Coastal Watch Near Newport: Time Loss and Light Distortion
We arrived near the northern edge of Newport just before dusk. Vernon had flagged a small inlet just west of Highway 101—state land, mostly overgrown bluff and coastal brush with a drop-off down to the surf. The location matched what had been described in a newspaper clipping from 1973: a Coast Guard boat reported strange light refractions and momentary “signal loss” while patrolling the shoreline. Grandpa had saved the clipping in a plastic sleeve for years. According to him, they’d also reported 4.5 minutes of missing time when compared to their ship chronometer. That part never made it into the printed version.
We parked both vans on an old turnout and began setting up the equipment around 5:00 p.m. The group divided into two teams. Team A stayed uphill on the ridge with the main camera, field EM scanner, and three voice recorders. Team B, which I was part of, took a route down the slope and positioned ourselves closer to sea level, just off a driftwood pile where we had partial visibility toward Yaquina Head.
At 7:43 p.m., I reported a measurable drop in the magnetic field—around 7 microteslas below the baseline, lasting under two minutes. Robin confirmed a corresponding fluctuation with her handheld compass but couldn’t determine a pattern. At 8:10 p.m., we recorded our first visual distortion: the lights from Newport’s harbor looked stretched out like a heat mirage. Jennifer adjusted the long-lens scope and confirmed it wasn’t atmospheric moisture—sky was unusually dry for February.
At 8:33 p.m., everything went dark for Team B. We didn’t lose consciousness, but the moon, stars, and all coastal lights flickered out for what felt like a second. Vernon’s wristwatch and Josh’s stopwatch showed a 7-minute discrepancy. No one else seemed to notice it happen. Egiel thinks it could be shock-induced memory lapse or unintentional group suggestion—something psychological. But our audio recorders had a full 7 minutes of blank hiss. No ambient sound, no voices, not even wind.
Up the hill, Team A saw a blue-white flash low on the horizon around that same time, but their equipment remained functional. Grandpa made a note of a rhythmic pressure behind his ears that faded slowly over 15 minutes. Donna reported the same. When we returned to the vehicles after 10 p.m., everyone seemed subdued.
I asked Grandpa if any of this reminded him of the McMinnville sightings from the 1950s. He paused, then said this felt closer to something called a “surface veil event”—a term I hadn’t heard before. He claims they were first theorized in the early ’60s by fringe Soviet physicists studying radar-invisible objects. I’m not sure if he was serious or just enjoying the attention.
We collected all the recorders, camera footage, and EM logs. They’ll be analyzed tomorrow in Corvallis. Group consensus was that something measurable occurred—whether electromagnetic, optical, or perceptual. We all agree on this: the lights didn’t behave like any coastal phenomenon we could explain.
We drove north another 50 minutes before pulling into a cheap motel in Lincoln City. I fell asleep with the EM meter still in my lap.
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Miles driven today: 162
