UFO Over the Oregon Trail: A Japanese Nonfiction Travel Writer’s 1989 Encounter

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Updated Mar5,2025 Tokyo Japan　
Hiroshi Kitajima, Director, Space Phenomena Observatory Center (SPOC)
Supervisor: Akira Kurosaki, Special Advisor, Space Phenomena Observatory Center (SPOC), Former Professor, The University of Tokyo

Space Phenomena Observatory Center (SPOC)
https://www.youtube.com/@UFOandUAP

 

When an acquaintance of the author, Shin Ashihara, a well-known travel writer, nonfiction writer, and editor, told me about an amazing and mysterious incident he encountered while crossing the American continent for the purpose of reporting, he said, “This is the first time I am going to tell you about it, but this is actually what happened, He told us the story.

I would like to introduce the shocking story that the author received, along with the text that Mr. Ashihara himself left behind after the incident without publishing it anywhere.　　 (The illustration is an image drawn by the author using an image generation AI. (It should be noted that the illustration is not an exact representation of the scene as experienced by Mr. Ashihara.))

It was a strange experience.

I will never forget the October 1989 event in Utah, USA.
Sammy, a photographer, and I were on a trip to cover the “Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail is the main road of the American West, a “road to the northwest” that starts in Independence, Missouri, and ends in Portland, Oregon, on the west coast.

In the past, covered wagon teams crossed the rugged Rocky Mountains in long columns, fighting Indians. Forts were built at key points along the road, and today, such familiar names as Laramie, Cheyenne, and Yellowstone remain from western movies.

It took pioneer families four or five months to travel this arduous road, but now that freeways run the length and breadth of the country, even a slow traveler can make it in a few days.

It was the night before we were to cross the Rocky Mountains, drive along the Snake River, and finally make it to Oregon tomorrow.

“Look at that. What is that?”

Sammy, driving the car, suddenly pointed his finger out the window. He saw a red object burning and descending slowly and obliquely through the night sky.

Was it a helicopter crash?”

Private planes are not uncommon in the American Midwest. Unlike in Japan, helicopter crashes are not that rare.

The object burning down loosely certainly looked like a small flying object. However, upon closer inspection, there was another black flying object flying alongside it. It looked as if it were the mothership watching over the crashed object  from the side.

“You don’t think it was a UFO, do you?”

I joked.

Before we knew it, we had left the wide three-lane freeway and were suddenly on a dark country road.

“Something Strange.”

Sammy muttered, his voice dropping.

Unlike Japanese highways, freeways have no toll booths or ramps, and the entrances and exits to small towns and gas stations along the way are detailed.

But Sammy whispered,

“I don’t remember turning the wheel.”

he said.

The country road was unpaved, dark, and puddled in places. It was off-road, like a farm road running through a pasture, with no house lights around and tall wildflowers covering the shoulder of the road. And the car was driving through the same landscape as if it were going around in circles.

“Ah!”

Is this the kind of landscape that makes one scream out in agony?

Burnt corpses of rabbits, sheep, and bobcats were lying on the burned-out field. The grass and trees had withered and burned away, and only burnt rocks remained in the wilderness.　

“Fire!”

A fireball fluttered across the sky, and then, like a giant gold bar, it became a pillar of fire and stood upright on the ground.

Sammy’s and my memories of what happened after that do not match.　 Perhaps my memory threads were jumbled from sudden fear. Sammy said he then had a phantom vision of a large herd of moose running further into the darkness, but there was no vision in my memory, and the only thing that remains in my consciousness is that I turned back, entranced.

 

But we got away, and before we knew it, we were back on the same freeway. It had only been three hours.

Later, we parted ways in Portland.

We celebrated the success of our trip, wished each other good health, and toasted with a glass of California white wine while eating the famous crayfish.

“I should have taken a picture of it. I bet I could have sold that for a lot of money.”

Sammy winked at me with a scowl on his bearded face.

There were no reports of the “event” in the newspapers or on television.

Utah is known for its Salt Lake, a wilderness and desert terrain.

Whether it was a real UFO accident or a nuclear power plant experiment, the truth is far beyond the realm of the imagination, but such “personal experiences” may be an everyday occurrence in the vast United States.

 

And so far, Mr. Ashihara’s record is full of amazement.　
It seems to be some kind of a tremendous UFO close encounter.

From Mr. Ashihara’s statement that they had suddenly gone off the wide freeway and onto a country road without realizing it, or that their memories did not match, or that they were back on the freeway again without knowing it, I think it is not unreasonable to assume that something special had happened that they did not remember! Is it only the author? I checked with Mr. Ashihara himself on this matter, and he said that he did not recall any loss of time.

 

I would like to examine the location of this incident.

I examined whether the location of the incident could be located by a generative Ae  I, given that “in October 1989, I drove by automobile on the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri, to Portland, Oregon, on the west coast, over the Rocky Mountains, along the Snake River, and finally into Oregon tomorrow.” I tried to verify if the location of the incident could be identified by a generative Ae  I.

Then, “If you were traveling on the Oregon Trail in October 1989, judging from the situation where you crossed the Rocky Mountains, ran along the Snake River, and are scheduled to enter Oregon tomorrow, your current location is most likely near the Idaho-Oregon state line.　The Idaho-Oregon state line area is a beautiful natural landscape with the Snake River flowing through it. Specific locations are difficult to pinpoint, but could be, for example, near Boise, Idaho. As a location on the eve of entering Oregon from now on, this area would be part of the route commonly traveled through.” The answer to this question was given.　This would be the area circled in red on the map.

Next, we checked the “Aircraft Accident Database” and other databases to see if any aircraft or helicopter crashes had been reported in the U.S. at that time, but could not confirm any such accidents.

As for UFO crashes, a search of the databases of major research organizations revealed no records of UFO crashes in the United States at that time.

Now, we looked to see if there were any other witnesses to this incident or similar UFO/UAP incidents reported, but were unable to find any records of direct eyewitnesses to the incident.　

 

However, in the same October, we found a major incident reported in a slightly different part of the United States.

It is better known as the Mojave Desert Incident or Mojave Incident.

The incident is that on the night of October 21, 1989, nine glowing objects suddenly appeared in the Mojave Desert in the southwestern United States, and the couple encountered an abduction by aliens who appeared from a UFO.

They witnessed a UFO and a few days later the couple complained of an unusual experience and stated that they had various experiences within the UFO as common memories.　　They reported physical changes and loss of time and memory, and local authorities and researchers began to investigate.　 The truth of this Mojave case also remains a mystery.　 It is 954 km south of the current incident.

As far as the fire pillar being upright on the ground, some say that this Mojave Desert incident was similar to the Ashihara incident, in which a fire pillar appeared.

Although at different times, a pillar of light was also sighted in the desert at the Dugway Test Site, located within the Great Salt Lake Desert southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, and there are records of a UFO flying around the pillar of light.

As for the time period, going back a bit, three years ago, a huge UFO encounter by a Japan Airlines Be seven four seven  occurred over Alaska in the U.S. On November 17, nineteen eightysix, JAL Flight one six two eight encountered a huge mysterious flying object, an incident that has become world famous.

Similarly, three years ago, the Kaiyo Maru incident was another famous case of a Japanese research vessel encountering a huge UFO at sea, with many people, including the investigators and crew, encountering it on December 18, 1984, near the Falkland Islands,

and again on December 21, 1986, near Wake Island.

The Kaiyo Maru is a fisheries research vessel of the Fisheries Agency. The details of the incident were published in the September 1988 issue of Nikkei Science as “Record of Unidentified Flying Object Encountered by Research Vessel Kaiyo Maru. This was an important incident that was accompanied by radar observations by experts and scientists. It is still a mystery despite its great importance.

and that there were several major incidents that had not occurred before this time.

Let the author independently imagine what exactly was going on in this case.

Mr. Ashihara and Mr. Wilson were driving on the Oregon Trail highway, in the middle of a research trip, which is their main business. Incidentally, Mr. Ashihara and Mr. Wilson had never been particularly interested in UFOs or aliens.

The encounter began as they approached the Boise, Idaho, area, on an October night in 1989.

Suddenly, I spotted a red object burning and descending slowly through the night sky. It appeared to be a helicopter crash or a small flying object. Another black flying object was flying alongside, as if it were the parent flying object watching over the crashed object from the side.

I was unknowingly turning the wheel to follow the burning flying object as it fell, terrified by the startling events taking place above us at that moment, “No way, it’s not a UFO.”

Or perhaps some operation from the mother ship of this flying object caused it to be moved instantaneously from the scene of an accident that it should not have seen.

As a result, they had turned off the wide three-lane freeway and were suddenly on a dark country road.

Later, the grass and trees were dead and burned to the ground, and he saw the astonishing sight of burnt corpses of rabbits, sheep, and bobcats lying on the ground in a single burnt-out field.

Was there damage to small animals or plants due to soil contamination or heat from the actual crash of the flying object or from parts of the burning and destroyed flying object being spread over the ground in the area?

However, since there is no record of it as a crash incident at the time, it is easy to imagine that the flying object somehow escaped crashing, or that it finally crashed for the last time, but a mother ship-like flying object flying alongside to watch over it recovered the crashed aircraft and flew away.

They may have witnessed the moment when the flying object, which was in the form of a fireball, was crashing and was being recovered by the mother ship. They may have witnessed an intense bundle of light like a so-called tractor beam, like a huge pillar of fire to retrieve the main body of the flying object and its dismembered parts from the mother ship.

Then, under some influence by the mother ship of the flying object, their consciousness faded again, and they returned safely to the freeway, whether they had been momentarily transported again without knowing it or whether they had driven themselves unconsciously. The two of us then returned home with the memory of the horror. It was an event that lasted about three hours.

The author would like to call this the “Oregon Trail UFO Mystery”.

As Mr. Ashihara is a serious, trustworthy, and prominent intellectual, I am convinced that this was a startling event that he actually encountered.

Space Phenomena Observatory Center(SPOC)
https://www.youtube.com/@UFOandUAP

文＝Hiroshi Kitajima

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