Idaho UFO|UAP & Alien Sightings Archive

Idaho’s anomalous record is defined by its terrain — the Snake River Plain, the Sawtooth and Bitterroot ranges, the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, and the high desert of the Magic Valley. These are landscapes of extreme isolation punctuated by mining operations, federal wilderness, and the Snake River corridor that runs the length of the southern state. The archive opens in 1947 with one of the most precisely described pre-modern craft observations in the Western record: on August 13, a farmer and his two sons at their fishing camp near the Snake River observed a sky-blue disc approximately 20 feet in diameter and 10 feet thick at 75 feet altitude and 300 feet distance, edge-hopping — following the contour of the canyon floor — with pods on its sides from which flames were shooting. The case became Battelle Memorial Institute Unknown #9 in the scientific statistical analysis of Blue Book cases that rated it among the unresolvable anomalous observations. Three weeks later, United Airlines Flight 105 pilots over Idaho observed disc-shaped objects from their cockpit — a professional aviation sighting in the same month and the same state as the fishing camp observation, establishing Idaho’s 1947 record as one of the most active single-year state records in the initial wave.

The anchor CE-III case is Ririe, November 2, 1967 — two young Native American men, Guy Tossie and Will Begay, driving south on Highway 26 outside Idaho Falls when a small domed craft appeared in front of their car in a blinding flash of light. The dome was transparent and two small strange-looking occupants were clearly visible inside. The craft landed on the hood of their car, took control of the steering, and drove the car off the highway and into a field, where the craft then stopped at a farmhouse. The farmer came out and witnessed the craft. The occupants looked at the farmer, then the craft departed, returning the car to the highway. Both witnesses were investigated by researchers and found to be credible, consistent, and without apparent motive to fabricate. The Ririe case is one of the strongest CE-III vehicle-interference cases in the pre-1970 record. The 1965 Spring Creek Mining UFOs — disc-shaped objects observed hovering over mine ore dumps in the Selway wilderness at dawn, investigated by APRO with an artist’s rendering — add the mining-operations dimension that appears consistently in Idaho’s isolated wilderness record.

• 1947: Disc Zooms Down Snake River Canyon, Idaho
• 1947: United Airlines Flight 105 pilots witness disc-shaped objects
• 1952: Lost River Sinks, Idaho
• 1957: Blackfoot, Idaho Sighting
• 1965: Idaho ‘Mining UFOs’
• 1967: Circular object with dome and two ‘figures’
• 1967: Three-1/2 Foot Tall Creature Floats to Ground IN Ririe, Idaho – Article
• 1977: Idaho witness sketches details from low hovering UFO
• 2000: Triangle sited in Idaho
• 2006 Bonners Ferry, Idaho Sighting

Executive Summary

The Snake River Corridor and the Mining UFOs — Idaho’s Terrain-Anchored Record

Idaho’s UAP archive is organized around the Snake River Plain and the wilderness mining operations of the central mountains — two geographic features that produce very different observation conditions and very different case types. The Snake River cases (1947 canyon observation, Ririe 1967 highway encounter) occur in a managed landscape with road access and multiple potential witnesses. The mining cases (1965 Spring Creek, 1952 Lost River Sinks) occur in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and the Lost River Range under conditions of extreme isolation where the absence of conventional explanation is stronger precisely because the witnesses are experienced outdoorsmen with detailed knowledge of what belongs in those landscapes. Buzz Montague’s Spring Creek Mining UFOs — observed multiple times in the early-to-mid 1960s hovering over active mine ore dumps at dawn — are among the most specific mining-operation proximity observations in the western records, investigated by APRO with sufficient seriousness to commission an artist’s rendering from a staff illustrator. The Ririe CE-III is the state’s strongest close encounter: two witnesses, a named farmer as a third-party corroborating witness at the farmhouse destination, vehicle control interference, and transparent dome with clearly visible occupants. Idaho’s ten cases span from 1947 to 2006 across the Snake River Plain, the central wilderness, and the northern panhandle.