Date:
March 30, 2000
Location: Little Fox Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada
Witnesses
saw a 30 to 40-foot diameter saucer, hovering about 200
feet off the ground! It was a classic disc shape with
a dome on top. The dome had two curved windows or lights
from which a blue light was shining. The car headlights
dimmed and their tape deck stopped playing. Their watches
stopped functioning.
Drawing by the investigator, Martin Jasek, based on the
witness' account
Drawing of the UFO by witness Leah Isaac, the driver.
Photo of witnesses from newspaper article about the sighting.
Caption reads: "Pelly
Crossing resident Leah Isaac is seen in Whitehorse with
daughter, and partner Darrell
Lucas.
Source:
Martin Jasek
[go
to original source]
Background:
There
have been many close encounters with UFOs in the Yukon,
but it is not often that we get a report like this so
soon after it occurs. The witnesses were interviewed about
15 hours after their experience. They were still in a
state of shock, coherent, and sincere. For those who doubt
accounts like this, I only wish they could hear the witnesses
first hand. Their emotional state and what they had to
say has left a deep impression on me. Many thanks to FOX4
for notifying us of this sighting, conducting the initial
interview and for obtaining the witness drawing. Since
this article has been published, one of the witnesses
has informed us that she does not mind having her identity
disclosed. "I know what I saw," Leah
Isaac states, "and I was a skeptic before!"
The
Account:
Leah
Isaac, a friend of hers, and a young boy (who was asleep)
were travelling northbound along the Klondike Highway
from Whitehorse to the Village of Pelly Crossing, Yukon.
The sky was clear with a glow of predawn blue. They were
nearing the end of Little Fox Lake and came around a sharp
right-hand bend near the base of a mountain. Upon coming
out from the bend, they could not believe their eyes!
To the right and about 300 ft (90 meters) away was a 30
to 40-foot (9 to 12 meters) diameter saucer, hovering
about 200 feet (60 meters) off the ground! They observed
it to be stationary for 4 to 5 seconds as they were travelling
along the highway and then, it shot across horizontally
in front of their vehicle at an "incredible speed"
and stopped instantly on the left side of the road. "Nothing
can move that fast", "in the blink of
an eye," the witnesses described. It remained
motionless for only another split second and shot off
even faster in a different direction (basically performing
a 90-degree turn and shooting off behind them). One witness
thought it went right into the side of a mountain while
the other thought it followed the mountainous skyline.
"Come on, floor it, floor it!" shouted
the friend to Leah. They continued northbound, fleeing
from the location and eventually pulled over about 20
minutes later. They were both visibly shaking. "We
were more scared than excited, I think if it wasn't so
close it would not have been so frightening",
"It's like we caught it by surprise when we came
around the corner", "it was so advanced",
"I'll never be the same" were some of
the comments by the witnesses.
The
witnesses got a good look at the saucer. It was a classic
disc shape with a dome on top. The dome had two curved
windows or lights from which a beautiful ocean blue or
aqua colored light was shining. The surface of the craft
was difficult to describe. Some of the words the witnesses
used were "mirror, silver, translucent, shiny,
glassy, reflecting the color of the sky". It
was as though the UFO was trying to "camouflage
against the background sky color". "Had
it been pitch black out, I don't think we would have seen
the body of the craft, just the windows or lights,"
Leah remarked.
As
the UFO streaked in front of their vehicle, the car headlights
dimmed and their tape deck stopped playing. They both
wanted to check the time of their sighting. However, Leah's
battery-operated analog watch stopped (at 5:00 a.m.) and
the man's digital watch went blank, and then got stuck
in "chrono mode" and wouldn't reset.
A few miles down the road, Leah tapped the face of her
watch and it started working again. The man fiddled around,
pushing buttons on his digital watch and it started working
as well, the time indicated was 5:12 a.m. They checked
the tape deck and by all indications, John Fogerty should
have been playing away. The tape hadn't run out, the volume
was on, and the lights on the cassette window indicated
that the power was on. Other than the initial power drain,
no additional problems were noted with the truck. The
man figured that they managed to get the tape deck and
watches functioning properly after they traveled a "couple
of miles" past the UFO sighting location. The
woman figured that about 5 minutes had elapsed when they
managed to get their watches functioning and about 10
minutes until the tape deck started to work. Although
the witnesses were travelling in a vehicle, no noise was
heard emanating from the UFO.
Updated
Information:
Leah
Isaac was interviewed in Whitehorse and was asked to use
reference objects (buildings around her) to help provide
estimates of the closest approach and size of the UFO.
These distances were measured and the following results
were determined: At their closest approach, the UFO was
about 27 metres (90 feet) away and about 10 metres (34
feet) in diameter. The geometry gives a viewing angle
of about 22 degrees of an arc.
Further
investigation into this case is described in the IUR Journal
(International UFO Reporter) Summer 2000 issue Vol. 25.
No. 2. by Mark Rodeghier* and Martin Jasek.
*Mark
Rodeghier is the scientific director of the Center for
UFO Studies in Chicago. He has dedicated his UFO studies
to cases where there had been interference with the vehicle's
electronics, such as this one that occurred at Little
Fox Lake. To date, he has catalogued some 500 such cases.
He has the following to add regarding this case:
"I
am definitely interested in more information on this report,
as much as possible, both because it is a recent case
and because very few vehicle interference reports have
been studied in depth before. This is because they have
been so infrequent - only somewhat over 500 have occurred
worldwide since 1947 - so any one investigator may only
see one or two reports in a lifetime of UFO investigations.
I have personally investigated only one report, although
I have spoken with the witnesses in about a dozen other
cases."
"I
can tell you that this case fits a pattern I first discerned
about 20 years ago. That is, in most vehicle interference
reports, the UFO is disk-shaped, about 30 feet in size,
and comes quite close to the witness. It often moves in
front of the vehicle, as it did at Little Fox Lake. Most
cases also occur in isolated locations. The color blue
is quiet common. It's amazing to me to see this pattern
repeating here in the year 2000."
Mark
Rodeghier and Martin Jasek continue to work on this case.
Work includes obtaining the magnetic signature of the
vehicle to assess if it had been magnetized.
Additional
Information:
To
help visualize the lighting conditions, an astronomical
simulation program was used to determine that the sun
was 11 degrees below the horizon during the sighting.
It is difficult to put this in perspective in terms of
the amount of time before sunrise, as the sunrise rate
varies significantly with latitude and season. For the
location and date in question, it was about 1 hour and
35 minutes before sunrise. For different latitudes, similar
lighting conditions can be found at the following times
before sunrise or after sunset:
For
March 30:
Equator
(0 deg lat.): 42 minutes
Los Angeles (34 deg lat.): 55 minutes
Vancouver (49 deg lat.): 1 hour 05 minutes
Little Fox Lake (61.5 deg lat.): 1 hour and 35 minutes
For
June 30:
Equator
(0 deg lat.): 45 minutes
Los Angeles (34 deg lat.): 1 hour 05 minutes
Vancouver (49 deg lat.): 1 hour 40 minutes
Little Fox Lake (61.5 deg lat.): does not get dark enough
Source:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case115.htm