On 26/3/04, sudi wrote:
>Two more fascinating documents. (Found in Scotmedia's
>post concerning a March, 1995 and a September, 1974
>sighting.)
Please, call me James...
>But...1974? I'm flummoxed.
Another, contemporary, comparative account I've come
across dates from 1975, as reported in the 'National
Enquirer'. Although perhaps not exactly regarded as a
reliable source, I understand the 'Enquirer' did
prominently feature 'mainstream UFO reports' back then,
see:
http://www.cohenufo.org/hynek.enquir.html
Note Bob Pratt's involvement - more on that later.
More importantly, the following case had several named
witnesses, including a Police Chief. As published by the
'Enquirer':
'Triangular-Shaped Saucer Shakes Up Five North Carolina
Counties'
'Skies Over Lumberton, N.C., Visited By A Glowing Object
that Baffled Officials For Nearly A Week - but Remained
Unexplained'
[...]
The first of the scores of reports came shortly after 1
a.m. on April 3 (of 1975). "We were swamped with calls
from the public and 30 officers reported seeing a strange
object," submitted Lumberton sheriff's radio dispatcher
Ronn Thompson. Most of the callers-in said they had seen
the UFO over the north end of the rural hamlet.
"I saw the object hovering about 50 feet over the town's
water tank," said officer Phil Stanton, one of the
policemen who received calls from citizens who were, if
not frightened, certainly very impressed at what many
thought was a drop-in from extragalactic beings.
"It seemed to be triangular or vee-shaped. I could make
out reddish lights on one side of it and green or blue
lights along the other. I thought it was about the size
of a Cadillac. The strange thing was that there was no
sound at all. It appeared to have a solid hull and one
big spotlight."
Just as the mystified officer began to register that he
was seeing something that he couldn't do anything about--
and something that very few others could expect ever to
see--the strange object vanished, hurtling away at almost
unearthly speed. And then--"I heard on my patrol car
radio that it was spotted over St. Pauls just 90 seconds
later. And St. Pauls is 15 miles away," he said.
Over in St. Pauls, security guard John McPherson and
officer Tom Hagens chased the triangular mystery in a
patrol ear. Their first glimpse of it came with a red
flash "like an explosion," behind some trees way back in
the boondocks. The strange craft was moving low and slow
across an isolated country road and the officers saw
their duty.
"We took off after it, but lost it. Then we stopped the
car and just waited," reported McPherson. And then, as
though playing an interplanetary game of tag, "There it
was again ... it seemed to be triangular, maybe vee-
shaped, with blue lights all around the edges and a big
pulsating ball of red light in the center. There were two
big beams like searchlights. The next thing I knew, it
took off at terrific speed--without a sound.
If that isn't the same whatsis that Stanton saw four days
later, it must at least have been a sister ship.
And suddenly, the same ship or one much like it turned up
a few miles away. When McPherson and Hagens last saw it
in St. Pauls, it was racing west. Soon it was picked up
by Hoke County Deputy Sheriff George McGuire. "It seemed
to be travelling about the speed of a jet, but far closer
to the ground than I've ever seen a jet fly," he
recalled.
Reports of mysterious doings in the North Carolina skies
kept pouring in. The Lumberton radio dispatcher, Ronn
Thompson, found that his curiosity was whetted by all the
reports he had received from presumably sane and sober
citizens. So off he went on his own UFO hunt when he got
off duty Friday night. Sure enough about 20 miles
southwest of Lumberton he really did spot it.
"It appeared suddenly, less than 200 feet above my car,"
he told reporters later. "I could see a beam shining out
of the thing and flashed my car lights. Incredibly, the
beam flashed back at me in response. I flashed my lights
a second time and again I got a response.
"Then the object took off at tremendous speed and
vanished."
There were more reports. A police chief, Gary Moore, of
White Lakes, N.C., said he spotted a similar triangular
UFO with a pulsating red light just about at dawn on
Saturday, April 5. But the visit to Lumberton was nearing
an end. One more cop, State Trooper Marshall McGee, was
to make a sighting in the early hours of Sunday, April 6.
He saw something in the sky between Lumberton and St.
Pauls and his description was substantially the same as
those submitted by many others.
Naturally, the Federal Aviation Administration was
consulted and, as happens so often, it was, officially,
baffled. Authorities at the nearby Fayetteville, N.C.,
Airport were notified almost as soon as the UFO was first
spotted. "We had a Piedmont Airlines Boeing 737 make a
test flight in the area," said an FAA spokesman "But the
UFO reports continued after it landed".
And not only are the civilian flying folk stumped. An Air
Force official at the nearby Fort Bragg flying facility
admitted, "We're just as baffled as the FAA."
[END]
There's an accompanying sketch at:
http://www.voyager.ukonline.co.uk/ftp/carolina.jpg
Note the features which are common to 'triangular UFOS'
in later years:
...hovering about 50 feet...
It seemed to be triangular or vee-shaped...
The strange thing was that there was no sound at all...
...the strange object vanished, hurtling away at almost
unearthly speed...
The strange craft was moving low and slow across an
isolated country road...
...a big pulsating ball of red light in the center...
...far closer to the ground than I've ever seen a jet
fly...
It appeared suddenly, less than 200 feet above my car...
Although not entirely clear, these also seem to be
predominately night-time reports - "The first of the
scores of reports came shortly after 1 a.m." ..."just
about at dawn", hence presumably the stated
'searchlights' [a perfectly terrestrial technology!].
I would have to question the reliability of this claim:
"I could see a beam shining out of the thing and flashed
my car lights. Incredibly, the beam flashed back at me in
response. I flashed my lights a second time and again I
got a response".
Anyway, the point being that there was a *possibly* an
analogous reported 'flap' almost 30 years ago.
Bob Pratt, has a related interest:
http://www.bobpratt.org/triangles.html
You mentioned, "the illustration done from the Seattle
sighting seems to capture the overall 'feeling' that I
experienced".
This is the full account Gary Val Tenuta provided to
myself:
The following is a true and accurate account of my "close
encounter" in Seattle, Washington (U.S.A.) which occurred
in 1993. I believe it was in the month of November.
It was a Sunday night about 9:30. I often had occasion to
be driving north about that time of evening on Sundays
and I usually took the I-5 freeway. This time, however, I
knew the freeway, northbound, was jammed up due to an
accident. So I had taken an alternate route which
eventually led me to what I think was East Marginal Way,
right next to the main Boeing Aircraft plant.
I noticed three red lights low in the sky ahead of me.
They were moving in unison, very slowly across my field
of vision from east to west. At first I thought they must
be the lights of a low flying plane, perhaps about to
land. Then I thought, no, they must be helicopters
because a plane, even if it was landing, wouldn't be
moving that slowly. The trouble was, I couldn't actually
see the craft or crafts that the lights were attached to.
They were, maybe, a half mile ahead of me, about 30
degrees to my right. Normally, I wouldn't have paid much
attention to this at all because I'd been making that
Sunday night drive past Boeing (although via the freeway)
for twelve years. In all that time I'd seen plenty of
airplanes and helicopters flying low in this area. But
something was different this time. It took me a minute to
realize what it was. It was the fact that the lights
weren't blinking. I thought that was odd. It seemed to me
every airplane or helicopter I've ever seen flying at
night had blinking lights. I squinted my eyes as I drove
toward the lights, trying to see just what I was actually
looking at. Although I was now only about two blocks away
from being directly under the flight path of these
lights, I still could not make out what they were
attached to. However, from their slow, steady movement,
in unison, I was pretty sure all three of them were
attached to a single object rather than being independent
of each other. By the time I was directly in line with
their flight path, they were about to enter the airspace
over Boeing Field to my immediate left. I was now
convinced it was a single, low-flying craft of some kind
and I knew there was something very odd here. I pulled my
car off to the side of the road and rolled down the
window to get a better look. But the craft was now
directly over head so I had to get out of the car to see
it.
I opened the car door and stepped out. Craning my neck to
see the craft as it passed slowly directly over my head
at an estimated altitude of less than 500 feet (Note: at
the actual time of the sighting my impression was that
the craft was perhaps only about 150 above me) I could
see it was a gigantic black triangle! There is no other
way to describe it because that's precisely what it was;
a huge, black, triangle; not just "sort of" triangular
shaped, like one of those wedge-winged jets I'd seen
photos of. It was just one big, three-sided, cookie-
cutter-straight-edged, black, geometric shape; a triangle
with one large, round unblinking red light at each of its
three corners, flat up against the underside of the
craft. There was a high, gray cloud cover that evening,
subtly lit by the Seattle city lights in the distance. I
could clearly and unobstructedly see the object like a
huge, dense black silhouette against this gray ceiling.
I stood there almost not believing what I knew I was
seeing. I actually said to myself, "Ok. What, exactly,
are you seeing? You're going to want to remember every
detail of this! Just the facts, now. What, exactly, do
you see?" I made a mental inventory. "Black triangle. Red
light on each corner, flat up against the underside of
the craft. They don't blink. ...(Note: at this point it
has proceeded on past me and was now over Boeing field)
...It looks like it's about seventy-five to a hundred
feet above one of the main Boeing hangars. It's moving
very slowly. Maybe five miles per hour. It's heading
west. It appears to be about the size of a football
field."
Suddenly I realized, as I stood there in the dark on this
quiet empty street, the object didn't make a sound! Maybe
more than anything else, that's what made the whole thing
so eerie. Something that huge, that close, moving through
the air at a snail's pace should be making some kind of a
sound! A hum! A rumble! Anything! But, no. It just moved
across the sky like something out of a Steven Spielberg
movie with the volume turned off. I looked up and down
the street to see if anyone else was witnessing this
silent event, but the street was dark and empty in both
directions. I looked up again at the mysterious craft now
blending into the dark horizon. I watched it until I
couldn't see it anymore and then it was over.
I got back into my car and closed the door. The window
was still open and I took another look. Nothing was there
but the gray night sky, softly aglow from the distant
city lights. It was as if nothing had happened. I sat
there for a minute and lit a cigarette. Then I turned the
car on and took one more look, knowing it wouldn't be
there, but still wanting to remember where it had been.
All the way home I just kept asking myself, "What the
hell was that?"
Whatever it was, it was my one and only close encounter.
I waited all my life to see a UFO and, as it turned out,
it was nothing like I always imagined it would be. I
wanted to see a "flying saucer"! You know, one of those
shiny, disk-shaped things that everybody else sees. But,
no. I had to see a flying black triangle!
©1998, Gary Val Tenuta
[END]
James Easton.
