BRIDGEVILLE, Calif. — In the summer of 1994, strange unexplainable lights appeared in the sky over Humboldt County. Was it a plane, a meteor or something else? Locals may never know what it was, but one thing is for sure, those strange lights inspired a competition known as the Bridgefest Saucer Toss.
“We decided to huck saucers off the bridge into the river bar to celebrate this wonderful bridge we have in our town,” Bridgefest organizer Jennifer Bishop said.
Spanning across the Van Duzen River is the Old Bridgeville arch bridge. It's a beloved landmark in the little forest community of Bridgeville.
“This bridge has brought a lot of people together. This area is very diverse,” Bishop said.
She explains the odd relationship between UFO sightings and the Old Bridgeville Bridge in simple terms.
“We just really want to throw things off the bridge, and if we can put on funny hats while doing it you get extra bonus points,” Bishop said.
The saucer toss rules are pretty simple. The closest one to hit the landing zone target at the bottom of the bridge wins. All ages are welcome to try. If you don’t have your own saucer you can borrow one from the saucer box, which is mostly filled with colorfully painted hubcaps.
Throwing saucers off this bridge is fun but the bridge itself has major historical significance to Humboldt County.
“This was the main bridge to get across the Van Duzen. There were no other bridges,” Bishop said.
Built in 1925, the Bridgeville Bridge was one of a series of newly designed concrete bridges on Highway 36 constructed by engineer John B. Leonard.
“People did not like them at first because they were different and people criticized him a lot,” Bishop said.
Highway 36 runs through the Six Rivers National Forest, an area hit hard by the great flood of 1964. Though John Leonard’s bridge designs were odd, they held up.
“His bridges were the only ones to survive in this area, and then his bridges became very famous and well loved,” Bishop said.
John Leonard’s narrow but strong bridges held up to flooding, but couldn’t hold up to modern traffic. In the early 1990s, a much wider traffic-friendly bridge was built and bypassed the town of Bridgeville altogether.
“The town was very distraught that they were going to fall off the map,” Bishop said.
So few people were coming to Bridgeville, it was put up for sale on EBAY multiple times.
“Various mafia groups and religious cults have wanted to buy and have their own town but no one could quite pull it off,” Bishop said.
It’s not clear what the new owners will do with the town but, so far, Bridgeville has not fallen off the map. The school, the community center and post office are still serving the community and that’s partly because of Bridgefest.
“Its brought more energy into the town at a time when people were wondering if we were going to be lost,” Bishop said.
This odd UFO-themed celebration not only attracts tourists to town but also allows the many generations of colorful community members to celebrate this little spot on Earth they call home.
MORE EXTRATERRESTRIAL EXCITEMENT ON THE BACKROADS: 'Big Ears' in the eastern Sierra searching for answers to galactic mysteries