2017-09-21 - Lake City, CO - Light

I was backpacking in back country of Colorado and woke to an insanely bright light one night. It made zero sense as I was miles from the nearest ATV road and the moon was in a different direction.

One evening I woke up to an extremely bright light shining into my tent. It is abnormal to see anyone in back country that time of year, but occasionally I come across bow hunters. I began speaking that I was in tent, it was not vacant. (I've had people mistake me for a friend they were trying to catch up with as well). But no one answered. The light stayed there, lighting up the entirety of the interior. After a couple minutes I was fully awake. I thought maybe it was the moon, but them remembered I had seen the moon earlier before going to bed. The moon was not that bright and in a different area of the night sky. Confused I continued to speak to what could only be a bright flash light coming through the fabric. I explained there were "other great tent sites with flat/cleared ground just up the trail. After a few attempts with no answer I decided to go out. The light was too bright to ignore.

When I walked out of the tent, all the ground was illuminated with bright white light. There was no sound, none at all. In front of me, maybe 30 yards and 30 yards up was a very bright light. No shape to it. The light was brighter in the center and faded out as it hit the ground. I am an intelligent and well educated, but I did not know what I was looking at. I still cannot properly explain it. The light was well above the few trees and was silhouetting the trees in front of me between myself and it. I stared, just curious. There are no roads near me for miles. The moon is to my left and fairly high in the sky by this point. It lit the clouds and silhouetted the mountains across the saddle. The light was slightly to my left. It lit everything around me.

I have little fear and walked towards it slowly. I was very confused. I didnt ask any questions, not even to myself other than, "what the heck". I got closer and only see light with darkness behind it. No real form or shape, just light. After several minutes with no noise, it moved back away from me and to the left. It went very very slowly over maybe 1,500ft of a saddle. The light became dimmer and dimmer as it moved but still visible. After maybe two minutes it resembled a dim flash light. Then 1 second later it was out. I was left looking at the silhouetted mountain and was fully back in my typical mountain darkness.

I stared and listen for a several minutes longer. I was completely perplexed. I originally walked out of my tent expecting to see a person or two with very bright headlamps, maybe back country rangers. But I saw nothing but this hugely bright light coming from above the few trees there. I had picked the campsite because of the beautiful view yards from the ridge where I could see the valley of Apens changing.. I still have a photo of my view from earlier that afternoon looking out from inside my tent. This completely perplexed me.

With very little moon light I made it to my tent and decided I wouldnt tell anyone. What was there to tell? There was zero sense. I told my wife when I got down eventually. I think it was an after thought over dinner and wine one night. Now after her asking about it again, the memory came right back. The memory of it and the feeling I had then of complete confusion.