Allied Gardens, California UFO

This is a drawing of the mysterious object seen by the witness. (Details follow.)

Date: November, 1968 (Exact date unknown)
Date reported: February 20, 2004
Location: Allied Gardens, CA (Near San Diego)
Time: Around 02:30 or 03:00 AM (Time approximate)
Duration: Not known
Witness: One

Description: The sighting was very early in the morning.  The location was Allied Gardens which is a suburb of San Diego, California.  The whole family (5 children, and 2 adults) had gone to bed the regular time (children at approximately 9:00 pm, youngest children earlier).  Father retired about 10:00 pm and mother about 11:30 PM or midnight.  The witness woke up for no reason around 2:30 or 3:00 am.  She said that woke up "on her feet" at her sliding glass door facing the backyard.  She as well stated that she never had sleep walked then or since.  She then lit a cigarette when she was standing the sliding glass door.  She said that she was looking all the way across back of the terraced yard up the bank (hill). On over the Adobe retainer wall, across the four lane avenue (sloped up the hill) to the very dark church parking lot.  The church parking lot lights were always out this late.  She knew something was wrong because she saw strange colored lights in the church parking lot.   What were these strange colored lights?  She said that the lights hovered just above the palm trees.  She focused her eyes more clearly and the lights seemed rectangular in shape (lined up in a row).  The lights were dull, glowing and harvest moon in color (orange/gold).  As she stared at the lights, they started to move and floated to the left.  They moved very slow.  She wasn't sure how long that she observed them before they disappeared over the rise in the hill up the road.  There were three or four "window-like" lights. The witness said that she did not tell anyone for years about the strange sighting.  (She first reported the sighting to the National UFO Reporting Center in February of 2002.)

Investigation:  Obviously it is difficult to investigate a sighting observed by one witness that occurred over 35 years ago.  I personally know this witness and will attest to her reliability and competence.  I plan to research sources of UFO sighting data to see if any sightings were recorded around the time and location where this sighting occurred.

Bottom line: Unidentified.  Perhaps a more conventional explanation could be given if more witnesses were involved and more data were available.