2020-07-04 - Weaverville, CA - Light

3 backpackers see very strange lights appear in the wilderness while hiking the Trinity Alps, followed by a missing time event.

On the night of 4th of July 2020, my two other buddies and I (all of us friends for 20+ years since high school) were backpacking in the trinity Alps north of Weaverville, Ca. We had been backpacking 9 miles on the Caribou lake trail into deep wilderness that day. It was a perfectly clear night, 10:30pm. We all were talking, sitting by a fire when I saw a bright white light appear over a nearby mountain ridge, stationary, hovering at Upper Caribou Lake. It hovered for roughly 3 minutes. It took me by surprise as I thought (at first) it was a planet but it started to slowly move upward, very slowly. I yelled OMG, UFO. My two other friends jumped up and by the time we all reached the edge of the lake (away from the treeline) it was gone. I was the only one that saw this first sighting.

Later that night around 11:30pm as we stayed up and moved away from the fire and sat at the lakes edge, one of my friends was alarmed at a series of odd blinking lights straight above are heads. We all looked up and the lights continued to blink in a random pattern far away from each other, too far apart to be a passing plane. Weird colors amber, red, then bright white. At one point we saw a streak of light continue into more blinking lights that seemed unattached to any know plane or craft of known origin. All three of us confirmed the sighting as it happened. I remember the last set of blinking lights being very intense with a super bright amber light flashing quickly a fair distance away from the other flashing lights we had just witnessed. This second sighting of the night lasted about two minutes and crossed half way over the visible sky from are vantage point. We've seen many planes flying at night and this string of flashing lights didn't match up to anything we've ever seen.

I will note there was no bangs, or typical sounds related to any fireworks. Plus, we were in the deep wilderness far away from any nearby town.

Lastly, about 30 minutes after the blinking light event, I was standing near one of my friends while the third friend was walking behind us (again near the lakes edge) The friend closest to me and I felt a strange since of missing time as it felt our third friend had vanished or was suddenly placed sitting on a nearby rock. The friend sitting on the rock said he was sitting there the whole time. Granted it was late and we all were very tired at this point, but the fact my buddy closest to me and I felt the same experience caught us by surprise. We both immediately confirmed the experience and talked about it.

These events were odd, as my two friends and I have been backpacking many times in the wilderness and have witnessed several times over the years odd lights in the sky. But, only when all three of us are together on these hiking trips. We feel there is some kind of pull towards us being more receptive to these experiences. Very strange.

I could go into more detail about our other sightings over the years but I will keep this short as to be more relevant with this current sighting.

Thank you for reading this count. I'm an illustrator/ digital artist and could illustrate the light event if needed for more documentation.

Best to you!