UFO.

Security helo was called and ufo lights went out upon arrival of copter. As soon as copter left area it lite back up and went about its business.

Guards were only armed with M16's and were afraid to shoot at it. Air Force Police vans engines would not work and vans stalled out. UFO's flew around Vandenberg off and on most of night.

Small articles next day in local press.

Posted 2008-03-04

NUFORC UFO Sighting 128388
Occurred: 1968-06-01 00:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2016-07-09 09:08 Pacific
Duration: 30 minutes (each)
No of observers: 0

Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA, USA

Shape: Cigar
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object

Sightings during official launches of missiles at Vandenberg AFB 1965 to 1978.

I am now a 73 years old male, who, for over 15 years, worked in the Aerospace industries at Vandenberg AFB, in the early years of missile activity, from 1965 through 1978, Delco & Santa Barbara Research Center, in Goleta, CA.

It’s getting to be late in life, for me and I have little to lose any more, so I have decided to discuss my experiences while at Vandenberg, pertaining to UFOs.

As an Employee of Convair, MAB5, involved with the Atlas D & F series, launch facilities, with access to Bldg. 7000, I have been included in many conversations where UFOs were discussed. I have witnessed several incidents, while launching Atlas D missiles from South Vandenberg (Point Arguello), LF04 & LF05.

Most of my tenure, at VAFB, was while it was the designated Western Test Range and part of the Strategic Air Command, or, SAC. While it was Military, most of the locals received critical launch activity reports from various locations all over Lompoc and Vandenberg Villiage, where most of us worked. Because of my work with the rehab of the launch facilities after a launch, I knew of the upcoming schedules and was cleared for the Fallback areas during launches, for both Atlas and Thor missiles.

On many occasions, I was allowed to view the launches using the “Big Eye”, a 4400mm telescope, and, later, view the Range Camera data, at Bldg. 7000.

The “Big Eye” was used to receive immediate sight data to verify the flight profile for each missile launch. During the Thor launches, it was imperative that the BlueStreak (much smaller missile used for gathering exhaust gases data for analysis by Douglas Aircraft to improve the main engines). While viewing some of the launch films, it was quite common to see UFO activity paralleling the flight. Given that for many of these years, the Thor was considered the fastest ICBM that we had, on launch.

The BlueStreak was a small, extremely fast, single stage missile used strictly for gathering various data about the missile flight. It was fired T+10, into the exhaust trail, in the case of the Thor, to within 1,000 yards of the missile. On many occurrences, UFOs were seen to “catch” the BlueStreak, track with it, then speed up and “catch” the Thor missile, tracking it for a brief time, then speed away at a terrific speed.

One thing about the launch radar units of the day: These radar units were capable of tracking at speeds of up to 10,500 m/h. In fact, they were used to find and identify the, at that time, Top Secret flights of the SR-71, when notified of it passing through the Hawaiian Air Space, insuring that it stayed in the flight lane it was authorized for, and it flew at a reasonable speed of 3,500 mph plus. I mention the radar capability to address the flight of the UFOs….the radar couldn’t track beyond the max speed. The increase in speed was immediate and it was extraordinarily fast, outrunning both missiles.

At the time, the launch films were classified as Secret. If they still exist, they would likely be held wherever SAC stored such data, after turning the base over to NASA. All of the film data is analog, not digital.

A comment on the film, “Out of the Blue”, where it describes an incident at VAFB where a UFO supposedly shot lasers at, and disrupted, what appeared to be a Titan Delta flight; I was at VAFB at the time of the first Titan augmented flights and no such incident happened that I was aware of.

During my time at VAFB, I was a Mechanical Designer for Convair Division of General Dynamics. I also worked for Regional Communications, GTE and General Electric on various contracts to SAC. While at Delco and Santa Barbara Research Center (Division of Hughes), I worked on the design teams for the F16 Highspeed Fire Controller and, for SBRC, the Thermal Camera enclosure for LANDSAT IV.


((

NUFORC Note:

Date above is approximate, and represents several sightings. We spoke via telephone with the source of the report, and he sounded to us to be quite sober-minded. We suspect that he is an excellent witness, and a highly reliable reporter of fact. We have invited him to attempt to reconstruct the actual dates of the multiple events he was involved with, or witness to, during his assignment to Vandenberg AFB. PD





Posted 2016-07-15

NUFORC UFO Sighting 157265
Occurred: 1967-06-30 22:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2020-07-01 20:42 Pacific
Duration: 30 minutes +/-
No of observers: 4

Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA, USA

Shape: Disk
Characteristics: Lights on object

Unknown object approached icbm silo from Pacific Ocean and hovered over Minuteman silo.

This occurred in during my time in the US Air Force while stationed at Vandenberg AFB, near Lompoc, CA. I was a member of a geodetic survey squadron that brought highly accurate geodetic, astronomic data to icbm silos, and other assets (SR 71, X 15, down range splash downs, etc) of the USAF, at VAFB, Edwards AFB, and Eniwetok. We usually worked in teams of three individuals. One person was an observer who actually made the measurements off the north star and triangle or quadrangle survey network at each missile silo. A second person is the recorder. The recorder simply documents the 16 measurements and time lapse of each for each station run. The third person usually was backup for either position and also made sure the target lights on each station continued turned on. We did this at VAFB and also for the 18 Titan around Tucson Arizona, and other areas.

This particular event took place in late 1966 or early 1967 at the far north end of VAFB. I previously reported it as February 1967, however, frankly, after these years my recollection may be off 2 or 3 months. I was assigned to VAFB in September or October of 1963 and was honorably discharged in May of 1967.

Since our 1st Order survey measurements required optimal weather conditions, our work was done at night to minimize distortion and parallax by heat waves. We would leave the Dayroom early evening about 6 or 7 pm. This would allow us to set up our target lights on each concrete monolith then finally set up our Wild T3 theodolite while there was still enough light. At dusk we would start our measurements of 16 positions at each of the 3 or 4 survey stations at each icbm silo. Typically, we would finish one silo site per evening and return to the Dayroom about 10:00 or 10:30 pm.

On the night of question, we were working an icbm silo at the far north end of VAFB near Lospe Mountain. We were taking astro measurements on the north star, Polaris. Therefore, please note that we were observing and focused completely toward the north with our backs to the south. Most of the base and other icbm silos were to our rear, south of us.

We completed our work and returned to the Dayroom. When we arrived at the office, our Party Chief was waiting for us at the door. Upon arrival, he immediately asked us whether we had observed what had happened at the silo in question. We responded that we had not seen anything. He then told us the Air Police at Headquarters, seeing an apparent ‘light show’ at that north end silo had at first thought there had been a missile launch. He said that silo had been lit up as if there had been a launch. Then, he said, they realized it was not a missile launch. He said an object had approached that silo from the ocean side low and slow until it was over the silo. There, he said, it hovered directly over the silo. The Sgt, while a nice fellow, was no one to kid around or play jokes on anyone. He was a very serious person who did not play around.

I expected to hear more reports the following morning, however, the next day it was as if nothing had happened. There was not even a hint of what had happened the previous night.

It was not until many years later in the early 2000s that I heard of the report of a similar event in Montana around that approximate time. Those two events appear similar in that both involved an unknown object hovering or next to an icbm silo.

Posted 2020-07-03