Carpinteria Coastal View

By Don Robertson

About 9pm [on October 3], the sky over Los Angeles, and indeed the western United States, lit up as if it were day, and an object described as green in color raced across the sky at a very high altitude, leaving behind it a trail that witnesses described as white sparks or star dust. All manner of experts described the object as a 'meteor' or 'shooting star.'


However, according to Dr. Roger Leir and UFO investigator Derrel Sims, there was another event the night of October 3rd, which occurred fifteen minutes before the one mentioned above.

Leir reported, "Derrel and I were making a trip to the airport in Burbank last night, and at exactly 8:46pm, on the north side of the 101 Freeway, approximately one-half mile west of Parkway Calabasas, the whole sky lit up, and night turned to day! I was driving in the fast lane of the freeway and my mouth fell open because I saw a huge burning gold ball with a conical tail coming out of it that looked something like a comet. It was the most brilliant silverish-white I've ever seen, and it was dropping sparks toward the ground. This was traveling just above the level of the hills somewhere between the area of Bell Canyon and the freeway. And, incidentally, Rocketdyne is in this area too."

[Rocketdyne used to be one of the primary rocket engine testing facilities in the U.S., located in the Simi Hills about six miles southwest of the town of Chatsworth, California. It has been shut down and inactive in recent years. Much of the area remains restricted due, in part, to industrial pollution. However, there are public thoroughfares in the area that are normally open to traffic.]

Leir continued: "We saw this thing and couldn't believe what we were seeing! It looked like it was coming down, so we thought it must have smashed into the hills somewhere and there's probably going to be a fire. So, on the way back, we went real slow by there to see if anything was burning but we didn't see a thing. The only thing we noticed that was peculiar was that the lights on the north side of the freeway were all out." "When we got home, we turned on the news, and Channel 2 was broadcasting interviews and different stories from northern California, to Nevada, to San Diego. People were seeing things going in the OPPOSITE direction, and seeing something that was green... but that's not what Derrel and I saw! We guessed that if this thing came down, it would be somewhere between the north side of the Ventura Freeway (Hwy 101) and where Rocketdyne is, in the Santa Susannas [south of Hwy 118]."

But Leir and Sims were not the only ones to see this show in the night sky. Another man, a medical doctor (the Brigadier General in the Air Force Reserves) who wishes to remain anonymous, related his version of the early sighting. "I saw this!"" he said. "I was a skeptic about UFOs, but I happened to be at Lake Encino, way up on top of the mountain, above the smog, walking through the area, and I saw this unusual light. [The doctor's vantage point was about 8 miles east where Leir and Sims saw the aerial event.] I turned around, and in the sky, headed toward Rocketdyne, was a huge red ball of fire with a gold center, and just like Roger said, a tail with flakes of silver, and red surrounding it all. This thing SLOWED DOWN in the sky going toward Rocketdyne."

"I know Rocketdyne very, very well! I used to practice there," the doctor continued. "The whole mountain top is tainted with radiation. People living near there are trying to sue the city and the government because of it." (See our new Sightings story: "Rocketdyne Radiation and Cancer Deaths Linked") "I'm on inactive status in the service. [Actually, this man was recently promoted to Brigadier General in the Air Force Reserves. Information he has given CNI News Editor Michael Lindemann suggests that he has high security clearances.] So I went up the road to Rocketdyne [the next] morning [Friday, Oct 4]. All of a sudden, I saw a bunch of soldiers with road blockades there, and I couldn't go up. I asked them what was going on. They said, 'Something has happened and you can't go through.'

They had very strange uniforms on. Not the normal uniforms; not the same color. These guys were the Special Forces type: no nonsense. They had been brought in from somewhere else, and spoke with a Southern accent," said the doctor. "And they all seemed to look alike." He was ordered to leave the area immediately and since he did not have his Air Force credentials with him, he complied.

"My feeling is that nothing CRASHED. That object SLOWED DOWN and came to rest up there for some reason," he concluded.  

According to Roger Leir, "The doctor went back to Rocketdyne on Saturday [Oct 5] with his (Air Force Brigadier General) military credentials. After checking them out, the military armed guard saluted briskly and asked him what he wanted. He told the soldier that he wanted to know exactly what was going on and that he wanted to be told immediately. According to Dr. Roger Leir, the doctor (Brigadier General) was told by the guard that 'a space vehicle was in trouble and had to land but that it had been repaired and had taken off early that morning.' The guard stated they were there on a clean-up operation and would be gone shortly and that the area would be reopened. The doctor noted that a hillside in the area was blackened and had the appearance of having been charred by something quite recently.  

The following day, Sunday, October 6, the doctor (Brig. General) went back up to the Rocketdyne site and found only two private security officers on duty. He approached them and struck up a conversation. One of the security men stated something like, "It's not a big deal, they come in here once or twice a week." Dr. Roger Leir believes, "Something went wrong with the craft that caused the tremendous flash in the sky that we saw. A friend who is an airline pilot saw the whole thing while flying. He said there was no way it was a meteor."


Dr. Roger Leir has been a guest of Jeff Rense's Sightings On the Radio and discussed this event in great detail. It remains unresolved at this point but it is very interesting to note that the Rocketdyne facility has been bought by Boeing. Signs at the facility make that clear as well as annoucning that the Department of Energy is also involved at the facility. Boeing is famous for making things that fly...