In March 1953, two women sleeping in a remote area of ​​Big Tujunga Canyon were awakened by a bright light flooding around their cabin. What followed was an inexplicable waste of time, an alien abduction and years of searching for answers.

It was the first in a string of UFO reports that a local researcher called the “Tujunga Canyon Contacts,” making this rugged landscape, just about 30 minutes north of downtown LA, what she called a hotbed of UFO encounters.

Investigators on the ground point to the incident as one of the oldest kidnapping experiences in modern times, but even in the city that gave us. Close Encounters of the Third Kindit’s not a story many Angelenos have heard.

Slender entities and beams of light

In an isolated cabin in Big Tujunga Canyon, two women were terrified by an experience they had that began around 2 a.m. on March 22, 1953. According to the women, bright lights and a deathly silence were followed by an alien abduction in which one of them said they were taken aboard a UFO by slender entities with elongated, mask-like faces.

One of Sara Shaw’s drawings from “The Tujunga Canyon Contacts”

(

Courtesy of anomalous books

)

Both women’s accounts – and several others – are described in detail in the book Contacts of the Tujunga Canyon by Ann Druffel and D. Scott Rogo. To protect them from backlash, the pseudonyms Sara Shaw and Jan Whitley were used in the book, first published in 1980.

Shaw and Whitley were undergoing regressive hypnosis sessions to try to get the memories of the incident out of their memory. Shaw had her hypnosis session led by Dr. Martin Reiser, who founded the LAPD’s behavioral science services in 1968.

In a second hypnosis session with another doctor named Bill McCall, Shaw recalled her 1953 abduction experience:

Shaw recalled being scanned aboard the spaceship by the entities with some type of scanner. She said they even offered her a cure for cancer.

These accounts and several others from the Tujunga Canyon area were extensively investigated by Druffel, who died in 2020. In fact, Shaw’s encounter predates one of the oldest and most studied modern alien abduction stories, that of Barney and Betty Hill in The White Mountains of New Hampshire in 1961.

“It’s absolutely a very early case in the pantheon of extraterrestrial abductions,” he said Rob Kristoffersenthe host from New York a Our strange skies podcasts where he studies UFO encounters throughout history.

Another drawing by Sara Shaw from “The Tujunga Canyon Contacts”

(

Courtesy of anomalous books

)

“It’s not a case that’s talked about a lot… But, I think it’s one of the more important cases that should be looked into more,” Kristoffersen said.

So why haven’t more people, even in LA, heard about this kidnapping account in our own backyard?

“It’s a strange story”

Paranormal researcher Dr. CS Matthews says it might be because it’s less “hardcore” than some of the kidnapping accounts out there. These aliens did not appear to be violent or malevolent.

“Actually, I think part of the reason is because it’s a weird story. And the UFO community even today has had a real tendency to be really conservative, kind of right-wing,” Matthews said from her home in New York’s Hudson Valley.

All of the women who came forward with their stories of otherworldly encounters in and around the Tujunga area were part of the LGBTQ community, and most, if not all, had some connection to Whitley. While Shaw and Whitley’s initial meeting took place in the 1950s, it wasn’t until the 1970s that they brought their story to Druffel.

“Of course they weren’t going to talk about these things in the 50s. They wouldn’t dare… These women were brave to come forward. They had to be because they could lose a lot,” Matthews said.

An older paper version of “The Tujunga Canyon Contacts”

()

In an article entitled “Contacts with the Tujunga Canyon: Revised, reconsidered,” Matthews writes: “…anyone who remembers what lesbian communities were like in small towns in, say, the 2000s (or even now in rural areas) can easily see the dynamics of overlapping friendships and romantic interests running just beneath the surface of Accounts Tujunga Canyon. Druffel’s descriptions of their relationship echo the ethos of the time, allowing anonymity due to prohibitive social norms.”

A “window area”

In her book, Druffel describes the region where these and other UFO sightings occurred as a “window area,” a place that repeatedly attracts unexplained phenomena.

Phantom helicopters without a rotor, white orbs dancing in the sky, and people watching spaceships disappearing into the landscape: all are said to have taken place in and around the canyon.

“You know, Big Tujunga Canyon can be a creepy place.” local historian and author Mike Lawler LAist said. “In high school, I’d hear stories from friends about strange things they’d seen there… It’s kind of a desert mountain landscape and pretty spectacular… being so close to LA, it’s phenomenal how wild it is. And actually people get lost there all the time.”

“It’s very strange here”

Pasadena-based screenwriter Richard Hatem hosts a podcast called Richard Hatem’s Paranormal Shelf. You may have also seen his work in the form of the 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies.

Tujunga Grand Canyon at sunset

He believes the Tujunga Canyon contacts are not widely known, even in a town that gave us shooting location for Elliot’s house in Steven Spielberg E.T

“I’ve never heard anyone bring it up,” Hatem said. “Weirdly, I don’t think LA is a city that trades much on its supernatural history, although there is a lot of it.”

After hearing about the Tujunga contacts several years ago from Kistoffersen, Hatem remembers eagerly driving 20 minutes west on Highway 210 to see the region for himself.

“It’s very strange here. It seems like we’re a long way from Los Angeles… But I’m like, ‘I don’t stay up here much. I don’t want them to know I’m thinking about them,’” Hatem said.

Maybe it’s time to put Big Tujunga Canyon on the map with other UFO hotspots like Roswell or Area 51.