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The 18 Oct 1973, Mansfield, Ohio, 'Coyne' Helicopter Case

Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

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Although I can't locate an existing thread, please obviously redirect as necessary.

I wondered if my recent musings on this case, might be of interest and any feedback would be most welcome.

In summary, although familiar with the background, I have never studied it in any great depth, until now.

There is one conceivable explanation - no more than that, at present - which comes strikingly to mind and I can't see it has ever been considered to any extent.

This links to a brief summary of my ongoing research findings:

www.jceaston.com/Coyne.pdf

The appended video link illustrates, particularly in its latter part, a theory....

 
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'UFO' in Passaic, NJ in 2020, which turned out to be a blimp:

‘UFO’ seen over New Jersey was really Goodyear Blimp​

An unidentified flying object in the skies of New Jersey Monday had residents believing aliens were about to beam down to the Garden State until it was actually identified — as a Goodyear Blimp.

The floored witnesses flooded social media with posts showing the iconic blimp resembling a flattened spaceship with a light shining from it.

“Eyewitness accounts say a body came out of the ufo,” @yahnnisse wrote, noting that the alleged sighting was in Passaic, New Jersey.

Someone on Instagram posted similar video, showing cars pulled over along what appeared to be Route 21 in northern Jersey to catch a glimpse of the space oddity.

https://nypost.com/2020/09/15/ufo-seen-flying-over-new-jersey-really-a-goodyear-blimp/
 
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I always really liked this case, but have grown much more sceptical about it in recent years. While the duration seemed to rule out a bolide, I don't think people's estimates of duration are actually that good, and a bolide seems fairly possible. The blimp suggestion is intriguing though.

The 'corroborating' sighting of the object interacting with the helicopters was not collected until later, so recollections might at the very least have been 'shaped' by hearing about it as a UFO sighting.

I think I saw a more recent interview with one of the witnesses a couple of years back - Jezzi possibly? I'll try and find it. On second thoughts it might have been the interview with Yanacsek and I might be misremembering.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
'UFO' in Passaic, NJ in 2020, which turned out to be a blimp:
Click to expand...
This was a fascinating story, especially as we had real-time mobile phone footage from those who were quite understandably excited.

Looks like a spaceship, all day long!

I remain ambivalent as regards a connection to our 1973 Mansfield, helicopter encounter.

Obviously there are comparisons, however, we have to be extremely careful of our proverbial 'red herring'.

There remains, despite exhaustive searches by others and myself, no evidence of a Goodyear blimp, flying in that area and not even within a couple of weeks, beforehand or afterwards.

However, we do have documented localised UFO reports earlier the same night, yet these are a few hours preceding our encounter.

One report is of the UFO seemingly circling - so why would a Goodyear blimp be continuously doing that, at night?

There is one conceivable explanation and I will come back to that separately.

As always, the more you delve into archive material, you end up with more questions than answers.
 
BS3 said:
I always really liked this case, but have grown much more sceptical about it in recent years. While the duration seemed to rule out a bolide, I don't think people's estimates of duration are actually that good, and a bolide seems fairly possible. The blimp suggestion is intriguing though.
Click to expand...
Philip Klass published his lengthy meteor explanation in' UFOs: The Public Deceived'

However, it is plainly evident he has typically already decided there has to be a prosaic explanation, in this instance a 'fireball meteor' and all else must fit that hypothesis.

In making his case, Klass is compelled to override critical facts which patently dispell any such explanation.

He concludes

"The reports that the UFO appeared as a white light as it departed to the west, where it was viewed through the white side windows, while the cockpit was bathed in green light when the object was overhead, where its illumination would pass through the green overhead windows, are all consistent with the fireball hypothesis. And its long luminous tail, which could illuminate the cockpit for several seconds with green light, would ex-plain why the crew later deduced that the object seemed to "hesitate momentarily" overhead".

On 19 October, 1973, Staff-Sergeant John Healey spoke of his experience to a colleague in the Cleveland Police Department, which was tape recorded less than eighteen hours afterwards:

"And this object cleared our aircraft by about 500 feet. It had a steady red light on the nose; it was cigar-shaped... It was like a gunmetal gray...

...now it's a funny thing, it came from the horizon very quickly but when it went over our aircraft, its speed was very slow until it passed over our aircraft and then it picked up speed again".

At closest proximity, the object revealed itself, as Coyne explained in an interview published by the 'Cincinnati Post', on 11 November, 1973:

"We looked up and saw it stopped right over us. It had a big, gray, metallic-looking hull about 60 feet long. It was shaped like an airfoil or a streamlined fat cigar. There was a red light on the front".

Without going into great detail, Jennie Ziedman, who was the foremost case researcher, published an interview with a family who came forward a couple of years later as ground witnesses.

Although only, I believe, 13 years-old at the time and that, plus the time since elapsed, duly noted, Jennie asked Charles, "describe it to me", to which he replied, "I was shaped like a blimp. Something like a blimp".

Bolide... does not equate with the crew statements and Philip Klass had to come up with a rational explanation - anything otherwise was untenable.

Goodyear blimp.... maybe and certainly seems to make more sense, especially with the spotlight.

In the same 11 November, 'Cincinnati Post' interview, Coyne clarifies; "This light swiveled like a spotlight. It was shining brightly through the bubble canopy of our helicopter...".
 
A few years ago someone also put together an ingenious, although flawed, explanation of the case as a midair refuelling attempt

https://parabunk.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-1973-coynemansfield-helicopter-ufo.html

There was a lot of discussion of this one in the comments on Kevin Randle's blog (I think Randle still rates the case quite highly). Refuelling seems very unlikely to me, but the red / green / white light combination is certainly suggestive of normal aircraft lighting - or blimp lighting for that matter.

The comment that a large air operation was underway at the time of the 'flap', due to the Yom Kippur War, is pretty interesting.
 
BS3 said:
Refuelling seems very unlikely to me, but the red / green / white light combination is certainly suggestive of normal aircraft lighting - or blimp lighting for that matter.
Click to expand...
From discussions on an aviation forum:

"The important bit is the angles the lights are visible at.

The Red/Green lights are visible from straight ahead to 110 degrees, and the white tail light covers the remaining 140 degrees behind.

And an airship's nose light has a viewing angle of 110 degrees to each side, i.e. covering the same 220 degrees as the red and green combined.

So if you were flying straight towards an airship, you'd see all three colours. Two if approaching from the side.

And just the white light from the rear".
(End of extract)


From Jennie Ziedman's 12 February, 1977 interview, with crew member Lieutenant Jezzi:

Jezzi: Now, I never saw the object until it was almost vertically on top of us. I never saw a body to it at all. I would say was about 100 feet above us and maybe 500 feet to our front. Fairly close. The only thing I recall seeing was a white light, a very bright, intense white light on the aft portion of the object, on the back side moving away from us. I followed that light all the way to the horizon,

Zeidman: Did it fade out, or did it snap out, or what?

Jezzi: I just saw it go away and disappear. I assume it went over the curvature. What bothers me is that it was a very intense white light comparable to some of the approach or landing lights on a smaller aircraft. Not at all like an aft-position light, which is an extremely small one. not very bright. It was much too bright, extremely bright, to be an aft-position light.
(End of extract)

From a 2015 interview with Staff-Sergeant Yanacsek, by MUFON Ohio:

"Yanacsek stated except for the red light on the leading edge and white on the trailing, the oval shaped object was completely dark and blocked out the evening stars".

This white, aft light, does seem notably consistent.

The most detailed description and perhaps significant as it dates from next day, 19 October, is via Sergeant Healey's recorded testimony, to a colleague in the Cleveland Police Department:

It easily filled up the entire windshield. If I had been sitting in the front seat, I probably wouldn't have been able to see anything but the aircraft, or whatever it was.

The object may have hovered over us for ten to twelve seconds. It seemed like a long time; it seemed like it was there for so damn long.

It was just stopped, for maybe ten to twelve seconds and I mean stopped. It wasn't cruising, it was stopped. It didn't waver, I didn't put on the brakes, it didn't gyrate, it was just like in a cartoon

It was coming at us and then, in the next "frame," it was there, just like that. No noise, no flaps.

It reminded me very much of a submarine. Silent and gliding, and just there.

I really didn't think we would really collide, because the object was obviously completely in control of the situation.
(End of extract)

Hope this all might prove helpful.
 
Was anything else seen the same night? Well, maybe:

https://eu.mansfieldnewsjournal.com...06/investigators-seek-ufo-witnesses/71819612/

If the date recollections are accurate, other 'UFO's were reported earlier that evening. There's not much detail here, but a UFO "hovering" over some trees or "floating toward [a] house" could fit with a blimp being present.

The incident with a newspaper reporter described there might be this one, described on another local news site:

https://eu.times-gazette.com/story/...onference-will-reopen-discussion/19095730007/

a UFO sighting in Sullivan that made the front page of the Ashland Times-Gazette on Oct. 19.

That night, former T-G photographer Chic Knight met two Ashland County Sheriff deputies who described seeing a disc-like object on Township Road 391 about a mile north of County Road 500 while responding to the Sullivan call. The officers stopped and exited their cruiser when they noticed the craft hovering above the trees but said they heard no motor noise coming from it. Then, as they shined a spotlight in its direction, the craft dove toward the deputies before veering off toward Nankin.
Click to expand...
 
https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/press/newsjournal18oct2003.htm

Very brief interview with Jezzi from 2003 - I knew I'd seen an interview with him somewhere!

Another ground witness, Rene Bouchard in Galion, is cited. In this case "a brilliant white light" was seen about 60 minutes prior to the Coyne sighting: maybe a searchlight?

So, just trying to list out all of these other supposed ground sightings:

Around sunset - Jim Carver and family, south west of Mansfield: "We could see red, green and white lights blinking constantly as we were viewing from a kitchen window." UFO "slowly moved northeast"

9pm ish - Rene Bouchard in Galion, west of Mansfield: "brilliant white light"

10pm ish - Jim Carver, near Mansfield: "the UFO was above the tree line over-looking Sunset Park. The chopper was beneath my view. Here in plain view was the UFO, green light on the front, white light and a red light on the rear on a nearly sixty-foot long dark metallic-grey object that had the appearance of a cigar shaped stogie", no sound, UFO left to "northwest"

Unspecified time: unnamed witness in Sullivan (northeast of Mansfield): object hovering over trees in her backyard

Unspecified time: two sheriff's deputies, Township Road 391 south-east of Sullivan (northeast of Mansfield): "disc-like object [...] hovering above the trees", no sound, left towards Nankin (southwest)

To be honest this all does sound a bit like what might have been reported if a blimp was circling the area. For a few hours preceding the Coyne sighting, we have - if the witnesses are not completely mistaken - a largely silent 'thing' flying around Mansfield with red, green and white lights on it. It hovers, or at least moves very slowly, and possibly has some brighter white light (or searchlight) on it. Close up it appears as a metallic grey "cigar". And if there was a blimp based in Akron...
 
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Presumably the helicopter had red, green and white lights on it as well, so we don't need a blimp to explain the ground sightings.
 
BS3 said:
What puzzles me is that if the object was described as blimp-shaped, and a Goodyear blimp was in fact based in Akron (there's a hangar there), why did no-one check the flight records at the time?

https://www.nps.gov/articles/goodyear-airdock.htm

This page has a picture showing blimps at Akron in 1973.
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Thank you for the most helpful replies.

This 1973 photograph might be misleading and I believe shows two airships which have long been retired from service. Neither appear to be the Goodyear Mayflower airship.

The Akron airdock had been mothballed for some five years and my understanding is that only the hangers were now in use, as storage facilities.

Goodyear's Mayflower was now based in Miami and quoting 'The Miami Herald', on 6 April, 1973:

"The five- year-old Mayflower has reached the end of the road. Its being put in the hangar in mid-April for maintenance work just before making its last rounds here. On May 4 the blimp will leave on a six months summer tour of the north and will return to Miami in October to stay on until a replacement arrives to take over. The Mayflower will return to Akron then but Pingree doesn't know its ultimate fate".

On 1 October, 1973, the Mayflower flew from Grosse Ile Naval Base, situated adjacent to Lake Erie, in order to film the Detroit Lions v Atlanta Falcons Monday night game.

I have also verified that on October 27th, it filmed the Notre Dame v University of Southern California (USC), college football game, at Notre Dame, Indiana.

Where though, was it located inbetween and could it be placed relatively local and closer to the date of our helicopter and 'UFO' encounter on 18 October, 1973, near Mansfield, Ohio.

Conversely, was it possible to determine the Mayflower had categorically been nowhere near Mansfield that particular night.

Whether searching for either 'airship', 'blimp', or Mayflower, there seemed to be no related information in any of the, now comprehensive, subscription newspaper archives.

Nothing was showing up elsewhere, either.

There were several UFO reports from around the Mansfield, Galion and Belleville area in the days before and after our 18 October incident, including some from Galion, earlier on the same night.

I wondered if the Cleveland Browns have been playing at home around that timeframe and might the Mayflower blimp, have been scheduled to film this game.

Indeed, on 15 October, the televised Monday Night Football was Cleveland Browns v Miami Dolphins, in Cleveland.

However, there was no documentation to be found, confirming Goodyear's Mayflower blimp had been present.

A final thought and last resort... was there any archive film of the game available and if so, perhaps an outside chance the blimp would be featured

We do have a highlights reel on YouTube and at 05:05, this happens:

Commentator: There's your moon over Cleveland and up in that area close, is our Goodyear blimp. It could be one of your unidentified flying objects. There's a lot of them going around... especially in Mississippi.

Co-commentator: They spotted a few around here, last night.

Commentator: It's good to have the Mayflower with us though...
(End of extract)

Without specific data, it is obviously impossible to pinpoint exactly where the Mayflower was on the night of 18th October.

Was it actually perhaps en route, to or from, the nearby Goodyear blimp facility at Wingfoot Lake/Akron, Ohio...

Unless returning from an engagement, why flying so late at night - the Coyne encounter is timed at 23:05.

From other articles, outwith October, it seems that when visiting each scheduled location, the practice was for Goodyear's airship to stay for one or more nights at a local airport and then move on to its next booking.

To progress any further, we obviously need to pinpoint its precise location on Thursday 18 October.

The only sports event I can find for that night - apparently no major or college football games - is a World Series baseball game in New York and doesn't seem to be any evidence of this being filmed from a blimp.

Will come back to your other excellent points, separately.
 
Comfortably Numb said:
Commentator: There's your moon over Cleveland and up in that area close, is our Goodyear blimp. It could be one of your unidentified flying objects. There's a lot of them going around... especially in Mississippi.
Co-commentator: They spotted a few around here, last night.
Commentator: It's good to have the Mayflower with us though...
(End of extract)
Click to expand...
That's good detective work. It shows that at least one blimp was active in the area in that period. The blimp hypothesis has just jumped in plausibility.
 
BS3 said:
Here's another case of the Goodyear Blimp being mistaken for a UFO, even though the context should have made it pretty obvious:

https://badufos.blogspot.com/2012/07/london-olympic-ufo.html

Given this is what happened during a major sporting event, who's to say what the reaction would be to an unadvertised night flight of the blimp over rural Ohio?
Click to expand...

Comfortably Numb said:
The Akron airdock had been mothballed for some five years and my understanding is that only the hangers were now in use, as storage facilities.
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There are two airdocks in the Akron area, the Goodyear Airdock in Akron at the Akron airport, and the Wingfoot Lake Airship Hangar, 12 km away in Mogadore Ohio. While I don't know if it was active during that time, Wingfoot was built in 1917 and is currently in use by Goodyear for blimp operations.
 
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