Sightings: The Fireball Of January 21, 1968

Editor's Note:

This was originally written by Gaines M. Crook in  August 2004 and is presented as a "historical document". Therefore, no effort has been made to update or correct subsequent discoveries, research, or investigations.

This report was found among the "electronic documents" recovered after Mr. Crook's death in 2013. I have slightly reformatted the paragraphs for legibility. 

On the winter Sunday afternoon of 21 January, 1968, my wife, Bettie and my two youngest sons went for a drive out towards Mojave, CA then through the old mining district around Randsburg and Garlock. On the way back, as we got a few miles out of Mojave, traveling south on highway 14, it was almost dark, when we saw this fireball coming down from the east-southeast. It appeared to be bigger than the apparent size of an airliner landing light but not as directed as one of those. 

It was a red/orange color similar to a refinery gas burn off flare but round instead of being elongated. Its altitude was decreasing and it was immediately apparent that it would not clear the ridge of hills west of the road. It followed a trajectory that put its touchdown point well below the crest of hills to the west, somewhere in the vicinity of where the two Los Angeles aqueducts cross that area in a generally north to south direction on their way from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. We pulled off the road as soon as possible after the thing touched down and I got out of the car with a pair of 7 x 50 binoculars. 

Through these, I could barely discern only a tiny dot of the same red/orange color which we saw before on its passage downward. We got back on the highway and proceeded south on highway 14 towards Mojave. We turned off 14 on to the Highway 58 cutoff, seeking a road which went into the area where the fireball landed. We turned into the first road which we came to, which we later discovered was the power line access road for the two L.A. Dept. of Water and Power high voltage power lines. 

This is located at least a mile below the place where the fireball had apparently landed. We drove down this road a good distance and stopped. It was cloudy and sprinkling rain with heavy clouds and no moon. We turned off all lights and soon saw a light in the general direction of where the fireball landed. It was so dark until it was difficult to see anything.

We finally made out a dark body with a single light on it, but could not really see what the shape of the body was. After a while, the body moved slowly in a direction that was generally toward the south, before long, it was then nearly west of our location The light then changed into something like a white searchlight shining on the ground as the body slowly moved along. The body was still only distinguishable as a “blob”. By then it looked somewhat like a small blimp. The searchlight swept the ground towards the west. Then it swept the down under the object and up towards the east--- towards us and when it came up from the ground it was no longer white. It had turned a blood red! We then, quickly got into the car and left!