SIGHTING: JOSHUA TREE, CALIFORNIA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"I was at the 'Contact in the Desert - IV' event, held at Joshua Tree Retreat Center (J.T.R.C) from June 2nd to the 6th, 2016 with friends.On Saturday evening, our small CE-5 OC Team went out to the skywatch at about 10:00 PM after the evening presentations were done. A lady from Sedona, AZ was holding a planned demonstration of her Night Vision scopes. The Crowd was rather "loud" and in a party atmosphere. She was using a P.A. to "talk over" the noise of the large group that was present.There were a number of Night Scopes available and there was a lot of "tire kicking" going on, mostly looking up, for moving objects.The sky was pretty exceptional; Mars was like a "red piece of coal" to the South. The Milky-Way was pretty bright as it was the "New Moon night", being June 4th. The Orion Overlook is on a rise, on the J.T.R.C. property, overlooking the Campground, in the wash, below, and faces pretty much North.At about 10:10 PM. things started happening! I was sitting with friends on the dirt road at the edge of the concrete pad for the Orion Overlook.As the lady was demonstrating the Night Vision scopes, someone yelled that there was something coming out of the West (from the Highway 62 direction). A Orb of light appeared, flying quite low, moving at maybe 30 to 50 MPH, heading East-ward. I think that the first one I saw was Green.I was sitting in my camp chair still trying to set up my camera and I saw it coming from the far left. It was to the left of a young tree on the edge of the road and I was seeing it pass behind this tree (at my angle through the branches)...then it passed cleanly to the right of the tree. I tried to re-focus my binoculars.. everything behind it was Sharp, but the lighted Object was fuzzy. It was cruising at what I estimate at about 500 feet off the ground (AGL) and maybe 1,000 feet in front of us,across the campground wash (from L to R), but appeared to be still in front of the far hillside.Then, again, someone yelled "there's another one" (same path)!This one I think was Blue. I tried to get my camera screwed onto the Tripod; I could not get the threads to catch - darn -and people were all shouting...what a joke...finally, the threads caught! I wasn't expecting to see anything and was ill-prepared to say the least with my Olympus Point & Shoot. I got my camera turned on, in video mode, and just left it run for a while.I thought I might catch something...as bright as the Orbs were.In the end, all I got was the sound of the crowd and a couple of dots of light! I stopped and started the video several times, as I was not sure how much space I had remaining on my SD card.Then, someone yelled "there's another, there's another", while laughing. Sure enough, they just kept coming... another and another showed up...don't remember all the colors; I lost track of how many.My friend were chorgling - and laughing - I heard my name called out. I was thinking to myself - "were they Drones?My little drone has Red & Green lights, it can't fly that high - or that steady (not with me as pilot!)". These were flying, literally for "miles". Mine doesn't have the battery life or I thought, "who would be flying these things for our benefit or embarrassment...If these were professional or military grade Drones..why did we not see the craft or air-frame?" I do remember seeing one of our people's green laser pointers reflected off of one...something shiny - like a "baby moon" hubcap. "Was it a force field?" I thought...They seemed to be flying along the same glide-path (like Geese) spaced about about 20 to 25 Seconds apart.They all appeared to be of equal radiance; Green, Blue and Gold colored "Orbs of light"; Maybe a Reddish-Gold one too. I saw at least four of them, maybe more.There was no sound (well, no sound I could hear over the chatter of the 60 or so people, screaming and laughing). Some people were trying to be quiet without much success.My binoculars were in focus, but the Orbs were still soft-edged.I could see sort of energy rings "modulating" around in them,when using my binoculars. The light was pretty bright and steady, otherwise.Some guys flashed their green Laser Pointers at them.The lady, excitedly said, Stop laser-ing!...wait until you are sure that they are not Aircraft...with flashing Red & Green lights!She then, gave them the go-ahead to signal - three pulses of light...(Dot-Dot-Dot) and some of the Orbs did respond, likewise!I saw at least one of the Orbs responded back to the three pulses of light with three bright pulses (back to dimmer light) of its own.Yeow! My chest was about to explode, I had forgot to breathe!I did not see the following happen, but someone in the group was saying that when the Orbs moved off to the right (beyond my view through all the people) that they slowed down their speeds, joined up and sped off "like Jets"; or, in three different directions...maybe into a triangle and then moving off??? Just hear-say...as I didn't see them do any maneuvers.I hope that the Lady's "Crew" has some video come out!!!There were about 2,500 people in attendance at the "Contact in the Desert IV" event. The Temperature got into the triple-digits during mid-day, but it got quite cool at night.The short Video segments I recorded are large files and not worth much, except to verify that there were a lot of excited people in attendance and announcing the "next arrivals"."