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Classic Mysteries—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, August 2017


Overview of the Worldwide UFO Flap of 1965

by: Rick Hilberg

If I were asked for the first report of the flap, I would probably say the one reported in newspapers from coast-to-coast regarding a lens-shaped object at the South Pole would be “it.”

On that date came official reports that a mysterious lens-shaped flying object, maneuvering and moving at a great speed, was sighted.

Mario Jahn Barrera, commander of a Chilean base, radioed his defense ministry that the object was “something real” and that it caused interference in the electromagnetic apparatus. In Buenos Aires the navy issued a communique saying the object was seen and photographed at Argentina's Antarctic base.

The colors were given as “yellowing red, changing to green, yellow, white and orange.”

The Argentine dispatch from a detachment at Deception, said the object was “neither balloon nor star nor aircraft.” The report stressed the lack of sound and noted that the object stood still in space at times.

A Chilean corporal took pictures – but in total darkness. Further, the base has no facilities for developing film. The men must wait eight months to be relieved and have the film developed on the mainland.

July 11, Portugal
Strange objects moving through space were reported sighted in two widely separated areas of Portugal. The Azores weather bureau said interference from one stopped its electromagnetic clocks.

The first reported mysterious flying object appeared in Motosinhos, near the northern city of Oporto, where Manuel Fernandes and his wife at first saw “some sort of luminous flattened balloon.”

Fernandes, an employee of the fisherman's union, said: “The strange object at first looked like a flattened balloon, but then as we both watched, it looked like a plate turned over.”

“The thing was very luminous, and had orange coloring and was nearly red at times,” the couple said. “The saucer stopped at rather high altitude near the coast, for about three minutes. Then, with incredible velocity, it sped towards the north.”

Some sort of interference stopped the electromagnetic clocks of the Villa Do Porto weather bureau in the Portuguese Azores archipelago, a spokesman said. He added a “cylindrical white object” circled around in the sky. He said the object was moving slowly northeast at an altitude of 24,000 to 30,000 feet.

July 12, Marion, South Carolina
UFOs were reported in the Pee Dee area at night – one case outside Florence and the other outside Marion.

The Marion report said that a “real bright object” flew along outside Marion. Jerry Coleman and Sonny Foxworth, both of Latta, reported seeing the object as they approached Marion from Latta. They said the object was flat and gave off a bright light.

About a half-hour later, Robert Sims of Florence said he sighted an object going west over Florence. The time was 8 p.m., and Sims said the object appeared to land near the Timmonsville Highway.

About the object Sims saw, he said it looked like “a big ball of fire and left a smoke trail.” It is quite possible that Mr. Sims may have spotted a meteor.

Pepper Pike, Ohio
Mrs. William W. Kehres of Chagrin Falls, Ohio and her 11-year-old son, Grant, saw a brilliant and hovering UFO along Shaker Blvd., near Lander Road.

“I stopped the car so we could watch,” she said. “It was oblong and very shiny – sort of metallic – and appeared to be hovering at about 5,000 feet.”

In a moment, the object disappeared, she reported. As the car started the object reappeared.

It began accelerating at a rapid rate and disappeared in the distance, she said.

Greenwood, Indiana
Two youngsters in northeast Greenwood viewed unidentified lights in the sky at about 11 o'clock at night. “The first looked cigar-shaped and was larger than the second one which was more round and was only half as far away,” described Michael Hughes, an 18-year-old, who was visiting his aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. William C. Miller.

Teresa Owen, who was putting her bicycle into the garage, said she only saw the first light which she too described as cigar-shaped. She viewed the strange sight at her home in Greenwood. Teresa, who will be a sixth-grader, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Warren Owen.

Teresa said the cylindrical light “moved fast and was pretty high.” She commented, “It didn't look like an airplane to me. It looked like a long streak and kept moving about. It didn't make any noise.”

“The first one looked like a cigar in shape and moved faster and was higher than any jet I've ever seen,” said Michael Hughes, who has taken an interest in science since high school. “I watched it fly toward the moon and cut across a bright star before it was gone.”

Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland
An unidentified flying object – or objects – spotted in the sky had thousands of persons and numerous agencies in at least four states baffled.

The general consensus of “experts” was that the object was a weather balloon. But if it was a balloon, no one was able to find out where it came from!

The FAA, which is generally informed on such matters, said it had no reports of any weather balloons being launched that day except one in Tyler, Texas. A spokeman said, however, that the Tyler balloon was launched only a short time before the first UFO report was made in Ohio that morning.

Late that night, the FAA at Columbus said to disregard its earlier information that the object was a weather balloon. It would not comment further. A spokesman at Lockbourne AFB, near Columbus, said the object spotted in the Mideastern states was a satellite. He declined to comment.

A report that the object was “definitely” Venus came from Friend Kierstead, orbit analyst for the Akron-Canton Satellite Tracking Group which traces satellites for the government. Kierstead said the planet had become visible after moving within close range of the sun.

There was speculation by the FAA and research officials at Ohio State University, however, that the object spotted in Akron may not have been the same one seen in other states.

Lockbourne sent up a jet plane to get a closer look at the object, reported by several sources to have been hovering at about 60,000 to 80,000 feet. The pilot reported that he was no closer to the object at 31,000 feet – the highest he went – than when he was on the ground.

Officials at Wright Patterson AFB, near Dayton – home of the Air Force UFO center – said they did not know for sure what the object was or where it came from.

The chief meteorologist at the Columbus Weather Bureau said it appeared as “an inverted flow-through tea bag.” Descriptions by others who watched the object through telescopes ranged from “tier-shaped,” “cigar-shaped,” “bell-shaped,”to “round.” Reports on the color varied widely from white to silver to orange.

Thousands of bewildered persons who saw it telephoned news media, weather bureaus, police officers – jamming switchboards.

July 17, Uruguay, Argentina's
A youth was reported as saying he saw a four-legged object touch down for two minutes in board daylight on a beach just across the River Plate in Uruguay.

He was quoted in Buenos Aires as saying the object shot skywards in a blinding flash after a tug hooted a siren. One of several Uruguayans who claimed to have seen the object on Honda Beach said it had a circular center, with flattened, oval extensions on either side.

A local Roman Catholic review, commenting on the recent spate of strange sightings in Latin America, said if there had been visitors from other worlds one could be glad that they did not appear to harbor sinister intentions.

The description by the Uruguayan tallied with a photograph published in Buenos Aires on the front page of Sunday's tabloid newspaper El Mundo. It was claimed to have been taken as an unidentified flying object hovered over a gas plant in the southern city of Bahia Blanca.

El Mundo said it was submitting the negatives for local scientific investigation.

July 21, Anaheim, California
An Anaheim woman, her husband, and 13-year-old son reported that they saw a round, color-changing UFO in the skies over Orange County.

Mrs. Stephen Pallow said the object was first spotted by her son at 8:55 p.m. The boy raced home from Maxwell Park, where he had been watching an outdoor program, and told his mother he had seen the object.

“I was a little skeptical,” she said, “but I went into the back yard and I saw it too.”

Mrs. Pallow said the object, traveling in a straight line from southeast to northwest, gave off “a white glow, but slowly changed colors.” She indicated it had “arms of light, like rays.”

“It slowly turned yellow-orange, then a bright orange,” she added.

Mrs. Pallow's husband, who returned home in the midst of the 25 minute “UFO watch,” also saw the object, but, she said, “didn't want us to tell anybody – they would think we were crazy.” However, she said, “I'm sure we saw something.”

Mrs. Pallow said she also watched the object through binoculars and it “appeared to be about the size of a nickel” as it moved toward Los Angeles.

“It wasn't a plane, I'm sure,” she said, “because of the change of colors and the fact that it hovered.”

July 22, Saco, Montana
Young Jeff and Tana Kappel were enjoying the warm summer evening and riding their horses around the yard of their home. Jeff called to his mother that he wanted to be helped off the horse.

As she came out of the house she glanced up and noted the sun glinted on something shiny. She saw an object that appeared to be shaped like a gourd or a slightly tipped bowling pin. She dashed into the house for the binoculars and observed the silver-colored object floating around about a quarter-mile high above the ground.

It left no vapor, emitted no sound, and in a few seconds drifted completely out of sight, leaving “an eerie feeling” with Mrs. Kappel.

July 31, August 1-2, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming Unidentified “blips” on the radar screen at the Wichita Weather Bureau had confirmed the presence of UFOs in the Southwest. Visual sightinghs were reported from Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said that Tinker Air Force Base at Oklahoma City was tracking as many as four. Tinker had refused to confirm or deny the report.

John Shockley, a Wichita weatherman, tracked “them” at different times between two and six a.m., “mostly on the south side of the city.” “I don't know what we've got here,” he said. “It looks about the size of a Cessna on the screen.” Altitudes were 6,000 to 9,000 feet.

P.H. Messner, in charge of air traffic control installations for the FAA, said “We have no information on UFOs. I have no reports of any observed on our electronic equipment.”

A spokesman at McConnel confirmed the FAA report, but noted that the FAA radar covers only a 30-mile radius, while the Weather Bureau covers about all of Kansas.

Numerous reports from citizens and law enforcement officials argree on the objects' bright lights. Descriptions of movement and shapes vary.

Deputy Sheriff Everett Tucker, of Wellington, Kansas, said he and his wife saw one about 4:50 a.m., “moving rapidly to the north.” He said a red vapor trailed behind the egg-shaped object.

Sightinghs of four mysterious craft flying in a diamond formation came from Chickasha, Cushing, Shawnee and Chandler, OK. Officers in three patrol cars at Shawnee said they watched the diamond formation shortly after 9 p.m. They said the strange craft moved in a northerly direction, and changed colors from red to white to blue-green, and moved from side to side at times.

Jack Sheets, of Wellington, KS, said he and four other men watched the objects from between 4:50 and 5:30 a.m.

The five were working in the yards of Santa Fe Railroad and watching the sky because of earlier reports concerning flying objects in the area. Sheets recalled four different aircraft “or whatever they were” passing across the sky in intervals of seven or eight minutes.

“The first two were a solid red light, no flashing or anything. They seemed to be at a very high altitude on a steady and even course at an even speed.

“The third was red, and after it passed straight over us, it turned white. The fourth was white from the first sighting until it was gone.

“They all seemed about the same type of movement, and pretty evenly spaced in time. The first was the only one that changed color,” Sheets emphasized.

Police in Dallas said the lights formed two triangular patterns and flashed from red to green to blue-white. They criss-crossed the area from 2:20 am until dawn.

Tower guards at the Colorado State Penitentiary at Canon City, watched a bluish-white light about 20 minutes before it faded. It came back, brighter than before, and disappeared.

Two police officers from Caldwell, Kansas, said they were close enough to a flying saucer “to get a picture.” The two, Dave Lowe and Eddie Roberts, are both rookies on the force.

“They can call me a liar or anything they want but I saw it,” Lowe said. “I used to think all those people were crazy...I saw 'em in the sky myself and still thought I was nuts...but when I got close it was something other than like I've seen made by man and that's all there is to it.” Lowe and Roberts heard reports over the police radio that UFOs were moving in a southerly direction toward Wellington and Caldwell.

The two headed for the Caldwell Airport on the east side of town. They spotted a couple hovering high in the sky, but could not see then clearly.

When the objects disappeared, they went back to sipping coffee and telling each other how absurd people were who said that they could tell definitely that the objects were not stars.

A radio report of a UFO tracked by radar north of Caldwell interrupted the conversation. They saw nothing at first, then Lowe noticed something behind a rise in the ground about 50 yards away. He thought at first it was car headlights.

“It looked like the halo of light a city has at night,” Lowe related. “I jumped up on the car running board to take a closer look and it was bright as a hundred search lights.”

Lowe described it as being white, red and bluish-green in color. It was impossible to separate the colors; they blended together, he said.

“It didn't look at all like what I thought a flying saucer would. It wasn't round and it was much longer than it was wide. Actually, it looked like an egg,” he said. “It was a hundred yards long.”

“After regaining their composure, the two jumped in the squad car and raced after the object to get a closer look. As they pulled onto U.S. 81 and headed east, the object ducked behind a hedge row and they lost sight of it. “When it went behind the hedge row, the darn thing must have turned out the lights so we couldn't follow it,” Lowe said. “Anyway we never saw the thing again.”

Total time the object was seen at close-hand was about three minutes, they said.

“I mentioned several minutes beofre we saw it that I heard an engine running,” Lowe said. “I thought it was an airplane, but we never saw one come in afterwards.”

“It was nothing manmade like I've seen. It might have been something experimental, but I don't think so,” Roberts said.

When the sun came up Monday morning, the pair returned to the field where it was thought the object touched down. The search failed to turn up any evidence that the saucer made a landing.

Some residents of the Justin and Ponder areas of north Texas said they saw a “flying saucer” land near Texas Highway 156 Monday night. However, investigation failed to turn up any evidence of a landing.

August 3, Hennepin and Anoka Counties, Minnesota (near Minneapolis) At 12:25 a.m., law enforcement officers stared at the sky. Reports of UFOs had been received over the last three days in at least eight states. The nation was in the grip of another big saucer flap, similar to the one in 1952. The Air Force tried to brush-off the saucers currently being sighted as stars...only trouble was that the stars they mentioned were not visible in the Northern Hemisphere at the time.

Sky-gazing in the Minneapolis area began as Shorewood Patrolman Bob Force drove along Highway 7 in western Hennepin County. “Don't think I'm nuts or something,” he told the radio dispatcher. “But something funny is going on. I just saw a star pass me up.” Force later elaborated, “It appeared to go alongside me. Then, suddenly it was out in front. You got to see it to believe it.”

For more than two hours afterward, other officers vindicated Force's eyesight, to say nothing of his sanity. Something was up there.

“It bobs like a cork...it dips like a falling star, then stops...it darts...it has a jerky motion...it's traveling northeastward...it's on the horizon...it's at a 20 degree angle...it changes colors...it's got a white glow in the middle, green lights on the sides and a red light on top...it's round...it's wedge-shaped...it's making U-turns...”

Among those calling in was a Blaine patrolman who reported sighting an object just before 1 a.m. Anoka County dispatcher G. R. Van Dusen reacted skeptically. “Say,” Van Dusen said, “Blaine's got an ordinance against flying saucers doesn't it?”

Along Highway 12, in western Hennepin County, within shouting distance of the Wayzata Country Club, stood seven squad cars, doors flung open. Officers had gathered there after Long Lake Police Chief Bill Kearin reported seeing a formation of strange objects.

Hennepin County Sgt. Chet Seviola, who remained dubious to the last, heard of Kearin's sighting and hurried to the scene. “I wanted to catch Bill in the act,” Seviola said. “And there he was, pointing out seven objects in the shape of a cup.”

“It was the Big Dipper. Why, he was even counting headlights on passing cars.”

But Kearin insisted he had sighted phenomena that were neither stars, planets nor headlights. Officers from Spring Park and Wayzata agreed. “Those two over there,” Kearin said, pointing to a pair of heavenly objects that seemed to bob and twinkle in red-and-green. “You can't tell me...”

While Hennepin and Anoka County officials staggered under the mystery of it all, the Ramsey County sherrif's officer was getting no flying object reports whatsoever.

“No sir,” said Patrolman Walter Fowler, the Ramsey County radio dispatcher. “Our men have too many better things to do than chase flying objects.”

August 4, Abilene, Kansas
Don Tenopir, 44, a truck driver from Beatrice, OK., reported that he was buzzed by a flying saucer about 25 miles south of Abilene shortly before 2 a.m.

He gave this account to newsmen:
“I was driving north on Highway 15 about 25 miles south of Abilene. I was carrying a full load of peanuts and was en route to Lincoln, Nebraska. I guess it was about 1:30 a.m., when all of a sudden the lights on my truck went out. Then they came back on again.”

“About this time this thing, saucer, or whatever, went over my truck with a sizzling or wind-like blowing sound. It scared the hell out of me. It seemed to almost touch the cab. Maybe it was 20 feet in the air, and it just swooped down over the road and hovered there not more than 100 feet in front of me.”

“I tell you I was standing on those brakes. I just don't know what was happening. It looked like it was going to fall right in the middle of the road, but it didn't.”

“I got my rig stoppedf and about that time this thing raised up a bit and slowly took off to the west and then headed south. I don't know how long it was there. It seemed longer than 20 seconds, but I was just too damned scared to tell time.”

“This thing looked round to me. I'd guess it was about 14 or 15 feet in diameter and sort of orange colored. This thing was shooting off reddish rays, kind of in spurts. The rays weren't really steady, kind of flashing.”

“The objects appeared to be like a saucer. I'd guess it was about two feet thick and the edge was round. There was a hump, or something like that, in the middle. This hump stuck up about four feet or so. There was a dark spot in the hump, and this might have been a window or something. I just don't know.”


Source: Around And About the Saucer World, 1998, 2016. Used with permission of the author, Rick Hilberg.


Thursday, March 28, 2024