The Cisco Grove Incident

## The Incident

It was September 4th of 1964 and 28-year-old Donald Shrum and a group of friends were bow and arrow hunting at Cisco Grove in Placer County, California. Amidst the excitement of the hunting, Shrum had somehow become separated from the rest of his party – and decided to sleep in a tree for safety as nightfall approached. However, his peace wouldn’t last long as he saw a white light that moved with a zig-zagging motion through the trees at a low altitude. At first, Shrum thought that it was a helicopter, and so he jumped down from the tree and began lighting flares to attract attention to himself – under the assumption that his friends had launched a rescue party. Eventually, the light turned towards him and came to a stop about fifty yards away from the tree.

As the object landed, he realised that it was clearly not a helicopter, and was instead something completely alien (pun intended) to him. The UFO was apparently cigar-shaped and around the size of a 14-story building – according to a description of the incident given by two ufologists on Coast to Coast AM. A smaller scout ship was expelled from the large craft, which landed nearby.

Now frightened, Shrum clambered back up into the tree for safety (or to gain a better vantage point, depending on which account you look at). After a short period of time, three beings approached the tree. Two of them were humanoids – described as being a little over five feet tall, with a silvery uniform that covered their heads. The description given on Coast to Coast AM also suggested that the entities wore something similar to welding goggles. The third approached slightly later in the encounter and resembled a classic sci-fi robot. It was darker in colour and had two reddish-orange eyes. In place of a mouth, the robot had a slit-like opening that would ‘drop’ open like the door of an oven. Shrum’s shock soon turned to panic as the entities began to shake the tree, attempting to dislodge him from his perch. He vividly remembers that the ‘robot-like’ entity would let its lower jaw drop, before reaching inside the rectangular gap thus revealed – and emit a puff of smoke in Shrum’s direction. This smoke would then spread like a mist and would make him lose consciousness when it reached him.

When Shrum came back to consciousness again, the beings were still trying to get him out of the tree and he felt nauseous. He attempted to scare the entities away by throwing bits of lighted clothing and matches at them, which momentarily caused them to back away before continuing their assault. Somehow, he also observed that audio signals from the UFO seemed to be influencing the behaviour of the occupants. Finally – in a finale to the first confrontation that is worthy of an action movie – Shrum managed to load and shoot an arrow at the invaders and hit the robot. This impact caused a spark to fly off the creature, indicating that it was indeed metallic. He shot two more arrows at the beings, each time causing them to scatter and back away from the tree.

However, not even this daring retaliation would give the aliens cause to retreat, as they were soon joined by a second robot which once again used white vapour coming from its mouth to render Shrum unconscious. When Shrum woke again, the two non-robot humanoids were climbing the tree. He managed to dislodge them by shaking the tree and throwing various objects at them. These bizarre attacks continued, on and off, for most of the night. As dawn approached, yet more humanoids arrived on the scene – and a large volume of the strange smoke made Shrum black out once more.

When Shrum next woke, the aliens were finally gone but he was only hanging from the tree by his belt. He was soon rescued and reunited with the hunters – one of whom (Vincent Alvarez) had also become lost during the night and seen the same UFO, corroborating part of his story. Unfortunately, Donald Shrum was the only one who saw the otherworldly invaders that night.

## Elves or Iron Giants?

This case wouldn’t contain anything out of the ordinary (aside from the obvious) if it weren’t for a bizarre corroboration of the story by a book written in 1836. It was called ‘Le livre des légendes’ and was written by a French librarian by the name of Antoine Le Roux de Lincy. The book has this to say about elves:

‘*If a mortal being dares come near them, they open their mouth and, struck by the breath which escapes from it, the imprudent fellow dies poisoned.*’

This connection was pointed out by Jacques Vallée in his essential tome ‘Passport to Magonia’. Jacques also asserted that the bizarre effects felt by Shrum are consistent with the sudden deprivation of oxygen.

## Sources

http://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2012/06/aliens-in-forest-cisco-grove-incident.html

‘Passport to Magonia’ by Jacques Vallée