Mt. San Jacinto, California UFO
Background: I am John R. English, a former Director of the "International Aerospace Hall of Fame" (IAHF) at the San Diego Air & Space Historical Center. My aviation experience includes working with astronauts, and I hold licenses as a single-engine pilot and a "Diamond" level Soaring pilot. I want to share a remarkable incident that occurred over Mt. San Jacinto, CA. During a flight to capture air-to-air photos of a Mini-Nimbus Sailplane (N419Z), an unidentified object was observed and photographed. This object appeared like a large reflective sphere, roughly the size of a quarter held at arm's length. The event took place in July 1988, and I still have the original photo, negative, and flight log. This object exhibited no sound, no extreme maneuvers, and no wake turbulence. It was observed by myself, the photographer, and two other sailplane pilots in the vicinity. Additional details: I used the term "sub-sonic" (670 - 700 mph Approx.) because there was no sound or noticeable impact on my aircraft. The object resembled a bright sphere, similar to a mirrored ball with a distorted area opposite its direction of travel. Although my memory places the object at the 7:00 position relative to the top of my instrument panel, this occurred during a right turn. The object was also seen by the photographer and two other pilots in the area. After landing back at Hemet Ryan field, there was an attempt to confirm the sighting over the radio, but it remained ambiguous. The event remained unspoken until later when I realized it had been captured on film.
