Classic Mysteries—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, August 2019
HYNEK FOUND 1969 ILLINOIS CLOSE ENCOUNTER CASE SIGNIFICANT
by: Rick Hilberg
When he was winding down his association with the Air Force as one of its scientific advisors on UFOs, Dr. J. Allen Hynek found a 1969 multiple witness case from the Palatine-Lake Zurich area of Illinois worthy of his personal investigation. He was even quoted by the press as saying, "You have to conclude from talking to these people that they are either badly mistaken or that they really did see an unusual object in the sky."
The object, sighted by several persons in separated areas, was reported sighted on May 12. The first to report sighting the UFO were two teenagers named Greg Lucht and Alan Prouty, who spotted the object after 9:30 p.m. in their car on Illinois 53 near Dundee Road. Lucht said that his first impression of the object was that it could have been a beacon atop a radio tower, and that a flash sighted was a bird being electrocuted on the wires.
His opinion changed when he drove past a clump of trees and got a good look at the object. He described it as looking like a World War I British helmet with a concave indentation in the center of the underside. This indentation had a large light on it, he said. The light was reported to have gone off and on a number of times. The object also nosed down once and from the front it appeared oval with three large lights ( described as "headlights" by the young men ) which appeared on the forward section of the UFO. Smaller red and white lights were spaced about three-quarters of the way around the rim of the UFO, and were reported to have blinked on and off also.
The teens were so upset over seeing this weird nocturnal visitor that they drove to the Prouty home a short distance away, and went on the roof of the house to get a better look at it. "We were pretty upset, " Lucht said. "We had to lie down on the roof to keep from falling off because it came so close." At this time they noticed that the strange object made a humming noise that would rise and fall in pitch, seemingly in a regular pattern. The youths also noted that a dog in the vicinity began barking when the object was in view.
The UFO was also spotted by Morton Konlon, who owned a horse stable in Lake Zurich. Konlon said that he first sighted the UFO sometime between 9 and 10 p.m. with two other witnesses. At his stable he watched it as it flew around flashing its lights at about eight second intervals. Konlon reported that the UFO had red lights and that at a distance it sounded something like a prop plane, but close up it had a jet-like sound when it was overhead. He could not report making out any definite shape in the darkness.
After comparing drawings made of the object ( see sketch made after Alan Prouty's original which would not reproduce ) Dr. Hynek believed the object may have been about fifty feet in diameter.
Source: Rick Hilberg, UFO Magazine Summer 1969.
