THINK ABOUTIT UFO SIGHTINGS REPORT

1985: Flying Ball of Fire Seen by 3 Children Camping in Backyard, Redwood Valley

Around 1 a.m. on June 19, 1985, three children camping out in a Redwood Valley, California backyard, 11-year-old Debbie Crumrine, 8-year-old Jessica White, and her 11-year-old brother Shawn, heard a “whoosh” and saw a bright light appear as if from nowhere. What followed was a two-to-three-minute encounter with a red-and-blue fireball-like object that paused below the treetops in a neighbor’s yard, its outer layer visibly rotating while its center stayed still, before circling their yard three times and shrinking away into the southwest sky. Two of the three, badly frightened, hid under their sleeping bags for the rest of it; the third watched it all the way out.

Date: June 19, 1985

Sighting Time: Approximately 1:00 a.m.

Day/Night: Night

Location: A backyard in Redwood Valley, California

Urban or Rural: Rural (backyard in Redwood Valley)

No. of Entity(s): Not Applicable

Entity Type: Not Applicable; no entities were reported

Entity Description: Not Applicable

Hynek Classification: CE-I — Close Encounter of the First Kind. The object was observed pausing below the treetops in a neighbor’s yard, well within a 500-foot range.

Duration: Approximately 2 to 3 minutes

No. of Object(s): 1

Description of the Object(s): A bright “flying ball of fire,” red on the outside and blueish-green on the inside, “like the color of fire.” When the object paused, its center stopped moving while its outer portion continued turning. It appeared to travel from the south heading north, paused with what witnesses described as apparent purposeful behavior, then circled the yard three times before shrinking in apparent size and accelerating away to the southwest, trailing a muffled, jet-like sound and a streak of fire.

Shape of Object(s): Round

Size of Object(s): Described as bigger than a beach ball; appeared to shrink in apparent size as it departed, described by one witness as going from the size of a “big rock” to a “softball” to a distant star

Color of Object(s): Red exterior, blueish-green interior

Distance to Object(s): Observed pausing below the treetops in a neighboring yard, within approximately 500 feet

Height & Speed: Paused at low, below-treetop altitude before accelerating rapidly away to the southwest

Number of Witnesses: 3 children: Debbie Crumrine (11), Jessica White (8), and Shawn White (11), all camping together in the same backyard

Special Features/Characteristics: Object produced a “whoosh” sound and, per one witness, a muffled jet-like noise with a visible streak of fire trailing it during departure; one witness reported the air feeling warmer than the otherwise cool night while the object circled; this site’s legacy field data listed “Witness Photo” among special features, though no photograph taken by the witnesses of the object itself is described anywhere in the source article, only a newspaper photograph of the children, and that field is flagged here as likely referring to the accompanying news photo rather than direct photographic evidence of the object; the Ukiah Airport, the FAA, and the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department each reported no similar incidents reported to their agencies that night; Robert Gribble of the UFO Reporting Center in Seattle confirmed no reports had been received from the Redwood Valley area specifically, while noting his organization had received broadly similar reports in the past; the children’s individual accounts, gathered separately by the reporter, contained distinct personal details (Debbie’s description of the color and pause, Shawn’s description of the size progression and sound, Jessica’s fright response) rather than a single uniform retelling

Case Status: Unexplained

Source: Missy Chesshe (Chesshire), staff writer, “UFO startles camping kids,” Ukiah Daily Journal (Ukiah, CA), June 20, 1985

Summary/Description: Three children camping in their Redwood Valley, California backyard on the night of June 19, 1985 heard a “whoosh” and saw a bright light appear seemingly from nowhere. The flying “ball of fire,” red outside and blueish-green inside, paused below the treetops in a neighbor’s yard with its outer layer visibly rotating, then circled their yard three times before shrinking in apparent size and speeding away to the southwest. The sighting lasted about two to three minutes. Local aviation and law enforcement authorities and the Seattle UFO Reporting Center all reported no similar incidents on record for that night or area.

Related Cases: None documented

Full Report

“UFO Startles Camping Kids” — Ukiah Daily Journal, June 20, 1985

By Missy Chesshe, Journal staff writer

When three youngsters camping in their Redwood Valley backyard Tuesday night heard a “whoosh” and saw a bright light, they at first thought it was a jet and then a fireball. Now, they don’t know what it was.

“So when do jets grow larger and larger?” asked 11-year-old Debbie Crumrine to her camping companion, 8-year-old Jessica White, who suggested the noise and light about 1 a.m. could be a jet.

Shawn White, Jessica’s 11-year-old brother, thought the noise was traffic until the bright light made him curious. “I thought they were shining the flashlight in my face,” Shawn said.

“It just appeared from thin air,” Debbie said. She said the flying object came from the south and was traveling north. The object then paused below the treetops in their neighbor’s yard “just like it had a mind of its own,” she said.

Debbie said the object was bigger than a beach ball. She said the object was red on the outside and blueish-green on the inside, “like the color of fire.” When the object paused, she said the middle stopped while the outside continued turning.

“The thing that scared me the most was when it paused,” Debbie said. “She was crying, and I thought I was going to faint,” Jessica said.

After the object paused, Debbie said it continued traveling on its path and then returned and made three circles above their yard. The girls had seen enough. They covered their heads with their sleeping bags, but Shawn continued to watch.

Shawn said after the object had circled their yard, it began to get smaller and increase its speed until it disappeared in the southwest. “It went from a big rock, to a softball, to a star far away,” he said.

He said the object had a muffled sound like a jet and a streak of fire behind it. “It was so big; it was so bright,” Shawn said. “I thought I was going to get burned up.”

Debbie said it was a cool night, but the air seemed warmer while the object circled in the sky. She said the incident lasted about two or three minutes.

After the object disappeared, all three children spent the rest of the night on the floor in the house. Debbie said she never wanted to spend the night outside again. But Jessica and Shawn both said they would like to see the object again.

“I wished they had beamed me up,” Shawn said.

Debbie was anxious to see their story in the paper because she assumed other people would report the incident too. “I know you don’t believe me,” Debbie told her mother, “but just wait till you see the paper tomorrow.”

Spokespersons at the Ukiah Airport, Federal Aviation Administration, and Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department each said nothing similar to the incident had been reported to their agencies.

Robert Gribble, a staff member of the UFO Reporting Center in Seattle, said the center had not received any reports from the Redwood Valley area. “It’s not a real common thing, but we have gotten reports similar to this in the past,” he said.

Debbie and Shawn attend Redwood Valley School, and Jessica will attend the school that fall.

Virginia Crumrine, Debbie’s mother, said, “My daughter’s not prone to makin’ things up.”

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

Redwood Valley, 1985 — Weighing a Child-Witness Case Honestly

The children’s accounts diverge in individual, non-scripted ways. Rather than a single uniform retelling, each child contributed distinct personal detail when interviewed separately: Debbie on the color and the unnerving pause, Shawn on the departure’s size progression and sound, Jessica on her own fright response. This kind of individually varied but mutually consistent testimony is a meaningful, if not conclusive, indicator against simple story coordination.
Same-day official inquiries came back negative, but were genuinely made. The reporter directly contacted the Ukiah Airport, the FAA, the county sheriff’s department, and the Seattle UFO Reporting Center, all within a day of the event. None had a matching report on file. This reflects real contemporaneous fact-checking effort by the newspaper rather than an assumption of authenticity, and should be read as a genuine (if inconclusive) negative finding rather than an oversight.
Single-location, child-only witness base is a real limitation. All three witnesses were children in the same backyard at the same time, rather than independent observers at separate vantage points. While their individual descriptive contributions differ in useful ways, this remains a single-scene account rather than a multi-location corroboration, and should be weighed with that structure in mind.
The “Witness Photo” field appears to be a sourcing error, not evidence. This site’s legacy special-features field listed “Witness Photo,” but the only photograph associated with this case in the available source material is the newspaper’s own photo accompanying the article, not any photograph of the object taken by the children. This has been flagged rather than left to imply photographic evidence of the sighting itself exists.
No obvious mundane candidate fits all the reported details. A bolide or meteor could plausibly explain a brief, bright, fast-moving fireball, but does not easily account for the reported pause with independent rotation of the object’s outer layer versus its center, the object appearing to circle the yard three times, or the described sound characteristics. No specific conventional explanation is offered or endorsed by any of the institutions contacted at the time.

Three children camping in a backyard on a June night in 1985 watched something red and fire-bright pause deliberately below the treetops next door, circle their yard three times, and shrink away into the distance, each of them independently remembering a different piece of it clearly enough to tell a reporter the next day. The FAA, the sheriff, the local airport, and the Seattle UFO Reporting Center all came up empty when asked if anyone else had seen it. Nobody ever explained it to Debbie Crumrine’s satisfaction, and nothing in the historical record has explained it since.