It was one year ago that Centripetal Force and family pulled into the driveway of our new home in La Selva Beach, CA. It was no small feat to extract myself from a community where I had forged strong friendships and established strong roots, but deep down I knew this move was meant to be, perhaps even destined by the workings of some unknown force. I’m a stubborn man though (as my partner knows all too well), and my dug heels remained deep for months after our arrival, resisting the ever growing belief that I was in La Selva for a particular reason.
If you’re unfamiliar, La Selva Beach is a magical place, about 75 miles south of San Francisco and nestled comfortably against the Monterey Bay. The neighborhood is adorned with massive redwoods and towering palms. Great horned owls call throughout the night. Winter brings an impressive array of mushrooms to life, and coyotes run freely down the center of the street after dark. La Selva was also the one time home of Sid Padrick, a former Air Force pilot and radio and television repairman who claimed to have had an alien encounter on the beach during the early morning hours of January 30th, 1965. For reference, his willing abduction occurred somewhere at the bottom of the bluff from where the above sunset photo was taken. I first learned of Padrick’s story long before I had any idea that I would one day end up settling in the same central coast neighborhood. In reality, with a population of just over 2000, the odds would seem to be quite long.
I initially learned of Sid Padrick through an album released in 1966 titled File #733 U.F.O., a curious documentary record that includes interviews with UFO witnesses and abductees, including Sid Padrick. As a record collector, as well as one with general interests in the supernatural and all things cosmic, this album was tops on my want list.
Album cover for the original File #733 U.F.O
The album was recorded and arranged by Jack Jenkins, and in 2017 had captured the attention of my friends Bob Irwin and Jay Millar at Sundazed/ Modern Harmonic Records. We knew each other from WXNA-FM in Nashville, where we all had radio programs. Bob hosted “Big Planet Noise” (now on WFMU) on Wednesday nights, the same evening I was hosting “Psych Out!” Our mutual love for all things psychedelic quickly drew us together. Jay hosted “The Plural of Vinyl” and specialized in all sorts of audio oddities and obscurities, including Jenkins’ UFO record.
Bob and Jay asked if I would be interested in being part reissuing File #733 U.F.O. My role was to interview Jack Jenkins, who was living in Oregon and company manufacturing grain mills, and write up some new liner notes. I was also asked to curate a soundtrack for Jenkins’ documentary, an album of music that could be simultaneously played with the Jenkins record for the purpose of enhancing the listening experience. Well, I certainly said “yes” and pulled together folks like Jeffrey Alexander, Kikagaku Moyo, Heron Oblivion, Mugstar, and others to create the audio mix. The tougher task was coming up with a focus for the liner notes.
Just like Fox Mulder and his infamous deskside poster, “I Want To Believe.” However, upon my first few listens to Jenkins’ record, I wasn’t really convinced there was much substance to his interviews or his speculative explanations (audio included below). Sure, the narrated accounts were engaging and entertaining, Padrick’s in particular, but I just couldn’t take them very seriously, that is until I interviewed Jack Jenkins himself. I’m not sure how, but at some point during my pre-interview research, I had learned that Jenkins was a devout Mormon. I thought this was an intriguing point and wondered if there was any connection between Mormonism and UFOs or aliens or the like.
I Want To Believe
My interview with Jenkins was almost an hour long and was an adventurous romp through a variety of topics, including faith, religion, absolute truths, and, of course, UFOs and aliens. Jenkins told me that he had no doubt that what Padrick had told him about his alien encounter at La Selva Beach was an absolute truth. He was entirely convinced that Padrick’s tale was authentic, particularly when it came to Padrick recalling being told by his humanoid alien captors that they were “from a planet in back of a planet.” Well, it just so happens that in Mormonism there is the belief that the Earth is simply one of many planets with life. Mormon scripture does not present the Earth’s creation as a singular event, but as part of a much larger celestial division containing any number of heavenly bodies, a potential multiverse of countless moons, stars, and planets, including one called Kolob, the heavenly body nearest God’s throne. Padrick’s planet comment struck a serious chord with Jenkins because Mormon theology not only asserts that human-type life inhabits other planets, but that Kolob, a sort of Mormon master planet, is hidden from the view of Earth. I can’t say I’m as firm a believer in Padrick’s story as Jenkins, but learning that certainly piqued my curiosity and opened the door to belief.
Soon after deciding to make the move from Nashville to La Selva Beach I revisited the Sid Padrick story and started digging around online. I think I wanted to definitively reject Padrick’s narrative and shut down my desire to believe. However, I learned that on the evening of January 29th, the night before Padrick’s sighting, Mayor George Clemens of nearby Monterey had seen mysterious lights flashing above the bay. That same week park rangers in Santa Clara County had also sighted strange activity in the mountains above La Selva. I found an excellent post from 2021 on the Saucers That Time Forgot website that includes local newspaper articles about his sightings, as well as advertisements for Padrick’s radio and television repair service. Padrick spent five or so years on the lecture circuit, speaking to UFO enthusiasts and curiosity seekers around California before dropping off the scene. Apparently, his family was less than thrilled with the attention they received from the story and dismissed the entire episode as false, a claim supported by the Air Force investigator who visited Padrick at La Selva and interviewed him at length about his experience.
From the Santa Cruz Sentinel
Strangely though, there is something about Padrick’s story that pricks at my brain every time I stand on the La Selva cliff. I want the intersection of my life path and the Padrick story to be more than mere coincidence. I’d love for there to be some deeper meaning or purpose. I chat up some of the old timers in the neighborhood to see if they know anything about the tale or the family. I’d love to know where he lived. Perhaps my struggle to figure out if Padrick’s story is authentic or not is just a grand metaphor for my own stubbornness, my proclivity to pull when I’m supposed to push and push when I’m supposed to pull. Perhaps it means something more. I’ve never told anyone until now, but sometimes when I return home late at night I go out to the cliff and peer into the vast darkness looking for a glimpse of what Padrick may have seen, hoping that I will see something that I cannot explain. After all, “I Want To Believe.”
- Mike Mannix
Want to read up more on Padrick’s story? Check out his account in Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-Up, starting on page 303.
Listen to Sid Padrick’s account below:
Album cover for the reissue of File #733 U.F.O
