Joseph Burkes MD. 2014, edited 2025
The Santa Susana Mountains, September 1992
It was my first month of volunteering as a Working Group Coordinator for the CE-5 Initiative and the enthusiasm of my team was very high. Starting with the first night we had many sightings, not only anomalous nocturnal lights, but also a golden globe as well.
CONTACT NETWORK TRAINING IN “THE OLD DAYS”
Back in the early days the cost of CSETI training was low, less than one hundred dollars. Many people had attended our workshop that was held at a hotel in the west valley. In the 1990s at every demonstration of CSETI’s fieldwork protocols participants were highly likely to see a bone fide UFO. I had in West Palm Beach and many more had viewed at least three typical “Gulf Breeze UFOs” when Dr Greer gave his March 1992 training near Pensacola Florida. Viewing the videotapes of that encounter had helped convince me to join Dr Greer’s research effort.
FOR A BRIEF VIDEO OF THAT HISTORIC ENCOUNTER. https://vimeo.com/49694935
After two weeks of field investigations the numbers of volunteer researchers on the LA team had dropped considerably. Of the original forty Los Angelinos who had attended Dr Greer’s one-day training course, only a dozen contact workers remained. But they were quality researchers who were “gung ho” when it came to fieldwork.
I was pushing the team really hard. During the first 30 days that we had gone out to sky watch five times. This averaged out to more than once per week. Our high desert site was adjacent to the Santa Susana Pass and we just s few thousand yards from the Department of Energy complex.
ALEX AYRES SERVED AS MY ADVISOR
Alex Ayres was a tall handsome man in his late thirties. He was an avid jogger and worked for “the industry” as a screenwriter. With undergraduate degree from Harvard, and master’s from UCLA, he was no intellectual lightweight. His vast knowledge of diverse subjects like parapsychology, channeling, and reincarnation, made him an excellent “esoteric” advisor for me.
In early October 1992 our research site in Chatsworth was accessible via a rocky trail that headed south away from the Santa Susana Pass. It was twilight when got together for another outing. Alex, walking behind me, glanced back towards the 118 Freeway as it cut through the pass. He noticed a dark red light hovering above the freeway. He pointed it out to me and I stared in wonder.
We had not even reached our fieldwork site and we were already having a sighting! The red light was shaped like an oval. This orb was about the size of a dime held at full arm’s extension. What made it really weird was that the tiny section of sky around the orb was darker than the rest of the sky. It was as if the red UFO was affecting the space around it.
I went through the usual paces to check for a prosaic explanation. The red light could not be a radio tower, or a conventional aircraft. It moved so slowly that at first, I thought it was motionless, but it was clearly drifting southwest directly towards the Department of Energy’s base. It was still quite bright outside and perhaps that’s why I didn’t think of signaling at it with my halogen lantern.
ROCKY PEAK WAS A WILDNESS LOCALE
That night during fieldwork we witnessed a series of red lights in the northern sky. They moved up and down over the ridgeline that marked the border of Rocky Peak Wilderness State Park. That park was a day use only facility, no campsites, no water, no toilets, and a steep fire trail that led up to the third highest point in the Santa Susana Mountains. Rocky Peak is 2,715 feet (828 m) in elevation and has spectacular views the San Fernando Valley, the Simi Hills and the Simi Valley.
RED ORBS CARRIED OUT “ PEAK A BOO” MANUEVERS
That night red lights put on a distant show for us. Usually one at a time in a vertical straight line they slowly climbed up and stopped above the hills. This was followed by a slow descent down below the ridge in what I called a “peak a boo” maneuver. They did not respond to our repeated signaling at them with powerful lights.
Several times there was more than one red light that descended as another one moved upwards. This went on for about an hour. There were no sounds of aircraft engines associated with these anomalous nocturnal lights and they were much smaller than the red orb we had observed earlier on the hike to our sky-watch site. The tiny points of lights appeared to be more star-like than orbs and appeared to be several miles away. This was much farther than the first orb Alex and I had seen earlier that evening.
I RESISTED A CHANGE OF VENUE
Alex had been telling me that we needed to check out Rocky Peak since the first-time powerful mystery lights had signaled at us from the cliffs marking the southern border of the park.
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I had resisted the idea in part because we had a pair of investigators on the team who were in their 7th decade. I was concerned they might have problems with the climb. The other reason was that the wilderness park was designated “day use only” and I didn’t relish violating any California State Park regulations by doing night fieldwork there.
Alex told me it was his impression that the appearance of the red lights beyond the ridgeline was a clear indication that we should switch sites. His argument was convincing. I decided we were going to send an advance team to check out Rocky Peak State Park.
In the next report I will describe what might have been surveillance of our team as we surveyed the site during the day.
Later when our night scouting party went out at night, two powerful Black Hawk Helicopters followed us up to the base of Rocky Peak. It was an encounter that I will never forget. To access this blog the link below is provided.
My friend Alex Ayres died in 2019. His obituary can be read at: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/signalscv/name/alex-ayres-obituary?id=7213903
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