1986-09-15 - Redding, CA - Cigar

In September 1986 I was working for the National Park Service at the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area just west of Redding, CA. I worked in the Natural Resources Division as a crewmember on the unit’s Fire Truck. On the night in question we were tasked to lend support to the U.S. Forest Service in conducting a controlled burn on a unit of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

The mission probably began around 1930 PDT. The firemen walked their drip torches from the top of the clear-cut block to the bottom and spent the rest of the evening making sure the fire did not jump the lines.

Between 2200 -2230 PDT the fires were dying down and the crews were assembled on the landing, which overlooked a steep canyon, shooting the breeze while the bosses decided who would stay on site that night to monitor the fire.

It was about this time that someone noticed "an aircraft" approaching from the north. I call it an aircraft because it was traveling through the air, but that’s where its similarity to anything else I have ever seen ended. It caught the first person’s attention because there appeared to be flames and sparks emanating from it. There were probably a dozen guys on the ground there and we all watched it in amazement. It was just a cylindrical object travelling a slow, horizontal path with perhaps a 3-degree downward trajectory. There were no wings, no elevators and no rudder. There was probably a moon, I don’t know, but some light was shed on it from the fires behind us. The best way to describe it is that it kind of resembled a booster rocket but it was travelling horizontally and about one-third as fast as an airliner on its final approach.

As it passed the only sound I detected was a hissing and crackling. A plume of smoke seemed to be coming from the middle of it with hints of sparks and flames. There seemed to be markings but I could not make them out. Now the smoke was the other curious thing. Because the thing was travelling so slowly it seemed to drift out or off of the object. The affect was similar to holding a lighted cigarette horizontally and tracing a line in the air with it.

We all stood and watched it until it disappeared out of sight behind the next ridge. We kind of listened for an explosion or a crash, but there was none.

I listened and watched for news on the radio, television and newspaper for anything that might give a hint as to what it was. And if it crashed in the woods in would probably start a major fire that a lot of units would have to roll on. But there were no big fires and to this day I have never heard anything about it or even like it. I have no idea what it was.