UFO Experiences of 17 Youth in Ross River, Yukon, 1970-1972
The following account is based on a telephone interview with a woman who now resides in Southern British Columbia. An attempt to capture the essence of the interview is presented below. Attempts are being made to locate and interview some of the other 16 witnesses. Their accounts will be added to this report as the information becomes available.
There were
seventeen of us growing up in Ross River at the time, all about the same age, anywhere
between nine and twelve years old. We were a tightly knit group of kids and had a great
time growing up in and around this central Yukon community. There was a bit of a boom
going on for Ross River; the Faro lead-zinc mine to the north was going strong. Families
were there as part of geotechnical exploration camps, various government departments, etc.
We (just us kids) had many camp-outs around the outskirts of the town. One frequent
location was on a "fire guard" that was built around the town after forest fires
threatened the village in the late 60's. Another location was Coffee Lake, which was
located a few miles south of our community.
I can remember one night on the fireguard; the seventeen of us watched this white light,
behind the trees. It would come closer, then back up and come closer again. We must have
watched it for about an hour. There was no sound at all. It was just in the trees on the
other side of the fireguard and could have been about 3 ft (1 meter) in diameter. It would
move around quick, in and out of the trees. Sometimes it would be a bit closer, and then
gone, and then reappear again. It felt like it (the UFO) was one of us, another child
playing with us. If you ask me how this sighting ended, I can't recall specifically, it
may have just disappeared, there wasn't an ending?
Another time at Coffee Lake we saw two UFOs flying all over the sky very quickly, stopping
to hover at times. They were white in color and a bit bigger than a star but what they
were doing was much more awesome than what they looked like. They were shooting beams of
light at each other! Back and forth continuously for what seemed like about 10 minutes.
One of them actually exploded after being hit by one of the beams! The explosion was like
fireworks; sparks would fly off in all directions and then curve and fall straight towards
the ground. At the time we thought that it was a war that was going on between the two
UFOs. Thinking about this today, I am not sure what the significance was.
Another time it was only my friend and I, it was early morning, about 5:00 am and in the
summer time. There was already daylight and we were walking along going to work when a
light came directly at us. It really scared us and we yelled at it "Get out of here!
Get out of here!" It did, not totally, it just moved further away. We were amazed at
its apparent reaction to our verbal request. We weren't sure if it was coincidental so we
yelled at it again, "Come closer!" It did! We just couldn't believe it. We
proceeded to give it the verbal commands for the next 5 minutes asking it to move away,
come closer, move away, again and again. I think I was about 12 years old at the time, it
could have been around 1971. It wasn't a helicopter; there was no sound.
These three incidents immediately come to mind after being asked about them nearly 30
years after they happened. I know there were many many more. I haven't thought about them
much at all, really. More will come to mind if I put my mind to it.
With a few exceptions, as kids we didn't tell any adults or our parents about our UFO
sightings. We didn't want them to think we were crazy. I don't think they would have
believed us, especially at that age. The one time two adults did come out to camp with us,
parents of one of the girls, we did see something that night, and the adults just couldn't
believe it! We told them about the other sightings and I think it really floored them.
There was one other adult, a man who knew about our sightings.
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