Historic UFO Encounters: Newspaper / Magazine Articles

Here's a good one which was posted on Kevin Randle's blog - filmed interviews with witnesses to the 1957 Levelland sighting, prior even to the Air Force investigation, including Sheriff Weir Clem.


Given as Levelland is a very patchily documented case, any additional information is good to see.
 
feinman said:
From Wikipedia's article on the Lubbock Lights:

"The three professors became determined to view the objects again and perhaps discover their identity. On September 5, 1951, all three men, along with two other professors from Texas Tech, were sitting in Dr. Robinson's frontyard when the lights flew overhead. According to Dr. Grayson Mead the lights "appeared to be about the size of a dinner plate and they were greenish-blue, slightly fluorescent in color. They were smaller than the full moon at the horizon. There were about a dozen to fifteen of these lights... they were absolutely circular... it gave all of us... an extremely eerie feeling." Mead claimed that the lights could not have been birds, but he also stated that they "went over so fast... that we wished we could have had a better look." The professors observed one formation of lights flying above a thin cloud at about 2,000 feet (610 m); this allowed them to calculate that the lights were traveling at over 600 miles per hour (970 km/h) "
In the '40s discs were reported flying in similar formations.
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Kevin Randle's thoughts and findings on the Lubbock Lights:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2023/02/coast-to-coast-am-lubbock-lights.html
 
Is this a clip from a lost film of a UFO landing?

"I recently rediscovered an 8-second film clip of an alleged UFO/Alien landing at Holloman Air Force Base that occurred in 1971. Some contend this incident inspired the closing scene for Director Steven Spielberg’s 1977 blockbuster movie: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”"

8-second-film-of-ufoalien-landing

.


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(looks like a balloon to me)
 
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Paul_Exeter said:
Is this a clip from a lost film of a UFO landing?

"I recently rediscovered an 8-second film clip of an alleged UFO/Alien landing at Holloman Air Force Base that occurred in 1971. Some contend this incident inspired the closing scene for Director Steven Spielberg’s 1977 blockbuster movie: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”"

8-second-film-of-ufoalien-landing

(looks like a balloon to me)
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The Holloman AFB film is one of those stories that's been floating round for years with no clear resolution:

https://ufoac.com/ufo-landing-film-holloman-afb.html

I wouldn't at all be surprised if there was some actual film clip of something fairly mundane at the bottom of it all.
 
This one involving a "judge and an architect" is a classic and would be better known if it had happened in the West rather than Chile:

"Standing to one side of the disk, the judge and the architect saw the strange being anyone could imagine. It was something looking like a human being, having a head, torso and arms, but without a neck. The head sat squarely on the body, and the character was covered in hair. That is to say, it was some kind of gorilla, and the two startled mountaineers could never ascertain whether the strange being was hirsute by nature or wearing an outfit made of hair."

http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2023/04/chile-cerro-de-damas-apestronaut.html

More than a touch of 'Planet of the Apes' about it...
 
BS3 said:
The Holloman AFB film is one of those stories that's been floating round for years with no clear resolution:

https://ufoac.com/ufo-landing-film-holloman-afb.html

I wouldn't at all be surprised if there was some actual film clip of something fairly mundane at the bottom of it all.
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We have a previous thread about it.
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...-meeting-with-us-president-1950s-1960s.65531/
@Human_84 did some good work, and seems to have shown that the clip was filmed at Holloman AFB.

Still looks like a balloon to me.
holloman.png
 
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"Unidentified flying objects in classical antiquity"

The journal article referenced in the video can be found here on NASA's website.

 
that feels like one of those tall tales that grows over time... how much is true or false modern hearers cannot sy, as they haven't heard the original version of the story.
 
Does this NASA test vehicle explain the 1964 Lonnie Zamora UFO encounter at Soccoro?

"Zamora told authorities he was pursuing a speeding car south of Socorro, New Mexico when he "heard a roar and saw a flame in the sky to southwest some distance away—possibly a 1/2 mile or a mile." Believing a local dynamite shack might have exploded, Zamora said he discontinued the pursuit and investigated the potential explosion. Zamora claimed to have observed a shiny object, "to south about 150 to 200 yards (450 to 600 ft; 140 to 180 m)", that he initially believed to be an "overturned white car ... up on radiator or on trunk". The object was "like aluminum—it was whitish against the mesa background, but not chrome", and shaped like the letter "O". Zamora claimed to have briefly observed two people in white coveralls beside the object, who he later described as "normal in shape—but possibly they were small adults or large kids." Zamora claimed to hear a roar and see a blue and orange flame under the object which then rose and quickly moved away.[4]" *




2560px-Lonnie_Zamora-tuig_van_24_April_1964_te_Secorro,_NM,_a.jpeg


Source: By JMK - Own work, using New Mexican desert - panoramio.jpg by M Thomson, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73751502


* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Zamora_incident
 
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1967 ITN archive news report on British police encounter with UFO
 
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Was watching a film on u-tube today about Erick Winkle Brown he said when he was Commander of a RAF station in Wales a UFO was spotted over the base looking like a flying saucer, he took off in a Vampire but even at its ceiling of 44000 ft it was still above him but it left him with a open mind
 
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In 1975 and 1976 retired police chief George Wheeler had two extraordinary UFO sightings. He was not alone in this, as witnesses came out of the woodwork and corroborated his story in remarkable detail. In this episode of the Saucer Life, we’ll look at these sightings and the UFO culture that grew up around them in this tiny Wisconsin town.

simple-gray-podcast-episode-instagram-post.png


Listen to the story here:

https://saucerlife.com/2024/07/25/elmwood-wisconsin/
 
Paul_Exeter said:
In 1975 and 1976 retired police chief George Wheeler had two extraordinary UFO sightings. He was not alone in this, as witnesses came out of the woodwork and corroborated his story in remarkable detail. In this episode of the Saucer Life, we’ll look at these sightings and the UFO culture that grew up around them in this tiny Wisconsin town.

View attachment 80349

Listen to the story here:

https://saucerlife.com/2024/07/25/elmwood-wisconsin/
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I really like this podcast. So many great episodes.
 
BS3 said:
I really like this podcast. So many great episodes.
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Great write-up of the case here:

"When relief police officer, George Wheeler, witnessed and reported a UFO in April 1976 in Elmwood, Wisconsin, an incident also witnessed by several other residents, it was the second time in a year he had been present at such an event. That the incident took place in a small town with a population of less than 1,000 and a one-man police force lends it a sense of both romanticism and reality.

Furthermore, several other sightings in the mid-to-late 1970s in the Badger State seemingly share very similar details and descriptions, suggesting once more that a persistent presence of an intelligence unknown was patrolling the skies of the dairy lands of America."

https://www.ufoinsight.com/ufos/sightings/george-wheeler-ufo
 
Tiny Wisconsin Town Wants To Become Ufo Airport Site

Tiny Wisconsin Town Wants To Become Ufo Airport Site, Reading Eagle (Reading, Pennsylvania) ‎F...jpg


Source: Tiny Wisconsin Town Wants To Become Ufo Airport Site, Reading Eagle (Reading, Pennsylvania) ‎February 17, 1988, p.2
 

The Birmingham "UFO vision" manuscript via Herbert Rumsey has been found and viewed​


"Imagine learning of a strange and fascinating document back around 1975 that purported to be a copy of a memorandum book of a possible UFO milieu involving a “vision” of a mysterious flying “ark” that landed in Parramatta Park, Sydney, back in 1868, that a local surveyor, engineer and council officer, Frederick William Birmingham, had described going inside the “machine to go through the air” with the apparent “ark” pilot – a “spirit” – being “like a neutral tint shade and the shape of a man in his usual frock dress”. Further events followed, including an event seemingly described as actual day time witnessed observation of strange clouds with a strange aerial object in March, 1873. Other strange events like poltergeist and prophetic type incidents, were described, leading Birmingham to an obsession to learn the secret of “the aerial machine.”"

http://theozfiles.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-birmingham-ufo-vision-manuscript.html
 
This is a high-strangeness 1966 corker from where else but E{e}rie, PA

"A strange object and a strange creature were reported on Presque Isle, in Erie, Pa., on July 31, 1966. John investigated, and wrote up his usual detailed report. Here’s the first part of it; more will follow."

https://www.johnkeel.com/?p=5805
 
Paul_Exeter said:
This is a high-strangeness 1966 corker from where else but E{e}rie, PA

"A strange object and a strange creature were reported on Presque Isle, in Erie, Pa., on July 31, 1966. John investigated, and wrote up his usual detailed report. Here’s the first part of it; more will follow."

https://www.johnkeel.com/?p=5805
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A really interesting case, particularly as it displays what sometimes seem to be a common pattern to this type of experience, ie that the witnesses may have been in some state of agitation already. In this case the car was stuck, and there's also that detail about two of the witnesses perhaps not wanting to be seen together due to some kind of relationship between them.
 
There's quite a bit of local media discussion of this case; lots of people seem to remember it. Here's an article giving a few more details as well as a purported solution:

https://theparanormalpastor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ufo-landing-on-presque-isle.html

I've found copies of the Blue Book investigation. They weren't impressed by the witnesses but couldn't really think of anything that might explain the UFO itself, though it was noted that none of the witness descriptions talked about the full moon which rose at 7.30 that night. It was suggested that the 'creature' might have been a black bear or raccoon attracted by the picnic food, with the 'landing marks' being unrelated marks.


Screenshot_20240909-061207_Drive.jpg


Screenshot_20240909-061137_Drive.jpg
 
BS3 said:
There's quite a bit of local media discussion of this case; lots of people seem to remember it. Here's an article giving a few more details as well as a purported solution:

https://theparanormalpastor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ufo-landing-on-presque-isle.html

I've found copies of the Blue Book investigation. They weren't impressed by the witnesses but couldn't really think of anything that might explain the UFO itself, though it was noted that none of the witness descriptions talked about the full moon which rose at 7.30 that night. It was suggested that the 'creature' might have been a black bear or raccoon attracted by the picnic food, with the 'landing marks' being unrelated marks.


View attachment 81695

View attachment 81697
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I feel you are correct about the heightened/agitated state they were in whilst finding themselves stuck in the dark of night and then misinterpreting the moon and other lights for a spacecraft and a bear or other creature for an alien
 
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I think it's possible that the fire balloon / toy hot air balloon that the guy years later claimed to have launched could explain the lights they saw, although in fairness it would have come from the wrong direction (and indeed may not have drifted towards Presque Isle at all if the point about wind direction is right...but, still). Digging into the Blue Book file it's alleged that the majority of the elaborate UFO description was given by one witness (Tibbetts) while the other two (Haifley and Klem) mainly saw a falling light: La Belle was off getting help for most of the incident.

Combine that with agitation and a visit by an animal to the picnic table and you might just about get this experience. I still love these bonkers 60s cases though, and am curious to see what Keel made of the case: I also doubt it was a simple hoax as one of the Air Force investigators suggests.

Incidentally, perhaps things are different in the US but 80 miles seems a very long way to drive for a picnic.
 
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BS3 said:
I think it's possible that the fire balloon / toy hot air balloon that the guy years later claimed to have launched could explain the lights they saw, although in fairness it would have come from the wrong direction (and indeed may not have drifted towards Presque Isle at all if the point about wind direction is right...but, still). Digging into the Blue Book file it's alleged that the majority of the elaborate UFO description was given by one witness (Tibbetts) while the other two (Haifley and Klem) mainly saw a falling light: La Belle was off getting help for most of the incident.

Combine that with agitation and a visit by an animal to the picnic table and you might just about get this experience. I still love these bonkers 60s cases though, and am curious to see what Keel made of the case: I also doubt it was a simple hoax as one of the Air Force investigators suggests.

Incidentally, perhaps things are different in the US but 80 miles seems a very long way to drive for a picnic.
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We have National Parks areas... and those are usually quite a distance from populated centers. So the 80 miles... might just be due to wanting to go somewhere that's outside a populated area.
 
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