Reconstruction — A hunter kneels in shock as an immense triangular craft hovers silently overhead at a campsite near Challis, Idaho, September 27, 2000.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTING REPORT
2000: Triangle sited in Idaho
On the night of September 27, 2000, four hunters on a long-running annual trip to the mountains near Challis, Idaho looked up to find a football-field-sized triangular object filling the sky directly overhead — silent, motionless, and close enough to illuminate with a flashlight beam. The first witness fell to his knees from shock. Three of the four saw the object as it began to move, gliding through a narrow mountain canyon with a motion they compared to a hockey puck on ice. One of the hunters, a licensed pilot, noted that the craft was not moving through the atmosphere in any aerodynamically conventional manner. The men abandoned camp that night and drove three hours to a motel. They reported the incident to local authorities and the National UFO Reporting Center the next morning.
This is one of the stronger multi-witness triangle cases in the NUFORC database. The witnesses were a long-established group of hunting friends — not first-time visitors to the area — who reported within hours of the event, provided campsite coordinates, and contacted government offices. NUFORC director Peter Davenport spoke with two of the witnesses at length and described them as serious-minded individuals, calling the report genuine. Two of the witnesses (brothers) later spoke publicly at the 2013 McMenamins UFO Festival in McMinnville, Oregon, recounting the same details they had originally filed.
Date: September 27, 2000
Sighting Time: 9:45 PM (MDT)
Day/Night: Night
Location: Mountain campsite near Challis, Custer County, Idaho (coordinates provided to NUFORC)
Urban or Rural: Remote wilderness — backcountry hunting camp
No. of Entity(‘s): 0
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: CE-I (Close Encounter I) — Immense structured object observed at very close range directly overhead
Duration: Approximately 45–60 seconds of close-range observation; one witness saw it longer (the initial discoverer)
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of the Object(s): An immense triangular craft, estimated at football-field scale (several hundred feet per side), with slightly rounded corners and a distinct surface texture visible at close range. When illuminated from below by flashlight, the underside was visible in detail. The craft was initially motionless and completely silent. When it began to move, white lights became visible at each of the three corners and a red strobing light in the center of the underside. A faint whining sound was noted simultaneously with the activation of lights. The object moved with extreme smoothness — compared to a hockey puck gliding on ice — ascending through a narrow mountain canyon.
Shape of Object(s): Triangle — equilateral or near-equilateral with slightly rounded corners
Size of Object(s): Estimated at least the size of a football field — several hundred feet on each side
Color of Object(s): Dark/black (body); white lights at each corner; red strobing light at center of underside
Distance to Object(s): Directly overhead — close enough for a flashlight to illuminate the underside surface
Height & Speed: Low altitude directly over camp — estimated 200 feet or less overhead. Initially motionless. Departed slowly and smoothly up a mountain canyon, ascending as it moved.
Number of Witnesses: 4 — all experienced hunters and long-term friends; one was a licensed pilot. The first witness observed the stationary phase; two others saw the departure; the fourth arrived too late.
Special Features/Characteristics: Immense scale (football-field class). Completely silent during stationary hover. Faint whining sound only during departure/light activation. Distinct surface texture visible at close range. Movement described as non-aerodynamic by a pilot witness — smooth, unwavering, no turbulence, no conventional flight characteristics. Witnesses abandoned camp and drove three hours to a motel. Reported to NUFORC and local government next morning. Campsite coordinates provided. NUFORC director Peter Davenport personally assessed witnesses as credible. Two witnesses spoke publicly at the 2013 McMenamins UFO Festival.
Source: National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), report S14373; Skywatch International; UFOEvidence.org; Earthfiles (Linda Moulton Howe); witness public testimony at 2013 McMenamins UFO Festival
Summary: Four experienced hunters near Challis, Idaho observed a football-field-sized triangular object hovering silently directly over their camp. One witness fell to his knees from shock. The object had a textured surface, white corner lights, and a red center strobe. A pilot among the group noted non-aerodynamic flight characteristics. The men fled to a motel and reported the incident to NUFORC the next morning.
Case Status: Unexplained
Related Cases: 1965: Idaho ‘Mining UFOs’ | 1967: Idaho Falls Dome with Two Figures | 2000–2009 UFO/Entity Sightings by Date
Detailed Report
The four witnesses were long-standing friends who had been hunting together in the mountains of central Idaho for over twenty years. Their annual autumn trip took them to a remote campsite near Challis — the county seat of Custer County, a town of approximately 900 people at 5,200 feet elevation in the Salmon River Mountains. The area is among the most sparsely populated in the contiguous United States.
At approximately 9:45 PM on a cold September evening, one of the hunters — a 43-year-old man — walked from the camp to his pickup truck to retrieve food from a storage chest. As he reached into the truck bed, his flashlight beam angled upward and illuminated something directly overhead that should not have been there. He saw the underside of an immense triangular object, motionless and completely silent, filling the sky above him. The scale was overwhelming — he estimated it at a minimum of football-field size, several hundred feet on each side, with slightly rounded corners and a distinct surface texture.
The witness fell to his knees from shock. He began shouting for the other three hunters to come out. The other men, hearing what they described as a hysterical, terrified voice, initially assumed a bear was attacking. Two of them reached the door of the camper in time to see the object as it began to move away. They observed white lights at each of its three corners and a red strobing light in the center of the underside. A faint whining sound became audible, coinciding with the light activation. Two of the hunters grabbed binoculars and observed the object for approximately sixty seconds as it ascended and moved up a narrow mountain canyon. They described the motion as extraordinarily smooth — comparable to a hockey puck gliding over ice — with no turbulence, no banking, and no visible propulsion.
One of the hunters was a licensed pilot. After the event he observed that the craft was not moving through the atmosphere in any aerodynamically conventional manner — it showed none of the characteristics expected of an object of that size moving through air.
The four men were so shaken that they broke camp and drove approximately three hours to reach a motel. One witness spent the night unable to sleep, acutely on edge, startling violently when the motel room’s electric heater activated. The next morning, the group contacted local government authorities (with no substantive response) and the National UFO Reporting Center. They provided all details of their experience, including the GPS coordinates of their campsite. NUFORC director Peter Davenport spoke at length with two of the witnesses and assessed them as serious-minded individuals, calling the report genuine. Two of the witnesses — brothers — later gave public testimony at the 2013 McMenamins UFO Festival in McMinnville, Oregon, recounting the same facts from their original report.
Researcher’s Notes
The Challis Triangle — Central Idaho 2000 and the Anatomy of a Credible Multi-Witness Close Encounter
- Source Chain and Credibility Assessment: This case has a strong source chain for a civilian report. NUFORC report S14373 was filed the morning after the event. The witnesses provided campsite coordinates. Peter Davenport — NUFORC’s longtime director, known for his exacting standards — personally interviewed two witnesses and found the report genuine. The case was independently covered by Skywatch International, UFOEvidence.org, and Linda Moulton Howe’s Earthfiles. Two of the four witnesses (brothers) went public at the 2013 McMenamins UFO Festival, giving consistent testimony thirteen years after the event. The witnesses are not named in the NUFORC report but their willingness to speak publicly, provide coordinates, and contact government agencies all indicate a genuine attempt to document the experience.
- The Triangle Phenomenon — Pattern Context: Large, silent, triangular objects have been reported with increasing frequency since the late 1980s. The best-documented cluster is the Belgian wave of 1989–1990, featuring similar descriptions: immense dark triangles with white corner lights and a central red or amber light, moving silently or with a faint hum, at low altitude. The 2000 Illinois triangle (Highland/Lebanon) is another well-documented case featuring police witnesses. The Challis sighting fits this broader pattern precisely — dark triangular body, white corner lights, red center strobe, silent or near-silent operation, extremely smooth non-aerodynamic movement. Whether these represent a single type of craft, a common misidentification template, or independent phenomena is an open question. The pilot witness’s observation that the craft’s movement was aerodynamically impossible is particularly significant, as it comes from a trained aviation observer.
- Mundane Candidates: The primary conventional explanation for large triangle sightings is classified military aircraft — specifically large, slow-moving stealth platforms. The proximity of central Idaho to Mountain Home Air Force Base (approximately 150 miles south) and the general military use of Idaho’s vast airspace for training provides a possible vector. However, the described object’s characteristics — several hundred feet per side, motionless hover directly over a campsite, completely silent at close range, non-aerodynamic movement — exceed the publicly known performance envelope of any acknowledged aircraft. No military explanation has been offered or investigated for this specific case.
- Psychological and Behavioral Evidence: The witnesses’ behavior is strongly consistent with genuine shock rather than fabrication or attention-seeking. The initial witness fell to his knees; his voice was described by the others as hysterical. The group abandoned a twenty-year-tradition hunting camp and drove three hours to a motel rather than remain at the site. One witness could not sleep, experiencing hypervigilance and startle responses — symptoms consistent with acute stress reaction. They reported to authorities and NUFORC the following morning — prompt, multi-channel reporting to both government and civilian organizations. This behavioral pattern — genuine terror, flight response, immediate reporting, willingness to provide coordinates and testify publicly — is among the strongest credibility indicators in the witness-assessment toolkit.
The Challis triangle case earns its Unexplained classification on the strength of four experienced witnesses (including a pilot), immediate reporting with coordinates, NUFORC director endorsement, public testimony thirteen years later with no deviation from the original account, and an object description that matches the broader large-triangle phenomenon while exceeding any known conventional platform. It is the strongest case in Idaho’s modern UFO record.
