It was a chilly autumn afternoon in Poquoson, Virginia, in 1959 a quiet town near Langley Air Force Base. The sky was a muted gray, and the distant calls of birds echoed across the vast, marshy landscape. The air smelled of damp earth and decaying leaves—perfect conditions for a hunting trip.
Fifteen-year-old Mark George Muza, Jr. and his fourteen-year-old hunting companion, Harold Moore, Jr., had ventured into familiar yet eerie territory—an abandoned U.S. Air Force bombing range near their homes off Ridge Road. This stretch of wilderness, known as Big Marsh, was a sprawling, desolate place where rusted warning signs and the remnants of past military exercises still lingered.
As they trudged deeper into the marsh, their boots sinking slightly into the soggy ground, Muza suddenly froze. A strange sound, unlike anything he had ever heard, filled the air above him. It wasn’t the rustling of trees or the distant hum of an aircraft—it was a rhythmic, mechanical whirring, reminiscent of a flock of wild birds taking flight.
Separated from Muza by roughly a hundred yards, Moore squinted into the sky, his breath catching in his throat. Descending slowly from above, as if defying gravity, was a small, metallic craft, no more than four feet in diameter. It hovered at about a hundred feet, wobbling slightly as it moved lower. By the time it reached fifty feet above Muza’s head, its silvery surface reflected the dimming daylight in an eerie shimmer.
A chill ran down Muza’s spine. His pulse quickened. Every instinct in his body screamed danger. Without thinking, he shouldered his 12-gauge shotgun, aimed at the mysterious craft, and pulled the trigger. The first blast cracked through the still air, followed quickly by a second. The shotgun bucked against his shoulder as he fired a third, heavier slug.
Each shot met its target, but instead of piercing the object, the rounds ricocheted off with a sharp, metallic screech, as if bullets were meeting solid steel. The sound was unnatural—grating, echoing—like metal scraping against metal.
The saucer reacted instantly. As if startled, it halted its descent, hovering motionless for a moment. Then, with an abrupt spin, it began to whirl like a child’s toy top. Faster and faster it spun, until in a blur of motion, it shot skyward in a perfectly straight trajectory, disappearing into the sky within seconds.
Muza and Moore stood in stunned silence, the only sound now their own ragged breathing. The marsh, which moments before had been filled with the sound of shotgun blasts and the strange whirring of the craft, was deathly still.
Shaken, the boys eventually made their way back home, struggling to put into words what they had just witnessed. News of the encounter spread, catching the attention of UFO investigator Larry Bryant. Years later, Bryant would lament that, despite the evidence recorded in archives, officials at Langley Air Force Base had shown no interest in investigating the case.
Had the boys encountered an experimental military drone, an extraterrestrial craft, or something else entirely? No official explanation was ever given, leaving their harrowing experience a mystery—one that lingers in the shadows of Poquoson’s marshes to this day.
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