Date:  23-May-86 13:17 MST
From:  Executive News Svc. [72135,424]
Subj:  APca 05/23 UFO

   SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Theeeey're baaaaack.
   For UFO believers who have endured years  of drab skies and no sightings,
Thursday, and its full moon, was a big day.
   More than a dozen people said they saw a mysterious UFO racing across the
pre-dawn  sky north  of  San  Francisco --  a  strange  X-shaped craft  with
blinking  lights  that hovered  above  the  hills  of Sonoma  County  before
speeding away into the dark.
   A California  Highway Patrol officer who  declined to be named  and radio
station  KTOB News  Director Arlette  Cohen  were among  those who  reported
spotting the  strange craft at  about 4:30 a.m.   PDT between the  cities of
Petaluma and Sonoma about 40 miles north of here.
   The  sighting  came  on  the  heels  of  reports  of  pingpong-ball-sized
multi-colored  UFOs  crowding  radar  screens in  Sao  Paulo,  Brazil.   The
government scrambled  jet fighters  to intercept the  tiny objects,  and two
pilots said they saw the objects flying nearby.
   "I saw these two  white lights to the east," Ms.   Cohen said, estimating
the craft  was about 1,000 feet  in the air.   She said she noticed  the UFO
when  it crossed  to  the west  side  of the  highway,  and "hovered  almost
stock-still ...  for a few seconds."
   Ms.   Cohen  said she  was  driving  to  work  at her  Petaluma  station,
northbound  on U.S.   101, and  made  the sighting  shortly before  reaching
Petaluma.
   She said a full  moon was still visible above.  She  also said she rolled
down  her car  window to  listen for  the sound  of a  helicopter but  heard
nothing.
   When the craft crossed the highway once again, she said she saw two "tiny
green lights"  glowing faintly  on the  side opposite  the two  bright white
lights.
   "I think I  saw sort of a  black `X' silhouette shape,"  Ms.  Cohen said.
"It was really hard to tell."
   "An unidentified object described as a large orange `X' with white lights
in the  front was  seen traveling  at a  high rate  of speed  eastbound from
Petaluma," Santa Rosa  CHP Officer Bill McChristian said of  the report from
the unidentified officer and several callers.
   San  Francisco Bay  area  air traffic  controllers  said  they could  not
explain the  sighting, saying radar screens  detected no such  object flying
over the area at that time.
   The North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado said no man-made
spacecraft would have been visible at 4:30 a.m.  in Northern California, but
that  debris  from  the  Cosmo  1683  satellite  reportedly  re-entered  the
atmosphere over California more than an hour later, at 5:41.
   "We don't  have anything at  that time,"  said Lt.  Virginia  Sullivan of
NORAD.
   The sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects first sprang up in the 1940s
and in  1947 the University  of Colorado and the  Air Force decided  to look
into the  matter.  [SIC: The  UofC did  not begin their  investigation until
1969 -- T/A]
   In 1969,  after two decades of  research, the university  concluded there
wasn't the slightest evidence of "alien crafts."
   Soon after,  the flying  saucer fad  waned and  UFO clubs  folded.  Wayne
Shannon of San Francisco television station KRON reported
   Thursday night, with tounge firmly in cheek, that he received a call from
a woman in Petaluma, once a city so well known for its chicken ranching that
the local football team was dubbed The Leghorns.
   Shannon said the caller knew what everyone saw Thursday: it was the souls
of all those dead chickens.  Shannon  called them "Poultrygeists," a takeoff
on  the  current  movie  "Poltergeist  II." You  know.   The  one  with  the
television commercials  in which  the little  blonde girl  says: "Theeeey're
baaack."