Chris Bledsoe's Cape Fear River Encounter

Chris Bledsoe described himself in his first report as "45 years old with 4 children churchgoer retired builder and commercial pilot." He built homes in the Hope Mills area of Cumberland County, North Carolina. He had about 70 unsold homes after units from Fort Bragg deployed following 9/11.

Monday, January 8, 2007. Bledsoe went fishing on the Cape Fear River near Fayetteville with his son, Chris Jr., 17, and three co-workers. The spot was "over a mile off the main road," down "a muddy two-rut road through thick woods."

The fishing was slow. Around 6 PM Bledsoe walked up the track while the others kept a fire going on the bank. Then he saw "3 Large orange balls moving down towards the ground and towards myself." They "stopped just over the trees maybe a mile away or closer and hovered there."

Later, "three of the objects side by side came over our heads and landed or went out of site on the other side of the river." All three were "round bright white blinding lights." Then he saw a brilliant white egg-shaped sphere "with a tail with long spikes all around the middle and front section," hovering 20 feet over the main road. The spikes rotated. Then "it shot off just over the trees out of sight." Above, six to eight "stars" from different parts of the sky moved very fast and seemed to converge in a group.

Bledsoe went home to his six acres. Around 1 or 2 AM, near a blueberry hedgerow, he saw "a max of 4 tall creature person alien staring at me." It seemed to have "a clear glass like covering around it," a "red set of goggles" and a dark covering over the lower face. It gave off a faint glow of red and black. The kennel dogs became extremely agitated. As his son and a guard dog approached, it vanished.

Later tellings changed. The three balls became "two flaming spheres hovering in the distance in perfect silence, each about forty-five feet in diameter." Bledsoe said it felt like he was gone for 20 minutes. He learned it had been hours. This missing time became central to the story. Chris Jr. said he hid in the woods from red-eyed beings, given in one account as 3½ feet tall and translucent. Bledsoe also says the encounter cured his Crohn's disease.

MUFON investigators, including Rich Lang and James Carrion, ran psychological exams, a polygraph and hypnotic regression. Under hypnosis Bledsoe said he had been abducted. The psychologist ruled out mental illness, and other witnesses confirmed much of the story. The polygraph was the stumbling block. According to the critic Tanner F. Boyle, it showed some signs of deception. The investigation was filmed for "The Fayetteville Incident," a 2008 episode of UFOs Over Earth on Discovery Channel. Bledsoe later rejected the investigation. After leaving MUFON, Carrion wrote that "The phenomenon is based in deception," adding, "of the human kind."

No specific explanation for the 2007 sightings has been proposed. Bledsoe recalled that the government reported a Soviet satellite falling that night. Nothing confirms it. His 2023 book, UFO of God, carries a foreword by Jim Semivan, a former senior CIA officer. John B. Alexander visited in 2015 and reportedly saw an object. Diana Pasulka thanked Bledsoe in American Cosmic. No released government document covers the case. Boyle compares Bledsoe to George Adamski. Metabunk users matched later orb footage to aircraft. The night on the river itself remains unexplained.