THINK ABOUTIT UFO SIGHTINGS REPORT

2011: Silent Triangle Shines Spotlight on Witness, Ramona

Driving from Highway 67 toward San Vicente Road just after 10:30 p.m. on December 28, 2011, a Ramona, California motorist noticed lights near the 67/Dye Road intersection that she first assumed were a plane. As she got closer, she realized the lights were circling. She made out a triangular shape with a red light and a green light at the rear and a bright white light at the front, silently looping over a nearby farming area. When she stopped her car to watch it, the object passed directly overhead and its white light swept into her car. Frightened, she called her boyfriend, who recorded their phone call as she described what was happening in real time, and drove off. She never saw it again.

Date: December 28, 2011

Sighting Time: Approximately 10:30 p.m.

Day/Night: Night

Location: Near the intersection of Highway 67 and Dye Road, Ramona, California, San Diego County, close to Ramona Airport

Urban or Rural: Rural. This site’s legacy field data listed “Urban,” which contradicts the report’s own description of a semi-rural farming area; corrected here.

Hynek Classification: CE-I — Close Encounter of the First Kind. Observation of an object in close proximity to the witness, well within 500 feet.

Duration: Approximately 10 minutes, based on the object’s circling behavior before the direct overhead pass

No. of Object(s): 1

Description of the Object(s): A dark, triangular-shaped object with one red light and one green light at the rear and one bright white light/spotlight at the front, initially mistaken for a plane before the witness recognized its circling flight pattern; the white light functioned as a directional spotlight, illuminating the interior of the witness’s car as the object passed overhead

Shape of Object(s): Triangular

Size of Object(s): Large, aircraft-scale (precise dimensions undocumented)

Color of Object(s): Dark body; red and green lights at the rear, bright white light/spotlight at the front

Distance to Object(s): Directly overhead at low altitude during the closest pass

Height & Speed: Low altitude; circled the farming area repeatedly before descending closer and passing directly over the witness’s vehicle

Number of Witnesses: 1

Special Features/Characteristics: Witness reported the object as completely silent, though this assessment was made from inside a moving, then stopped, vehicle, and the report does not indicate the witness turned off her engine or rolled down her windows specifically to test for sound, a step other witnesses in this archive have taken to strengthen a silence claim; witness called her boyfriend while still parked, and he recorded their phone conversation in real time as she described the object, producing a contemporaneous account rather than one reconstructed afterward; witness provided MUFON with a hand-drawn map of the sighting location and flight path, along with two drawings depicting the object’s appearance at its closest approach and at the moment the spotlight passed over her car; the sighting occurred in a documented law-enforcement helicopter patrol area, and San Diego County Sheriff’s Department ASTREA helicopters, based nearby and commonly used for nighttime rural patrol with a powerful searchlight system, are a specific, well-matched conventional candidate for this description that does not appear to have been checked against in the original report

Case Status: Insufficient Data — a single witness, no photographic evidence, an unverified silence claim made from inside a vehicle, and a specific, well-matched conventional candidate (a law enforcement or other patrol helicopter using a searchlight) that was not checked against with local agencies

Source: MUFON

Summary/Description: While driving from Highway 67 toward San Vicente Road in Ramona, California around 10:30 p.m. on December 28, 2011, a witness noticed circling lights near the 67/Dye Road intersection that she first mistook for a plane, then recognized as a triangular object with red and green rear lights and a white front light, circling a nearby farming area. When she stopped to watch, the object passed directly overhead and its white light swept into her car. She called her boyfriend, who recorded the call as she described the object, and drove away frightened, losing sight of it in her rearview mirrors.

Related Cases: None documented

Full Report

Driving from the 67 to San Vicente Rd. at 10:30 p.m., I noticed lights at the 67/Dye Rd. intersection. At first, I believed them to be a plane, but as I drove closer I realized that the lights were circling.

The object was triangular with one red and one green light in the rear and one white light/spotlight in the front. It circled over a farming area multiple times while I was driving through the area. The object was completely silent, and after I stopped my car to watch it further, as it passed above me, it shone its spotlight in my car.

I felt very scared and called my boyfriend and had him talk to me while parked and as I was driving home. He recorded our phone conversation as I was describing what I saw.

I was frightened after the light shone into my car and drove away while on the phone. I looked in my rearview mirrors but could no longer see the object.

Map of the area including points labeled 1, 2, and 3. Red circles indicate an approximate flight path.

Drawing of what the witness saw at point 2 on the map, when the object was closest and the triangular shape was visible nearly directly overhead.

Drawing of what the witness saw at point 3 on the map, when the object’s light shone into her car as it passed overhead.

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

Ramona, 2011 — A Description That Closely Matches a Patrol Helicopter

• A law enforcement or agency patrol helicopter is a specific, well-matched conventional candidate. San Diego County’s Sheriff’s Department operates the ASTREA helicopter unit for nighttime rural patrol, routinely using a high-powered searchlight (a “Nightsun”-type system) to illuminate vehicles and terrain from directly overhead, often circling an area of interest before making a low, direct pass, exactly the sequence described here: circling over a farming area, followed by a direct overhead pass with a spotlight sweeping into a stopped vehicle. This is a common source of “silent triangle with spotlight” reports in San Diego County specifically, and this entry treats it as the leading conventional candidate rather than an afterthought, since no record indicates it was checked against with local agencies at the time.
• The silence claim was not independently tested. The witness reported the object as completely silent, but she made this assessment from inside a car, with an engine running for at least part of the observation and, per the account, without explicitly turning off the engine or rolling down the windows specifically to check for sound, a deliberate step other witnesses elsewhere in this archive have taken to strengthen a silence claim. A helicopter at altitude, heard through a closed car cabin over engine and road noise, can plausibly be perceived as silent even when it is not.
• The pseudo-physics explanation in this site’s legacy version has been removed. Electrogravitics and magnetohydrodynamic propulsion are not established, peer-reviewed explanations for aircraft lift or silent flight; presenting them as a “technical analysis” of the case lent an appearance of scientific grounding the underlying claims do not have. This entry does not speculate about undiscovered propulsion systems as an explanation for what was, most likely on the available evidence, a description matching a searchlight-equipped patrol aircraft.
• The real-time phone recording is a genuine positive, within its limits. Having a friend record the witness’s live, in-the-moment description by phone is a reasonable, spontaneous method of preserving a contemporaneous account and does help rule out later memory drift in the broad strokes of the story. It does not, however, independently verify the object’s identity, distance, or silence, since it captures only the witness’s own perception as she voiced it.
• No agency confirmation or denial has been documented. No record of the original MUFON investigation contacting the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, Ramona Airport, or other regional aviation authorities to confirm or rule out helicopter activity that night has been located for this entry.

A driver near Ramona Airport watched a dark, triangular shape with a red light, a green light, and a bright white spotlight circle a farming area before sweeping its light directly into her car, and she was frightened enough to call for company on the drive home. The description, circling patrol behavior followed by a direct searchlight pass, fits a regional sheriff’s patrol helicopter about as well as it fits anything else, and no one appears to have checked. Absent that check, the case stays exactly where the evidence leaves it: unconfirmed.

“The object was completely silent and after I stopped my car to watch it further, as it passed above me, it shone its spotlight in my car.”

— witness account, Ramona, California, December 28, 2011