This sighting is from 1982. At that time I lived in the Juneau Receiving Home in Juneau Alaska, awaiting foster care. Around 2 in the afternoon on a mid-June day, I had stepped out back for a cigerette. In the back of this home was the driveway, a freestanding garage, and a dipsty dumpster. A woodland area surrounded the whole back side. About 100' from the porch and well into the wooded area lies a 10'x10' patch of concrete with a basketball hoop on it.
When I stepped out, I noticed a deep black globe about 3 feet in diameter, hovering in place about 80' away and 18" or so off the ground - right near the front edge of the basketball court. The sphere was a pure black, almost as if it were a hole in space; yet I could tell it was fully 3-D and very real. Almost immediately after I noticed it, the sphere started drifting smoothly towards my right at about half a mile an hour. A low humming noise became evident at this point. The sound could be best described as the sound effect they use on Star Trek Voyager to indicate power going to the warp core; but it seemed lower and more intense.
The object then emitted an intense, fan-shaped orange beam of some kind, directed towards my right; and sweeping slowly from right to left. As the beam swept past, objects in its path (tires, pop cans, etc.) glowed a kind of phosphorescent orange color; while the general background was darker. At this point I was more than concerned; I became somewhat frightened. When I turned towards the back door and reached for the doorknob (still looking at the sphere), the beam hit me, paralyzing me where I stood. And that's the last thing I remember, until finding myself back in my room some minutes later wondering just what the hell had happened.
Just before this sighting occurred, I had been trying to record short-wave radio broadcasts on my new JVC RC-M70 boombox. The tape was still running after the sighting - so being the curious person I was, I played my tape back. At first, all I heard was what I expected: static-filled short-wave broadcasts. About 20 minutes into the tape, these broadcasts were replaced by a very odd warbling noise, modulated and remodulated with all kinds of harmonics; rising and lowering in general pitch with a period of about 20 seconds. This sound lasted for about fifteen minutes; after which the usual static & faint short-wave station sounds resumed.
Sometime between 1982 and 1990 the tape became lost though. I sure wish it hadn't. Back then I didn't own a camera either; although I may have never had a chance to use it even if I had one. (you can't run back in the house for a camera when you're paralyzed).
There were no apparent physical effects from this encounter; although a series of strange paralyzing "dreams" from a previous sighting came back for a few weeks afterwards. The object didn't appear to be suspended by string or wire; the general terrain in that area would have absolutely forbidden any means of support for the kind of smooth, natural movement it had. Not from above, not from the sides, and not from below. My opinion of the object was that it may have been a probe of some kind; it was too small to have been a ship and it most definitely wasn't a balloon. I never found out what happened to it; for it was already gone by the time I realized what had happened.
Back during this time period, I was messing with lasers and electronics; and had constructed a device which produced some unusual EM effects; however this device had not been in operation for about a year before the sphere showed up; so I found no obvious connection between the two.
