Donald Schrum had no time to hunt in the summer of 1964.
He had a family to support, and the 28 year old painter was looking for a better job.
He was very lucky, when he found a job at the local industrial plant.
On September 5th he felt he could take the time to bowhunt a black bear.
However the hunter would soon become the hunted.
By law, bears could be hunted for only five more days, for hunters using archery.
Don Schrum, his friend Vince Alvarez, and a friend of Vince's, formed the hunting party.
In the Tahoe National Forest of California, they stopped first at the Ranger Station
at "Big Bend", where they applied for a camp fire permit.
After setting up camp, the three men separated, in search of prey.
At the end of a long day, Don was returning to the campsite.
It was getting dark, and he would never be able to return through the forest at night.
As a bear hunter, Schrum was acutely aware that he must avoid the bear he had been tracking.
He climbed a pine tree, settling onto a large branch.
He had a military nylon belt, which he looped around an overhanging branch as a safety rope,
intending to sleep safely above all predators.
It was cold.
The weather man on television had predicted a high temperature of 65 degrees and a low temperature of 36 degrees.
He noticed a point of light over a faraway ridge, which at first he thought was a helicopter.
When his friends realized he was missing, they must have returned to the Ranger Station,
and a helicopter must have been called in for search and rescue.
When in the wilderness, Schrum always carried a couple boxes of matches.
He climbed back down the tree, and started a signal fire.
The distant light began to head his way.
It stopped overhead, hovering, without making any sound.
This was not a helicopter.
Schrum got scared, and scrambled up the pine tree again.
The unidentified flying object was huge, shaped like a cigar,
and it was as long as a ten story building is tall.
He saw a lighted launch bay open in the side of the craft, which ejected a small scout ship.
The scout ship appeared to land a short distance away in the forest.
He soon heard noises in the same direction,
as if something was making its way through the brush.
Two humanoids emerged from dense foliage.
Despite the camouflage Donald was wearing, they looked directly up at him.
They wore silver suits.
Their eyes were as big as the lenses of welding goggles.
He could hear them talking.
Their language sounded like the hooting of an owl, or the cooing of a dove.
The third member of the alien party then appeared.
It was bigger than the humanoids, and its eyes were glowing orange.
It moved in such a stilted manner that Schrum could think of only one word to describe it...
robot!
One of the humanoids began to climb the tree.
They wanted to capture him, but he did not want to kill anything resembling a man.
He struck a match, took off his hat, and set it on fire,
dropping it, and hoping it would hit the alien.
Both humanoids retreated to the edge of the brush.
Yet when the fire sputtered out, they came back.
He had only three arrows remaining in his quiver,
but at short range, Donald's 60 pound bow would give an arrow the velocity of a rifle bullet.
He shot at the robot.
The arrows failed to penetrate the chest, but sparks flew, and it stumbled back.
Three times, the robot regained its balance.
Then it approached the base of the tree.
A vapor like steam arose from its mouth.
When the vapor reached Donald Schrum, he lost consciousness.
When he awoke, it was daylight, and the aliens were gone.
Blue Book investigators called it the "bow and arrow case"
but the full details were not released to the public for fifty years,
because that industrial plant where Donald Schrum was newly hired,
was a missile factory... the defense contractor Aerojet, in Sacramento.
Schrum worked where they manufactured Polaris and Titan missiles, and he did not want to lose his job.
Other than interviews with UFO investigators working for the Air Force,
the only witness in the case, kept quiet.