Anonymous witnesses at a 2002 sky-watch near Fruitland, Utah, reported invisible nine-foot praying mantis beings who partially revealed their large red eyes during a night of claimed physical and telepathic contact.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP|ENTITY SIGHTING REPORT
2002: The Dixieland Ecounter
On a summer night in 2002, a small group of sky-watchers at a remote Utah location they called “Dixieland” claimed that a self-described psychic sensitive “called down” nine-foot praying mantis beings from a cloaked triangular craft, that the beings materialized in an invisible cold-air perimeter, pulled a witness’s ponytail, embraced the sensitive, and spoke in clicking sounds audible to the group — all without ever becoming fully visible. The account, sourced entirely from Dave Rosenfeld (known as “Alien Dave”) and the unnamed witnesses’ testimony at a MUFON-UUFOH meeting, represents the extreme end of the entity-encounter spectrum where the evidentiary bar drops to zero and the narrative becomes its own subject of study.
Date: August 1, 2002
Sighting Time: Night (exact time not recorded)
Day/Night: Night
Location: “Dixieland” — Fruitland, Utah
Urban or Rural: Rural
No. of Entity(‘s): 9 (claimed)
Entity Type: Insectoid / Praying Mantis
Entity Description: Approximately 9 feet tall; six-legged insectoid beings described as resembling praying mantises, walking on four legs with two held in the air; breathe through their abdomens; communicate in audible clicking sounds; large red eyes approximately the size of a coffee-cup saucer, observed at 8.5 feet above ground when entities partially decloaked; described as highly intelligent, benevolent, and projecting overwhelming feelings of love and oneness
Hynek Classification: CE-III (Close Encounter of the Third Kind) — Close observation with animate beings associated with an object. Note: The existing page classifies this as CE-IV (abduction). While the witnesses describe being individually taken to meet the entities during sleep, the account’s reliability is insufficient to support the more specific CE-IV designation; CE-III is applied as a conservative structural label for the entity-encounter claims as reported.
Duration: Several hours (exact duration not recorded)
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of the Object(s): A triangular craft, described as cloaked (visually transparent), observed to block out stars as it descended slowly; associated with a circular opening in the cloud cover
Shape of Object(s): Triangular
Size of Object(s): Not estimated
Color of Object(s): Invisible/cloaked; detected by star occlusion
Distance to Object(s): Not estimated; described as descending directly to the group’s location
Height & Speed: Descended slowly from cloud level
Number of Witnesses: Multiple (at least 4 unnamed individuals plus “the Wiz”)
Special Features/Characteristics: Cloaking technology on both craft and entities; entities remained invisible but produced audible footsteps, breathing, and clicking vocalizations; circular cold-air zone at the contact site; tactile interaction (ponytail pulled, embrace, wing/arm touches); telepathic communication reported; “beam of light” observed; witnesses reportedly taken individually during sleep for “tune-ups” with no conscious memory; tracks resembling half deer prints found at the site the following morning
Case Status: Insufficient Data — Anonymous witnesses, no independent investigation, single secondhand source
Source: Dave Rosenfeld (“Alien Dave”), MUFON-UUFOH meeting presentation, August 2002
Summary/Description: A group of at least four individuals and a self-described psychic sensitive known as “the Wiz” conducted a UFO watch at a remote location near Fruitland, Utah, referred to as “Dixieland.” At the group’s request, the sensitive reportedly performed a ritual using “the four winds” to summon non-human entities. A circular opening appeared in the cloud cover, through which a cloaked triangular craft descended, visible only through star occlusion. The group reported a circular zone of cool, thick air at the landing site where invisible nine-foot insectoid beings — described as praying mantis-like, six-legged, communicating in clicks — interacted with them through physical touch, telepathic communication, and projected feelings of love. A beam of light was observed. The entities partially revealed large red eyes before departing. Witnesses were reportedly taken individually during sleep for encounters they could not consciously recall, evidenced only by one witness waking with cedar sap on his socks. Tracks resembling half deer prints were found at the site.
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Detailed Report
The account originates from Dave Rosenfeld, known within the Utah UFO community as “Alien Dave,” and was presented by the unnamed witnesses at a MUFON-UUFOH (Utah UFO Hunters) meeting in August 2002. Rosenfeld noted that the story corrected an earlier version that had been “fear based and incorrect in the details.”
The group traveled to a remote location near Fruitland, Utah, that they identified as a “known power location” and called “Dixieland.” They asked a member of their group — an unnamed individual referred to as “the Wiz” who claimed the ability to contact or summon non-human entities — to initiate contact. At the group’s specific request for something more dramatic than a “Nordic type” entity, the sensitive proposed summoning praying mantis beings, which he described as nine-foot insectoids and “the highest form of physical beings.” He performed a ritual described as a “blessing using the four winds.”
Following the ritual, the group reported that a perfectly circular hole opened in the cloud cover, revealing stars through the opening. Through this opening, they observed a triangular craft descending very slowly. The craft was described as “cloaked” — visually transparent — but detectable because it blocked out the stars behind it. One witness walked behind the group and reported that the air was different — cooler and thicker — in a circular area. Other group members confirmed the sensation and agreed the zone of altered atmosphere appeared circular in shape.
A beam of light was observed. The sensitive reported that the beings were present but cloaked, and demonstrated this by walking behind one of them — causing him to visually disappear from the others’ view while remaining audible. Only his pant legs remained visible below the cloaking boundary. The beings reportedly communicated in audible clicking sounds, and their footsteps and breathing could be heard. The group reported overwhelming feelings of oneness, love, and safety during the encounter. Telepathic communication was claimed.
One group member asked the beings to reveal themselves visually. The response, delivered telepathically, was playful: “Do you really want to see us?” asked twice, followed by “Nope, not yet.” Later in the night, the entities partially decloaked to reveal large red eyes, approximately the size of a coffee-cup saucer, observed at roughly 8.5 feet above the ground. Each group member reportedly felt physical contact from a wing or arm.
The group sensed the entities’ departure and watched the cloud opening close. The sensitive later reported that each group member was individually taken up a road during the night to meet with the entities for a “tune-up,” though none consciously remembered doing so. One witness woke with cedar sap on the bottoms of his socks. The following morning, the group discovered tracks at the contact site that they described as resembling half of a deer track.
Researcher’s Notes
The Dixieland Mantises — Fruitland 2002 and the Limits of Witness-Only Testimony
- Classification Adjustment — CE-IV to CE-III: The existing page assigns CE-IV (abduction/direct contact), which is based on the claim that witnesses were individually taken during sleep for “tune-ups” with no conscious memory of the events. The CE-IV designation requires some documented basis for the abduction claim — recovered memories, physical evidence, or at minimum a coherent description of the experience. Here, the abduction component rests entirely on a third party’s assertion (“the Wiz”) that he observed the sleepwalking trips, and on one witness’s cedar-sap-stained socks. This is insufficient for CE-IV. CE-III is applied to the entity-encounter elements, which are at least described in some detail by the witnesses present.
- Source Chain — Catastrophically Thin: No witness in this report is identified by name. The central claimant of psychic ability is referred to only as “the Wiz.” The sole source is Dave Rosenfeld (“Alien Dave”), who explicitly notes that the account corrects an earlier, different version of the same events. No investigator independently interviewed the witnesses. No physical evidence — the tracks, the cedar sap, the atmospheric measurements — was documented through any formal protocol. The MUFON-UUFOH meeting provided a venue for the claim but not an investigation of it. This is a story told by anonymous people about an experience that cannot be verified, revised once before its current telling.
- The Summoning Framework: The encounter is explicitly described as solicited — the sensitive performed a ritual at the group’s request, specifically asking for dramatic insectoid beings rather than the more common humanoid type. This framing places the event within the tradition of CE-5 (human-initiated contact) protocols rather than spontaneous encounter reports. Whether one views intentional-contact frameworks as legitimate methodologies or as exercises in self-suggestion, the solicited nature of this encounter means it cannot be evaluated by the same standards as unsolicited observations. The witnesses’ expectations were established before the experience began, and the experience conformed to those expectations.
- Insectoid Entity Reports — Comparative Context: Reports of insectoid or mantis-type entities appear across multiple decades and cultural contexts in the UFO literature, most commonly in abduction accounts recovered through hypnotic regression. The Dixieland report is unusual in describing the entities as benevolent, emotionally warm, and humorously interactive — a characterization more common to Nordic-type contactee accounts than to insectoid encounter literature, where the entities are typically described as clinical, hierarchical, or frightening. This tonal mismatch between entity type and reported behavior is a notable feature of the account.
The Dixieland encounter is preserved in the archive as a document of Utah’s active and eclectic sky-watching subculture in the early 2000s. As testimony, it offers vivid subjective experience. As evidence, it offers nothing that can be weighed, measured, or independently confirmed. The record notes what was claimed. The reader supplies the rest.
