Near San Ardo, CA being encounter — December 14, 1973

Lance Mathias, 23, and Mike Anderson, 29, reported an encounter while travelling in a Chevrolet van near San Ardo on December 14, 1973. At about 9:40 p.m. they noticed an amber sphere above open farmland beside Highway 101. A dark, cone-shaped extension beneath it reportedly projected a red beam toward the ground, throwing up soil. The cone then retracted and the object departed rapidly. They described an oval patch that continued glowing after the aerial object had gone, changing from red to yellow before fading. Later, while investigating with a flashlight, Mathias reported two cylindrical forms roughly fifteen metres away. Their surfaces resembled crumpled aluminium; they had flat, square tops and indistinct arm-like projections around waist level. Anderson obtained a briefer glimpse. When the men illuminated the area again, the forms had disappeared. The account entered contemporary UFO reporting through investigators Robert Klinn and David Branch and was subsequently summarized by David Webb and other compilers. The forms’ height is inconsistently transcribed as six feet or six metres; the six-foot version is used for the illustration. Soil collection was reported, but the retrieved accounts do not establish an independently verified extraordinary material. The beam, lingering glow and later figures were successive observations, rather than a single simultaneous tableau.