extraordinary%20encounters

112 Gray Face
to take control of the car, even managing
curves perfectly. But no matter what Toews
did, the vehicle traveled at no more than
twenty-five miles per hour. She and her friend
also became aware of a bright light shining
through the mist. It was coming from a white
cloud twenty to thirty feet above them. As
their trip went on, Toews was shocked to see
that no matter how far they went, the gas
gauge did not move.
Late that night, they stopped at a lodge at
Muncho Lake. It was closed, but they got out
of their car to stretch their legs. A young man,
dark-haired and bearded, stepped out of the
darkness. Though the temperature was barely
above zero, the man was dressed only in shirt,
pants, and shoes. The car was packed, and the
women insisted there was no room for him,
but he still persuaded them to drive him to
the next lodge, some eighty miles away, where
he said he worked. The space was so cramped
that he had to sit on Hanson’s lap. Strangely,
she could feel no weight. When she remarked
on it, he responded humorously but vaguely.
Toews asked his name. He leaned toward
her and stared into her eyes before saying,
“Gordon.” Both women thought he looked
familiar, but neither could place him. He was
pleasant and friendly in his manner. After the
UFO reappeared above trees along the highway,
Gordon inquired about their views of life
in the universe and of angels. In time, Toews
understood why Gordon didn’t seem to weigh
anything: he was hovering about two inches
in the air. She even covertly ran her hand
under him to make sure.
When they stopped for the night at an inn
in northern British Columbia, Gordon suddenly
was no longer there. The women looked
and called for him, but he had not even left
tracks in the snow. They were sure that he had
stepped out of the car with them and that he
couldn’t have been out of their sight for more
than a few seconds.
The inn was closed, so they stayed in the
lounge with a truck driver, who refused to believe
that they could have come all the way
from Steamboat Mountain—one hundred
sixty-five miles away—under existing road
and weather conditions. The strangeness of
their situation did not hit them until the next
night, when they were staying at another
lodge. Toews suddenly realized that Gordon
reminded her of her husband, Jim, who had
the same hair color, eyes, mannerism, body
shape. And her husband’s middle name was
Gordon.
The following morning they set off. At first
conditions were good, but soon a storm came
down. Weirdly, though, the road ahead of
them remained dry, even as snow fell and
swirled on either side. They looked up to see
the mysterious cloud they had observed earlier.
Later, their car engine failed, and two
mysterious men who seemed to know things
about the women that strangers could not
have known helped them restart it. The cloud
left only as Toews’s car got to Anchorage and
four blocks away from her house.
The women came to believe that Gordon
was either a spaceman or an angel. Eventually,
Joseph J. Brewer, Judge of the District Court
in Anchorage, heard of their experience and
interviewed them. He and Toews wrote an account
of it in Fate, a popular magazine on the
paranormal and occult.
Further Reading
Toews, Edmoana, with Joseph J. Brewer, 1977. “The
UFOs That Led Us Home.” Fate Pt. I. 30, 6
(June): 38–45; Pt. II. 30, 7 (July): 63–65, 68–69.
Gray Face
“Gray Face” was the name Clyde Preston, a
North Carolina truck driver, gave to one of a
number of extraterrestrials who visited him
over a nearly two-decade-long period. In
1993, under hypnosis, Preston recalled being
abducted into a UFO in the course of a (consciously
remembered) close encounter with a
UFO while he was on a run to South Dakota.
While aboard the UFO, he encountered a humanoid
being he calls “Gray Face.”
Even before the abduction memories surfaced,
howe ve r, Preston underwent a series of
strange experiences that he believed we re tied