Cisco Grove Encounter, California 1964

Friday, September 4, 1964. Three men from Aerojet went bowhunting for deer in the Tahoe National Forest near Cisco Grove, California. Coming down a ridge at dusk, Donald R. Shrum lost the others. He climbed a pine about 12 feet up to stay safe from animals, and later tied himself to it with his belt.

Between about 9:00 and 9:30 pm, a white light appeared, zigzagging at low altitude. Shrum took it for a search helicopter. He climbed down and lit three signal fires on rocks. The light hovered between two trees, 50 to 60 yards away, then swept around him and moved off over a canyon. The earliest account says an object came down "in a glide path" and landed beyond a ridge crest. There was no sound.

Up close, he described three vertical rectangular panels arranged in steps, with a light below. They shimmered "like aluminum foil being shaken in front of a fire". A "dark object with a blinking light on top" came out of the second panel and dropped into the underbrush.

Then the figures came. Short and stocky, about 5 feet tall, in close-fitting silver or white suits with puffs at the joints. Under a helmet or hood, the face was dark, with eyes "big as silver dollars". They made a "cooing noise, something like an owl would make". They shook the tree and tried to climb it.

With them was a robot with metal arms and legs, a square hinged jaw and two large glowing lights for eyes. It seemed to "float rather than walk". It put a hand up to its mouth and emitted a white vapor. Shrum gasped for breath and lost consciousness. This happened several times.

He fought back. He shot the robot in the chest at close range. There was an "arc flash and the robot was knocked backwards". He set fire to his cap, pieces of clothing and the contents of his wallet, and dropped them down. At dawn the beings left. The craft "shot upwards and out of sight". His companion Vincent Alvarez had seen the glowing object over the trees and watched it leave fast. He had not seen the beings.

Victor W. Killick, director of the Sacramento City College Observatory and a family friend, wrote to the commander of Mather AFB. Two officers from McClellan AFB taped an interview with Shrum and took at least one arrow. It was never returned. The Project Blue Book file lists the tape, an artifact number and Killick's letter. The verdict, as secondary sources report it: "owls and other woodland creatures", and a "psychological basis". Shrum was never told.

His wife, Judi Shrum, turned to Donald Keyhoe at NICAP. Ted Bloecher wrote a long report with Isabel Davis. The APRO Bulletin published the case in 1966, calling the witness only "Mr. X". Coral Lorenzen called it "the most spectacular report we have examined". J. Allen Hynek later covered it in The Hynek UFO Report.

Doubters note that only Shrum saw the beings. The story also grew. The 2011 book Aliens in the Forest, by Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte with Shrum, added a black craft about 150 feet long, six beings and a site raked clean. None of that is in the 1964 to 1966 records.

Shrum hid his name for decades, reportedly fearing for his aerospace job. He turned down paid offers and told the story the same way for more than 50 years. Later he said: "I won. They didn't take me."