UFOS OVER TOPANGA CANYON

by Preston Dennett

Anyone who has lived in Topanga for any knows that it is a strange and magical place. I learned this firsthand in 1987 when several Topanga residents began telling me of bizarre experiences with UFOs. Two years later, I sent an article detailing their stories to the Messenger. The article was published in the January 1989 edition, and was the first UFO article ever printed by the Messenger.

However, it was by no means the last. In July of 1992, Colin Penno (then editor of the Messenger) published the article, “UFOs Over Topanga -- The Sixth Encounter: They Came Once More.” The article described an incredible event which occurred on the night of June 14, 1992. On that night, four separate witnesses called the local Lost Hills/Malibu Sheriff’s Station reporting UFOs over Topanga. One couple said their car was chased by three objects as they drove through the canyon. Another said he was tailgated from above by a brightly lit object which cast beams down on his car. Another couple reported that they too were followed by a light which hovered over their car and lifted it in the air. The final call came from a couple who was woken up by a bright object hovering over their home near the boulevard.

Calls also came into the office of the Messenger -- one reporting an odd star-like object which darted across the sky, and another reporting blinding beams of light outside the witness’s home.

Colin Penno put the accounts together in an article. Shortly after publication, the article sent shockwaves through Topanga and beyond. Several letters were sent to the Messenger, some of which were published. More calls came in, both to the Police and the Messenger, reporting more UFOs. The article was quoted in both the Daily News and the LA times, and eventually found its way into a mainstream book in England, where the event was listed as one of the most significant UFO encounters of that year.

When more and more calls started to flood the office of the Messenger, Colin recalled my earlier article and referred the calls to me. He said, “You’re a UFO investigator. See if you can find out what happened on that night.”

I agreed, and so began the single most complicated case I have yet investigated. I not only found additional witnesses to events of June 14, 1992, but I interviewed many other Topanga residents who had seen strange activity in the days and weeks following June 14. I networked with the police station, and they began referring callers to me.

Before long, I had interviewed well over a hundred Topanga residents and uncovered dozens of encounters of all types. Topanga, it seemed, was in the middle of a UFO wave of activity. I got calls from longtime residents throughout the Canyon, from the Top’ O’Topanga trailer park, to the top of Fernwood, down Old Canyon Road, up Entrada and everywhere in-between.

The stories shared with me by Topangans were truly incredible, such as:

--the Entrada family who experienced a metallic craft landing outside their home for three days in row, on several different occasions.

--the Fernwood family who encountered three disks on their way to the local market, and experienced a period of missing time.

--the Entrada lady who experienced a bedroom visitation by a short entity which temporarily paralyzed the witness, probed her body, clipped off a lock of her hair, and left as mysteriously as it had arrived.

--the Fernwood teacher who was woken up by helicopters hovering over the state park, when he saw a shiny metallic disk scooting down the canyon, easily evading the helicopters.

--the couple who was chased down the boulevard by bright glowing objects that moved silently and darted at right angles. (I have at least five cases of UFOs chasing cars down the boulevard.)

--the man who saw a fiery red globe of light land next to the boulevard near the video store.

These are only a few of the nearly one hundred cases I have uncovered in Topanga Canyon. It wasn’t long before news of my investigations spread and, the next thing I knew, I was leading groups of people into the canyon for the purpose of seeing UFOs. Amazingly, we were successful more than once. On one occasion, the television program ENCOUNTERS filmed a segment in Topanga and actually caught an anomalous light on film! The local KTLA news also did a segment and UNSOLVED MYSTERIES expressed strong interest.

In May 1995, the Messenger published my follow-up article, “UFOs Over Topanga -- the 1994 sightings” which only touched the tip of the iceberg in terms of the sheer number of sightings. However, it was not the last UFO article printed in the Messenger. In 1998, residents along Callon called the Messenger’s office and reported their sightings of strange lights. More details appeared in the editorial article, “UFOs Anyone?” which was published in the October 97 issue.

Today, all the Topanga accounts have been collected and published in, UFOS OVER TOPANGA CANYON, by Llewellyn publishers. It tells the story of the 1992 UFO wave which actually lasted for more than two years. I also discovered that Topanga Canyon has a history of UFO encounters stretching back to the 1940s! I found activity strong in Malibu and Santa Monica, and to this day, I still get calls from residents who are seeing UFOs.

All of this and more is covered in the book, which is on sale at bookstores everywhere. Or you can order directly by calling 1(800) the-moon.

An Excerpt…

New Topanga Witness Comes out of the UFO Closet

by Preston Dennett

(from UFOs Over Topanga Canyon)

As many of you may already know, on June 14, 1992 Topanga canyon experienced a UFO wave of immense proportions. First revealed by Colin Penno (former editor of the local newspaper the Messenger) the wave put Topanga Canyon on the UFO map. On that night, calls flooded the local police station reporting UFOs.

The first call came from a couple who said that they became uneasy after noticing that a glowing object was following their car. “Suddenly, it was over us, we lost control of the car and it lifted us up off the ground.”

A second couple also reported an object following their car. They got out and saw three “...flying discs, high up in the canyon...they were saucers, they were following us above the car and we stopped to get out. We watched them and within three seconds, they were gone...”

A third call came from a canyon resident. “My wife and I were woken up by a very bright light above our home coming in through the windows...we went outside to look at it...Damnedest thing I ever saw in my life.”

Yet another caller complained that he was chased down the road by UFOs. “I’d say they tailgated me from above, but I couldn’t see anything ‘cause it was so damned bright.”

While the police handled the above calls, the office of the Topanga Messenger newspaper received more reports. One witness, Dr. Murray Clarke saw “an intense yellow-white light...traveling south-to-north very fast in a horizontal path.”

Another witness who called the Messenger said, “I saw a brilliant ray of light outside through my window...like nothing I’d ever seen.”

Having lived in Topanga Canyon for more than twenty years, I was able to locate additional witnesses to that night.

One report came from a couple, Phillip and Mandy, who was driving through the canyon around midnight on that night. As soon as they pulled off Entrada and on to the boulevard, they saw numerous objects in the sky. As Mandy says, “Five or six huge bright lights moving at all different angles...We were followed halfway down the mountain...I thought they were helicopters except they were totally silent. These brilliant lights were just all over us as we were driving down the mountain.”

As they pulled up towards Top O’Topanga, the driver, Phillip, described, “Three craft coming over the hill...they were craft. As a matter of fact, there seemed to be lighting on the craft...my first impression was that they were flying saucers.”

I was also able to locate another couple who witnessed strange activity on that night. They live high on Saddle Peak -- one of the tallest peaks in Topanga -- and described numerous oval glowing objects that rose from below the ridge near the coast. Says Daniel, “It was an oval...we kept trying to see what shape they were because they seemed just like a light moving...twice, one started out, it would stop, change at a ninety-degree angle: ‘zoom-zoom-shew!’ And it would move fast...there was a number of them. This went on for quite a while, in a kind of rhythmic way.”

The other witness, Katherine says, “Sometimes twenty of them would come. Sometimes we’d see four or five...but the lights were so bright, they would call our attention away from the television to the porch. And there was so many of them.” The witnesses eventually counted dozens of objects over a period of at least two hours.

I was unable to locate any other witnesses to that night. However, with a total of thirteen adult witnesses reporting UFOs, it becomes difficult to deny that something very unusual happened on that night. The encounter of June 14, 1992 was listed in Timothy Good’s book UFO Update as one of the outstanding UFO events of that year. The full story of what happened on that night is told in my book UFOs Over Topanga Canyon. However, since publication, I have received a number of new high quality reports. What isn’t in the book is the following testimony.

In case thirteen witnesses isn’t amazing enough, I have recently located yet another witness to the events of June 14, 1992. His report adds another piece of the puzzle to the mystery of that night.

Bill Boshears is currently a resident of Ohio. He is the host of the hugely popular radio program Sci-Zone. The program is syndicated across the United States and remains one of the largest weekend radio talk shows in the nation. So when I found out that Mr. Boshears was also a Topanga UFO witness, I couldn’t have been more delighted. It’s not often that you find a credible UFO witness to a well-established case who is willing to have their names published.

Boshears, himself, was also surprised to find out that he wasn’t the only witness to the amazing events of the night in question.

On June 14, 1992, Bill Boshears had attended a birthday party in the San Fernando Valley. Around nine or ten o’clock in the evening, he and two passengers headed into Topanga Canyon. It was to be a night they would not soon forget.

No sooner had they pulled onto the straight-a-way south of Top O’Topanga, when Boshears saw a large oval object streak quickly across the sky, followed immediately by another. “All of a sudden, I saw a streak of light,” Boshears explained. “Then I saw another streak of light to the north. It went up over the mountains, very high up. And at first I thought it was a rocket launch. It was very bright, and it literally lit up the sky to the point that it might be a firestorm or something. So I stopped, got out, and it got brighter. By that, I mean, you could literally see the shadow of the car on the ground as this thing played and moved over the canyon...it was almost like daylight.”

As Boshears stood next to his car, he tried to figure out what he was seeing. What looked like a gigantic straight bar of light hovering at about three-thousand feet was ejecting smaller glowing football-shaped objects which began to dart back and forth across the sky. “I was not the only person to see this. There were several people that saw it. And I thought it might have been a dirigible because earlier I had seen a blimp, a Fuji blimp that was moving around over the ocean. Then I thought, ‘Oh, maybe Hollywood is making a movie.’ You have to think that to maintain stability. And for the next twenty minutes, I was looking straight up to the point that my neck started aching. And I literally laid down on the hood of the car and watched it for twenty minutes.”

Boshears and his two passengers watched as the long glowing object ejected smaller oval-shaped craft which maneuvered across the Topanga skyline. Says Boshears, “First [there was] the light, then the objects and the lights going in and out of the object and around it. Silvery dish-shaped objects, lights changing colors, and it began to play in that area. And I say play, not that I could orchestrate it -- the thing that I can relate it to most often -- have you ever been to a fireworks display, and you suddenly look around and you notice that you’re looking up in the air, and when you look back down, the light from the fireworks has light all over the ground? You can see everything as bright as if it were day. I lay there for twenty minutes. And the people that were with me -- we just couldn’t talk. I mean, every time you’d go, ‘Did you see that?’ you didn’t want to look to say anything. Everyone was going, ‘Look at that! Here they come again!’ You know what it put me in mind of? Close Encounters. Do you remember a scene in the movie when they’re all on the hillside? And I thought, ‘How ironic!’ because I am watching this, and seeing this.”

Boshears and his friends were awe-struck. The large glowing object just hung in place while as many as six or seven objects danced about in the sky. “The lights came out of it, back and forth and then back to it, and then would hover in the distance and back...they’d move out, hover, and back. But in coming out, [they] couldn’t make their mind up, and would go either left or right and then decide to go over here and stay, and travel toward Santa Monica and back.”

Boshears tried in vain to get his other passengers to exit the car, but they remained inside. They all talked about what was happening throughout the entire ordeal. Says Boshears, “I stopped, got out of the car and stood there and looked up. I said, ‘Look at this! Get out and look at this!’...comments like ‘Oh, do you see that?’ ‘Look at that!’ Constantly commenting back and forth. They were staying in the car. They didn’t want to see it.”

Interestingly, they never used the word “UFO” during the entire experience. They said, “Look at that! Look at that!” “Do you see that?” “Yeah.” “What is that?” “What does that look like to you?”

After fifteen minutes, the display ended and Boshears’ passengers said, “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go.”

Strangely, they didn’t even discuss the incident on the way home. As Boshears says, “I didn’t say anything about it to anyone else...there was no comment. I think we were more startled, and then later on, saying, ‘Did we really see that?’...It’s easy to deny. You know what? It doesn’t stop it from happening. I didn’t talk about it. The next day, all my friends, we were talking. They said, ‘Bill, what time did you get home last night?’ I said, ‘Well, I got home about, you know...’ I sort of shuffled and passed it off. But the friends who were with me happened to be at that same house -- we’re sitting on the patio talking. And we all looked at one another like, ‘Are you going to tell them, or am I going to tell them?’ And we just blew it off, let it go.”

For those who have already read UFOs Over Topanga Canyon, much should sound familiar. However, Mr. Boshears’ testimony adds yet another piece of the puzzle to the strange mystery that surrounds the night of June 14, 1992, bringing the total number of witnesses to an astounding sixteen. As can be seen, Boshear’s testimony corroborates with the other accounts that evening. For whatever reason, the UFO activity did not stop that night, and continues to this day. The number of Topanga UFO witnesses has now risen to more than a hundred.

The number one question still remains, why Topanga?

UFOS OVER TOPANGA CANYON is published by Llewellyn Publications, 2000. It contains 300 pages, a map of the sightings, drawing by eyewitness and an index. It is available at Llewellyn Publications, PO Box 64383, St Paul, MN 55164-0383. Or call 1-800-THE-MOON. Or visit website: llewelyn.com.