The 1999 Elk Abduction Case

It was approximately 11:58 a.m., on February 25, 1999, when three forestry workers at a location about 20 miles west of Washington State’s Mt. St. Helens observed a strange object whose shape was reminiscent of the heel of a man’s shoe, roughly U-shaped. This object came drifting slowly toward them from a nearby ridge. It was moving in a northeasterly direction and appeared to be moving in a purposeful way—almost like it was hugging the contour of the terrain below it.

Initially the three men thought that they were observing some sort of a parachute drifting down from out of the sky, but quickly dismissed that impression. One of them called to eleven other workers nearby, and then all fourteen of them stood on the hillside observing the anomalous phenomenon.

As they watched they noticed that the low-flying object was moving toward a herd of elk. The elk seemed unaware of the mysterious U-shaped object’s approach until it was nearly on top of them, at which point the elk acted startled and began to run for cover. While most of the elk ran up a slope to the east, toward a densely wooded area, one adult elk trotted off in a northerly direction, along an unused logging road.

Suddenly the UFO moved directly over the lone animal and seemed to “pluck” it from the ground. When this happened the object began to increase the “wobble” motion that it had been making, while the elk was seen to be somehow suspended below it in an upright position, its body rotating slowly around, with its head seemingly in contact with the object’s underside.

With the elk in tow, the mysterious object slowly began to fly up a clear-cut slope to the north, almost directly away from the workers. At the end of the clear-cut the object appeared to brush into some tall trees at which point it stopped, backed up, and then rose almost vertically. Once above the trees it continued it’s flight toward the north, seemingly hugging the contour of the hill below. When it reached the top it then dropped down into the neighboring valley and was lost from sight for several seconds. Then the witnesses saw the UFO rising into the air at a high speed and at a steep angle, rising until it disappeared from sight in the northern sky.

The witnesses had stated that once the UFO had reached the clear-cut to the north, they could no longer see the elk suspended beneath it. They assumed that the animal had somehow been taken into the object, but they never did see any sort of “door” by which it could have been taken through.

The object was described as being probably not much longer than the adult elk itself. It also had two “stripes” or patches on its surface. One red and the other white.

This case was investigated extensively by Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center, and Robert Fairfax, director of investigations for MUFON in Washington state. The witnesses, who did not wish to be publically identified, were considered reliable and sober- minded. It was found that some of them had been working for the same company for many years. They were described by their employer as excellent employees. On March 5, 1999, Davenport and Fairfax even traveled to the site of the encounter and examined the remains of an adult female elk found to the north of the initial elk abduction site.

Was it possibly the same elk?

Source: The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters: A Definitive, Illustrated A-Z Guide to all things Alien, edited by Ronald D. Story. 2001. New American Library. ISBN: 0-451-20424-7.