An Encounter on the Alaska Highway

Reported by Gavin McLeod

The participants in this adventure were Adrian, Bill, Chester and Dan, all in their mid to late twenties. (The names of the participants are pseudonyms.) The experience was related by "Adrian" to Gavin McLeod and Graham Conway, of UFO*BC, in September of 1997.


In the month of October of 1980 two brothers and their two friends were hunting for Moose off the Alaska Highway at Mile 91.

After a long day of hunting, the men were gathered around the campfire. Upon discovering that they had run out of beer Adrian decided to drive to Fort St. John. Adrian’s brother Bill decided to stay in camp. They departed shortly before sunset for a planned 3 1/4 hour trip. Not long after departing, one of the three men spotted what appeared to be a forest fire on the horizon. Then Adrian said "It doesn’t look like a forest fire, it looks like a sunset". They then decided that what they were looking at resembled a sunset except that they saw two of them. Adrian said: "LETS STOP!"

Adrian, Chester and Dan got out of the truck with Chester and Dan standing inside of the opened truck doors. Adrian then described seeing what looked like a large ball of orange light. Coming out of this ball of light were between fifty and one hundred small white balls of light that looked like dripping molten plastic. The orange ball of light would shrink as each small ball of light exited it. The lights would follow each other toward the side of the gully in the mountain where they would brighten as they touched or came close to the mountain. They would then return to the orange ball of light causing it to expand as each small light entered from the back. Adrian said they were watching this performance for between ten and twenty minutes.

Adrian moved around to the front of the truck on the passenger side and looked up; coming toward them were three of the smaller lights, two from the right and one from the left. It appeared that the one on the left would arrive first but the two on the right seemed to speed up and arrived first. Adrian then had a glimpse of a dull black object behind the light. The objects were estimated to be one hundred feet above them and each approximately the size of a car. It was at this point that Adrian noticed that his companions seemed to be frozen in place. At the same time he saw that, from miles around, clouds were converging on their location and forming three large spirals above them. Then the clouds formed a blanket like "glowing Cinnamon buns" above them.

Adrian then described white clouds moving along the ground like surging mounds of shaving cream. It was then that he decided to run. He ran towards Dan but Dan was still frozen. Adrian then swore and said. "I’m getting out of here". He ran three steps off to the side where he intended to jump into a ditch by the side of the road. At the same time a light appeared which he thought had been aiming at him. He then said "You missed me, you missed me". All of a sudden he was hit in the right buttock and frozen and he heard in his brain "GOTCHA!". He thought to himself "You got me". Then he heard a voice in his head say "We know".

The next thing he knew he was going up backwards through the air looking down at the ground below him. He could not see where he was going. He was then looking at a human-looking figure that reminded him of his priest. It was the figure of a man with black hair and a black beard suspended in the air above him. He recalls that he could not move any part of his body except for his eyes and mouth. He could only see the top of this being’s body. Adrian said that he spoke to this person in a regular fashion but the being seemed to be communicating with thought as his mouth did not move. Adrian said he wanted to look down but was told not to, for he would be afraid. He made the attempt anyway and found that he could move his eyes downward. He saw what he described as perhaps a hundred small beings looking like skinny Pillsbury dough boys (presumably without hats). He described them as looking fuzzy as if out of focus. Adrian was then asked by the being why he had not been frozen initially like his friends had been. Adrian replied that he believed that they had weak minds.

Adrian then said "I know you guys". The figure then asked Adrian to describe what he knew. Adrian then described how when he was seven years old in kindergarten, he was playing with small glowing objects, he followed the objects into his back door and played with them in his bedroom. He told the same story to his kindergarten teacher. She pulled him out of class and made him tell it word for word to the principal. He could not remember what the principal said. The being informed him that they were not the glowing objects but they knew who they were. The being then told Adrian that he would forget what had happened. Adrian told the being that he did not want to.

Adrian’s next remembrance was of being on a short wide section of stairs. He was aware of a person to his right. He believed at this point that he was going back to his vehicle. He turned to his left really fast to go up but a hand was placed on his shoulder and froze him. He was thinking that he had to warn somebody. As he was frozen two "Dough Boys" came towards him.

Adrian then described floating down towards his car and seeing his companions frozen in their positions. The next thing he remembers is driving down the road. Adrian said that he looked in his rear view mirror and watched the smaller balls of light floating above the road.

When they arrived at Fort St. John, Adrian told everyone he could about the encounter he had just experienced, some believed him but others seemed frightened by what he said. Adrian related that the experience seemed to have a profound effect on the personalities of his companions. They were very quiet, stared into space much of the time and seemed to be unfamiliar with the use of everyday items.

The group returned to the camp site the same night and all three actively related the evenings events to Adrian’s brother, but after a nights sleep Adrian’s companions said that they could not remember anything except seeing a few lights.

Adrian has not been back to the area since but intends to return with the same truck he was driving when he had his dramatic encounter more than seventeen years ago.


At some point during the evening, Adrian took this photograph. It is not the sun or the moon.


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