Sgt. Russell Yokum Records Sound of UFO

In the early hours of a cold, misty morning on March 17, 1981, SHPD Sergeant Russell Yokum reported a close encounter of the first kind.

At 4:03 a.m., Yokum was patrolling Highway 30 west of the Columbia River when he spotted a bright light moving in an easterly direction toward the Portland Airport upriver.

While aircraft were known to regularly pass over the area on the way to the airport, the light was unusually bright, so much so that it lit up the river like the sun was “just coming up.”

“I thought it was an aircraft landing light – but it was brighter than a normal landing light would be,” Yokum told The National Inquirer in ‘81.