Close Encounter: 7 March 1995

Details of the encounter originally appeared as a brief posting on alt.paranet.ufo and I followed it up, asking if I could document it in more detail. The witness agreed and there followed considerable correspondence, documenting and clarifying the exact nature of the reported encounter.

I have summarised this account using only the verbatim testimony of the witness and have their confirmation that this summary is an accurate record of events. At the time of the incident, the witness was a student. She wishes to remain anonymous.

On March 7th, 1995, at around 9.00 p.m., my father, son and I were on our way home, traveling in a westerly direction on Martin Road, a county road between Two Harbors MN and Duluth, in a remote area, north-east of Lake Superior.

Lighting conditions were very dark. The moon was in the last quarter, right before the new moon, so it was a sliver moon. It wasn't snowing in that area at the time, however, the day before there was a huge snow storm, but it had passed and there were only scattered flurries that night.

As we were driving, we saw what appeared to be a huge building or stadium on a high hill. It was the altitude that made it appear to be on a hill, there is no hill in this area.

I remarked about never seeing a building there before. I asked my father at that point what the object was? He didn't respond. My father is a stroke victim and therefore has very limited speech. I could not recall a factory or stadium or anything in the area that might have been the size of what we were seeing.

As we proceeded up the road, the building started moving toward us, at a fast rate. Finally what we thought was a building was alongside us.

It was some sort of craft. It was huge. It had 4 lights in front, and one larger light underneath.

The craft approached us from the south and was to the west of us. It hovered off to the left and to the west of us so that we could see it quite clearly. I would say it hovered for approximately 60 seconds. It seemed to be observing us.

My son was asleep in the back seat and didn't wake, even though I was shouting at him to look.

We were almost stopped at this point. It then angled downwards, tilting the front with the 4 lights directly at us. When the craft hovered the back dropped down. It then started moving toward us and toward the ground. When it came at us, we could not see the back of the craft as it was at approximately a 35 degree angle toward the ground, with the headlights pointing at us. We could only see the headlights and front of the craft at that time, the light underneath was not visible at that point.

The front of the craft may itself have been angled slightly, I can't recall for certain. We were also unable to see the top of the craft.

We both thought it might hit us, which it looked like it would have if it hadn't dropped the back end yet again and started hovering in front of us, over the road. It tilted back and hovered over us.

It was wider in front than in back, creating a wedge shape from front to back. It was like a wedge of cake on it's side, or at least from the angle we could see it. It may have angled in the center of the front slightly, I'm not sure, but it gave that impression.

We are talking about a craft that is approximately 330 feet wide, at it's widest point, and approximately 220 feet in length. The width of the back was much thinner, I can't be certain of the width at the narrowest point. In height, from the upper edge to the lower edge, the front of the craft was approximately 40 feet. It was comparative with the height of a 2 story house.

It appeared to use the back as a rudder, as when it was hovering it angled the back down and seemed to just sit watching us.

The was no determinable sound from the craft.

The lights in front were approximately 40 ft in diameter. From left to right, they were spaced approximately as follows:

- from left hand front edge to first light - 30 feet

- from first light to second light - 20 feet

- from second light to third light - 70 feet

- from third light to fourth light - 20 feet

- from fourth light to right hand front edge - 30 feet

They were not flush with the end of the craft (front edges). There was a large gap between the front center lights. I'm not sure what was there as I was more interested in the underside. The lights were larger than the gaps.

These lights were an off-white color and did not illuminate anything but the craft itself. They glowed, and yet there was no beam.

When the object came at us we should have been illuminated, we were not, neither was any of the surrounding area. The lights did not change color at any time. The only thing that was lit by them was the craft itself.

As we continued to travel east on the road, we passed under the object. As we were passing under the craft I was looking up at it. The color became very evident; it was a snow-cloud gray.

The light underneath the craft was the size of all the other lights put together, i.e., approximately 160 feet in diameter. In my estimation, it was the size of a small house. It was centered and there was approx 85 feet of area on either side from the side edges.

Underneath, in the center of the craft and surrounding this central light, were objects which are difficult to describe. They were angular, square, rectangular, the only way I can describe them is maybe like doors? They did not protrude a lot, but enough to see them.

When I could no longer see the craft, I looked in the rear-view mirror, and it was gone.

I said to my dad that if he and my son hadn't been with me I would have stopped and he said, "turn around, turn around". I told him it was gone.

After we went under the craft, I was just in a state of shock for a while.

My son didn't waken until after we were under it and it was gone.

I then spoke to my dad some. Then I thought I should remember everything I could and checked the time, I estimated that it had been between 10 and 15 minutes since we had passed under the craft. I looked at the clock and it was 9:15 p.m.

We were about 15 or 20 minutes longer getting home than usual. I attribute this to watching the craft and maybe not driving as fast as usual after seeing it. I watched the sky the rest of the way home.

We didn't stop, we kept driving as we still had some distance to go to get home. As mentioned, my father is a stroke victim and therefore has very limited speech. To ask him about the encounter, "yes" and "no" questions would essentially have to be asked. The next day, I asked him, "did we see something weird on the way home last night?" "Yes, Yes", was his reply. We did discuss some of the experience on the way home, but it is very difficult to communicate with him due to his disability. I am able to understand him through gesture, facial expression etc. He is able to communicate to some extent, but his vocabulary is very limited.

There was another vehicle the night we saw the object, a pickup truck. It turned off on a side road before we passed under it. I believe the truck turned at about the time the object started to hover the first time. The truck turned to the left and that was the end of seeing it, we were more interested in the object.

I had thought maybe we would see something in the paper about it, but nothing was there and if the person in the truck was alone, they may have thought they just imagined it.

I am 41 years old and have never seen anything like this before nor have I heard of anything like it. My father is 70 and he too has never seen anything like it. Both of us felt we were being observed by this craft.

Since seeing this craft it has made thinking of anything else difficult. I know it was there and so does my father.

I have almost become obsessed with this thing. It is making me afraid to drive at night, because I'm constantly watching the sky. I want to see it again. I don't know why.

I have also been having nightmares since seeing it. On Tuesday night after seeing the craft, I dreamed that I was somehow involved in a vivisection. I don't recall the rest of the dreams, but I have had very disturbing dreams that wake me and I can't remember them.

The vivisection dream is the only one I really remember. I assume that is due to the fact that I will be taking a human movement class and have to dissect a human cadaver. I have been taking very intensive anatomy and physiology classes for the past couple of years, as well as other related classes. It was strange to me that I would have this dream after seeing this craft. In the three years of anatomy classes, I've never had bad dreams about it. I usually never recall any dreaming, so the nightmares, or interrupted sleep is new too.

My son is sleeping fine and we haven't noticed any unusual physical effects, such as marks.

My car has however been acting strange since that night. It has been "coughing", but we haven't had a chance to have it checked out by a mechanic.

I felt that it was not a friendly looking craft. The only curves on it were the lights, everything else was angular.

The encounter for my father was not as traumatic as one might think. He and my mother saw another craft many years ago along with approximately 100 other people. He tells me that this was in North Carolina in the early 50's and people had stopped their cars to watch this craft.

I do wish very much that he were able to talk, as in asking him questions he says he did see the top of the craft, but is unable to articulate what he saw.

When I posted details of my experience to alt.paranet.ufo, I wanted to make the post as soon as possible as I didn't want to forget anything.

I wasn't really looking for anything other than to make a post at that time.

I didn't know what to look for as I didn't really know where to start or what I would be trying to find.

Any previous interest in UFOs has always been just a normal curiosity.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd see something like this.

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