To help celebrate my birthday this week, my husband, Tom, kindly offered to take me and our two Maltese dogs, Hope and Faith, for a sunset sand run at my favorite beach in Malibu. I love this beach -- it is one if my favorite places on the planet.
After our moonlight run, we sat down on a nearby bench to put on our shoes, when the sky lit up with a spectacular silent air show of brightly lit orange flying domes! I wish I could say that I had the presence of mind to sit there and take it all in. I didn't. I panicked, fearing that we were suddenly being hunted by drones, in an obvious case of mistaken identity.
I fearfully picked up Faith, (this irony does not escape me), and started running towards our car a few blocks away, leaving our other dog, Hope, with Tom, while he frantically tied his shoe laces.
It suddenly occurred to me that these flying balls of lights could not be a squadron of drones. They were completely silent, unlike the drone I had seen and heard whirl past my window in Santa Monica the day of the Santa Monica College shootings earlier this year. And there were at least twenty of these glowing globes, which would definitely be "overkill" for drones.
I stopped and turned to wait for my husband. As I watched them silently soar through the sky, I reached for my iPhone and shot a couple of photos. From this side view, the orange globes appeared white.
My always mild-mannered and even-keeled husband caught up with me and yelled, "This is so freaky!!!" We thought we were the only humans within earshot, until we heard a man scream from his yard across the street, "Holy (Bleep)!!!!"
Once I relaxed, I knew this was the most magnificent birthday gift I have ever received. It was as if the night sky was a giant chocolate birthday cake with brightly lit circular candles! Each globe went dark and vanished into thin air, once it cleared the cliffs and was flying over the ocean. A few minutes later, the sky show was over.
Tom turned to me and said, "I don't know how I will be able to top this next year." We reached our car and sat there searching every possible keyword we could think of until I searched "UFOs Malibu CA." To our surprise, Malibu has quite a history of documented UFO sightings. The photos we found online showed brightly lit orange globes that looked exactly like the ones we had just encountered! [1]
We shared our experience with a few friends, one of whom happens to be a rocket scientist - lucky us! We thought there may be a "logical" explanation for our out of this world encounter.
What if these unidentified flying objects had just been weather balloons? Well, it turns out that weather balloons don't fly straight in regimented configurations, or have orange bright lights which they independently turn on and off themselves.
We wondered if we had misidentified a meteor shower. Meteors were nixed for the same reasons we had disqualified the weather balloons theory.
As an inventor, I've always believed in being as open-minded as possible, without letting my brains fall out.
This universe is incredibly vast and contains so many other planets and galaxies. It seems short-sighted and extremely self-centered to hold onto an antiquated belief that our little planet is the only one in this entire universe, and those beyond, with intelligent life on it. We realized the most reasonable and rational explanation is also the most realistic one.
"To infinity and beyond!" [2]
For more by Robin Palmer, click here
For Robin's GPS for the Soul guide, click here.
References:
1. UFOs OVER MALIBU -Land of Stars & Starships by Robert Stanley http://www.unicusmagazine.com/html/15/malibufo.htm
2. Buzz Lightyear's famous catchphrase in the Pixar movie, Toy Story http://pixar.wikia.com/To_Infinity_and_Beyond