It was the year before Neil Armstrong made his famous leap onto the lunar surface. Apollo space missions dominated the American consciousness. The television screen was filled with such shows as "Lost in Space, The Invaders" and the soon-to-be-canceled "Star Trek."
Almost on cue, what was described as a whirring saucer-shaped object with colored lights appeared over Redlands just before 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4.
Only this UFO sighting wasn't the tale of a single person on a lonely isolated road. This object was reportedly seen by as many as 200 residents in the north part of the city. The city's police switchboard was swamped with calls.
Witnesses said the hair on their arms stood up. Some felt "strange" or sick to their stomachs. Dogs barked wildly. Children reportedly cried and tried to hide, even some who didn't see the object. Even adults were frightened.
Some residents said they watched the craft for two to three minutes, others for just a few seconds. Finally, the craft zipped vertically into the sky and moved off, disappearing into the northwest. A short time later, a similar object was reported over Victorville, about 35 miles northwest of Redlands.
Beverly Sanderson, 79, didn't see or hear the unidentified object, but for a time, it became part of her late husband's life. Judson "Sandy" Sanderson was one of four University of Redlands professors who investigated the incident. Their work landed them on a Los Angeles television show and became part of the Congressional record in connection with the famous Blue Book Project, which investigated the UFO phenomenon.
The Inland Empire has had no shortage of UFO sightings over the years. Giant Rock, near Landers, is a well known site for UFO enthusiasts. In the past year, the Mutual UFO Network has recorded six sightings in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. In May, a Press-Enterprise reader sent in a detailed report of a sighting in the area between Lake Perris and Hemet, where a glowing craft spent 15 to 20 minutes flitting back and forth across the night sky.
Such things fascinated Sanderson's husband.
"He was always interested in UFOs," Beverly Sanderson said. "I'm not saying he was a believer, but I think he was much more open-minded than I was. The thing I'm sorry about was that he went to his death not seeing one."
He died in 2006. His wedding band hangs from a chain around Beverly's neck.
She said the UFO sighting drew significant attention during the nearly year in which it was investigated. Her husband, a math professor, along with geologist Philip Seff and physicist Reinhold Krantz, interviewed about 30 witnesses for the report and tried to use their expertise to determine such facts as the size and behavior of the object.
They estimated the object was about 50 feet in diameter and had hovered about 300 feet from the ground - too low to be detected by the nearest radar installation at March Air Force Base near Riverside. March officials said they picked up nothing unusual that evening.
Redlands 1968 Ufo Sighting report
SPINNING AND WHIRRING
John Brownfield, an art instructor at the university, also participated in the study. He came up with a composite drawing of what people said they saw.
"I'm convinced the people I talked to actually saw something," said Brownfield, 72, who is retired and still lives in Redlands.
He said he no longer has the original copy of his chalk illustration but remembers trying to throw witnesses off while he was making drawings based on their descriptions. They inevitably stuck to their individual stories, he said.
"There were a lot of inconsistencies," he said. "About the only thing I could come up with that seemed to be consistent was that it was a disk-shaped object with lights in a circular pattern."
The details, he said, "varied from person to person. Were they flashing? Yes. No. What color were they?"
Several people reported red, green and white lights. Others saw orange lights or flames.
"There were a lot of people who saw something," he said.
One of those was Gayle Wirz.
Wirz, 75, now lives in Colton. His close encounter was brief, but he still remembers hearing his Redlands neighbor yelling over the backyard fence to come outside that February evening.
"I ran out my backdoor to see this silver-colored round machine hovering overhead," said Wirz, 70, adding that it was spinning and making a whirring noise. "I don't' know how high it was. It hovered for half a minute or less. Just in a snap of your fingers, it went straight up and disappeared."
Wirz, now retired, taught history for many years at Redlands High School. Despite the widespread reports and the excitement the sightings turned up, he said neither he nor his neighbors discussed it much after that night.
"We talked about it a little bit," Wirz said, adding that he remains skeptical about any visitors from another planet.
"My only conclusion was it was probably a military experiment," he said. Whatever it was, "It was there and then it was just gone."
CONGRESSIONAL MENTION
Others reported seeing the object climb rapidly into the sky, but then descend once more before moving off to the northwest. In congressional testimony that same year, UFO expert and physicist James McDonald cited the Redlands incident as an example of an event seen by a large number of people but which drew little attention at the time.
"This case has not received any scientific attention beyond this investigation by Dr. Philip Seff and his colleagues," McDonald said. "It has not received public notoriety. This was, in fact, only reported in a short column in the local paper and not on the wires anywhere. That happens over and over again."
The late Jerry Pettis, who represented the region in Congress at the time, said people should pay attention to the incident.
"I might observe that Redlands is a rather conservative community," Pettis said during McDonald's appearance before a congressional committee. "When people in Redlands say they saw something, they saw something."
The high point for the Sanderson family, Beverly said, was visiting the NBC studios in Burbank for a taping of the "On Campus"program. Her two children, she said, who were young at the time, were excited that their father was going to be on television. After the show, the family walked down the hall and stood in the wings of another studio, watching the taping of "Laugh-In," a popular comedy show at the time.
As the years passed, Sanderson said her husband remained interested in the incident, but it often was referred to in a light vein.
"We would joke about it," she said.
Sandy, she said, was intrigued but never became a UFO fanatic.
"We used to go to Albuquerque for the balloon festival," Sanderson said, "but he was never interested in going to Roswell," a UFO mecca due to a reported crash landing of an alien craft in 1947.
"If they weren't landing on his front lawn," Sanderson said, "he wasn't really interested."
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