IncidentThe Cisco Grove Incident (4-5 September 1964, California)

On the night of 4-5 September 1964, Donald Shrum, an Aerojet missile-systems welder separated from his hunting party near Cisco Grove, California, reported climbing a tree for safety and being approached through the night by two ~5-ft silver-suited humanoids and a darker, segmented ‘robot’ with two glowing reddish eyes and a hinged jaw that emitted a white vapor making him nauseous and briefly unconscious. He drove them back by firing arrows and repeatedly setting fire to and throwing his clothing, matches, and gear. The case is unusual for its era in describing a mechanical/robotic entity, and it was taken seriously by NICAP and APRO (Coral Lorenzen called it ‘the most spectacular report we have examined’) and reached Project Blue Book - yet it rests almost entirely on one witness, with only a companion’s distant sighting of a light as partial corroboration and no surviving physical evidence (his arrows were reportedly taken by officers).