Well, girls and boys ... hereÂ’s, by far, my favorite story IÂ’ve acquired in my short six decades!
IÂ’m an expert on this one - I was there - I saw it and IÂ’ll never change my story because I canÂ’t. It happened.
I wasnÂ’t even wearing my aluminium hat, either!
Non-believers ... get your rotten tomatos ready to throw at me!
Back in ‘63 my friend Alan and I had taken horses about ten miles south of Walter’s Camp - along the Colorado River - to hunt wild desert pig (javalina). Although 18, both of us were very experienced desert hunters - we’d been doing it since we were little kids, with our dads and older brothers. This was probably our fifth or sixth trip alone out there. All previous trips had been completely uneventful and mostly successful.
The California side of the river there is made up of sand washes that go right down to the edge of the Colorado River, with some occasional little cane breaks that run along the riverÂ’s edge. Bordering each wash are very ancient lava flows (making rounded, smooth, small flat pebbled, easily walkable, ten to fifteen foot high flat topped flows that are long ridges that run down to the waterÂ’s edge. The whole place is pretty picturesque and a very desolate part of the Mojave Desert.
The Arizona side (across the river) is completely different than the California side. No smooth sand washes bordered by ancient lava flow ridges leading to the river - rather, the Arizona side is a jumble of huge rounded house-sized boulders and countless smaller (rounded as well) car sized stones. The topography there rises slowly up to a sky horizon of about two hundred feet - about a half mile to the east of the river. ItÂ’s absolutely impossible to walk or drive on the Arizona side because of the endless field of boulders and no roads. Except for an occasional cluster of scrub brush growing between some of the boulders itÂ’s quite lifeless over there.
On this particular trip, Alan and I got to our favorite spot - in the middle of a rather large sand wash about 50 yards from the riverÂ’s edge. It was late in the afternoon.
We unloaded, exercised, brushed, hobbled and staked the horses. Set up camp, and built a fire next to a flow. We cooked, ate dinner and cleaned up by 8 PM, or so.
It was a very hot and moonless evening and there were meteor showers that night. In the ‘low desert’ starlight is so bright that, if cloudless, you can easily walk the desert without a flashlight (although not a good idea because of rattlers).
That night, we climbed to the top of the flat topped pebble strewn flow next to the campsite and walked down towards the river. About 50 yards from the river it flared a bit and was very flat, overlooking the river at about 20 feet above the water.
It was too early, and too hot, to turn in that early so we laid down there on our backs to watch the meteor showers. Only wearing bathing suits, boots, and holstered snake shot-loaded revolvers we were very comfortable. We had left the flashlights and canteens behind in camp.
We were up there about three hours chatting and watching the meteor showers. We lost track of time - very easy to do in the desert quiet.
Finally, we realised that if we were to get an early start, it was time to go back to camp. When we stood up ... and here’s the ‘good part’ ... we stood there facing east looking at something that was absolutely impossible. It’s akin to walking into your living room to find a hippopotamus reading a newspaper in your favorite chair!
Initially - for a split second - it looked like there were about fifty people standing in line across the top of a couple of the house sized boulders on the Arizona side of the river, holding flashlights, evenly spaced, the lights were a bright white! A quick ‘double take look’ also showed a cluster of bright and clearly defined green and blue lights to the left (at it’s north end) and another smaller cluster of not so bright and lesser defined greenish and bluish lights on the other end.
We couldnÂ’t see an outline around the lights because it was below the Arizona-side horizon and the starlight wasnÂ’t quite bright enough to illuminate it well enough with countless dark boulders in the background.
The next thing we both noticed (after comparing notes, later) was a very bright bluish-white kind of a spotlight light shining down from the green and blue cluster of lights at it’s ‘north’ end. The ‘spotlight’ (best way to describe it) was transfixed down on a large rock surface directly below it. The bluish white circle on the rock was very vivid against the darker surroundings.
After only, maybe, a couple of seconds, the ‘searchlight’ snapped off and immediately all the lights rose up in unison to about 300 - 400 feet and stopped there in mid-air. We were stupefied since there was no noise accompanying it’s rapid assent - and it just silently hovered there making no sound - no movement! Now at it’s zenith and not surrounded by the darker rocks beyond we could see an outline! It was (for the lack of better words) ‘cigar shaped’ and perfectly smooth, cylindrical and metalic-like.
On a still, hot, desert night, you can hear someone speaking in a normal conversational voice about a half mile away. This was only about two - three hundred yards away and hadnÂ’t made a sound as it rose and stopped!
After hanging there for a couple of seconds (maybe three) it shot down river about three hundred yards in a flash and stopped (at the same altitude)! It hung there for about five seconds and dropped straight down in an instant. The last thing we observed was the ‘searchlight’ on the end closest to us snapped back on and began playing over the rocks below. It definitely looked as if it was looking for something on the boulders below. Still there was no sound, none, none whatsoever.
As I turned to my left - totally astonished -towards Alan who had been standing next to me I began saying, “DID YOU SEE TH ... .”
He wasnÂ’t there! He was gone! Sheer panic jolted me into movement and I turned the rest of the way around to see him running back towards camp in a flat out sprint for his life!
My adrenaline kicked in and I almost caught up to him as we approached our camp, below, in the sand wash!
We have never been scared like that - before or since. When we were 16 we were shot at by some Mexican smugglers, near Inkapah, and had been delighted to return fire on them for a fifteen minute wild melee of a firefight (that we won, may I add) before they broke off and ran away! We were exhilarated - not scared in the least!
Now we were 18 and still afraid of absolutely nothing - especially a string of lights, with a searchlight, or not!
Alan, usually the ‘Cool Hand Luke’ of our hunting group, leapt off of a (about) 10 foot bluff next to the campfire and proceeded to kick embers all over the now dark and peaceful camp! I, no less freaked out tried to run down a much too steep embankment into camp from the flow above. My feet flew out from under me and I rolled like a ball all the way down ... and came up running!
By the time I got to the ‘61 Scout, Alan was already there having managed to drag his new rifle across the bare metal bed of the Scout! Alan was always VERY fussy about his guns - even trail/scabbard guns - and would glare at you if you even touched the bluing, until you put it down! Then he’d immediately wipe it down with an oilcloth glaring disdainfully at you all the while!
Anyway he managed to scratch one side of the rifle and was trying to jam as many rounds into the magazine as possible! I think he managed to load two - the rest being dropped onto the sand!
I grabbed the backup - pump 12GA - and managed to get one round in before I fled to the tent right behind him!
The hobbled horses had pulled their stakes and were ‘escaping’ down the wash in a series of frenzied ‘baby steps!’
We sat - absolutely terrified - in that tent for an hour without speaking. We had both upholstered the sidearms and laid them at our sides ... and were waiting - fortified with two rifle and a shotgun round (and about 12 rounds of .357 snakecapped loads) we ready to defend ourselves against all comers! The thought of going back to the ScoutÂ’s tailgate and getting more ammo was completely out of the question ... until morning, anyway!
About a half hour before sunrise the sky to the east was just beginning to show a little pink and Alan and I crawled out of the tent. We had dozed a bit - maybe - Alan thought we had and I didnÂ’t. One of the few points we still argue about, some 42 years later.
We bellied up upon that flow now armed with .45 autos strapped to our legs and kind of slouch-ran ... as stealthily as you can exposed on the top of a smooth lave flow - towards the open river. When we got to the same spot we had begun our mad dash west we both stood erect and saw nothing.
I have few regrets in my life - but there is one that falls among my the top three. If I could do it over again, I would have stood my ground and stayed ... maybe. Alan and I both agree that maybe the fear may have been somehow induced into us from whatever that was ... but that is pure conjecture and probably not true!
We sprinted back to the camp and unceremoniously THREW the camp in the back of the Scout! We have never before, or since, not carefully folded the ground tarp, tent, carefully packed the poles, food stuffs and other camp equipment into their boxes and containers - we certainly didnÂ’t do that this morning!
As the sun was just peeking over the low Arizona hills, to the east,we had unhobbled the horses and literally pushed them back into the trailer without feed or water!
We rapidly drove north back up to WalterÂ’s Camp and to the paved road as fast as we could go ... short of killing the horses in the trailer!
About half way there, we spotted a River Ranger standing and steering his small one man boat down the river! We jumped out of the Scout and hooted and hollered him over! With an alarmed look of concern he listened to us as we jumped about like two little girls at their favorite birthday party trying to explain what we had seen! The law enforcement officer looked interested - but just mildly!
He patiently waited until we had finished, and said, “Well, thanks boys but I’ve got a long way to go this morning before the sun gets too high.” With that, he walked a few feet back to his boat, shoved off and putted away down the river without even a backwards glance! We were dumbfounded!
We had just seen the most profound evidence of extraterrestrial life and HE wasnÂ’t the least bit interested!
We made a pact to not tell anyone else - other than our immediate families at home! We held to that for about ten years!
Alan and I were at a party about ten years later and some yahoo was spinning some yarn about some lights way high in the sky that he had seen up in the Sierra Nevada. I smiled at Alan and he smiled at me ... and with a few minutes we had easily taken the ‘Crown of the Best UFO Story’ that night amidst a crowd of astonished friends!
Alan and I camped the deserts, mountains of the Southwest, Northern Sonora and Baja (and even had a summer’s fishing trip, together, up to Alaska once, in ‘76) ... for another twenty five years, or so. We used lie on low camp cots staring up at the sky at night, often, just watching for a second chance ... but we never got one.
That was out first and last UFO and we ran away!
How, utterly, embarrassing!
... and there you have it!
