Alternate Perceptions Magazine, March 2026
The Saucer Files
A Northern Ohio UFO Casebook - V
By: Rick Hilberg
1977
Rose Melega of South Euclid was watching television at about 8:00 p.m. on March 22 when her neighbor Dorothy Barkan called. "She said she was talking on the phone and looking out the window at something bright and blinking in the sky," Mrs. Melega said.
"It wasn't a star - it couldn't be. I had to look between branches to see it, so I told Dorothy I was going to put on my coat and go out."
Mrs. Melega watched the strange object for about five minutes before it disappeared in the west.
"It just seemed to be stationary, and it was just huge compared to the stars. I can't say how high it was, but it was much lower than the stars." The object grew to a brilliant brightness, and then dimmed, she reported.
"It was doing that over and over again. Then I came in and told my husband. When I went back out, it had dropped down quite a bit. Then it would go completely dark, then come back again."
She described it as disk- shaped with an antenna on top. "I can't believe it was a star, and it couldn't be a planet. You don't see planets move."
1978
A strange object with red and white flashing lights was reported hovering above the Perry Monument on South Bass Island in Lake Erie, near Fremont on January 3.
A coastguardsman from the Marblehead Coast Guard Station viewed the object with his unaided eyes as well as binoculars. The FAA's Oberlin air traffic control center reported there were no aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting.
On June 28 at 11:00 p.m. fourteen residents on Franklin Church Road in Richland County saw a bright yellow light hovering in the sky for about 30 minutes. The light then dropped below the skyline for a few seconds, and then it rose back up and dimmed, as if taking off. Officials at the Mansfield airport could not explain the event.
Richland County was also being plagued by reports of a seven- to nine-foot-tall creature seen in the hilly wooded area around Mohican State Park. Called "Bighead" by residents, the creature was reported to have red bulging eyes and a head as big as a farm tractor tire.
On July 18 at 9:40 p.m. Mr. and Mrs. Milton Guth and their son and daughter all saw a huge oval lighted object from their home in Lyndhurst. Mrs. Guth was passing by a window inside the house when she was surprised to see "very bright white and red lights with a blue flicker outside, not far from our house. I immediately ran outside to see the strange object, which was moving from north to south.
"We stared in amazement while it seemed to have paused, hovering over a neighbor's house two doors away. It seemed to be higher than tree top (a tree in her back yard).
"I was amazed to see so many flashing bright lights, and the bottom lights were red and square in shape. It paused over the house and spined rapidly out of sight. We viewed it approximately 30 seconds in the back yard and 30 seconds in the front yard," Mrs. Guth said.
A young woman (name in our files) was startled to see a huge boomerang shaped object while driving between Clauge and Columbia Roads on Detroit Avenue in Westlake on August 23 between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m.
Glancing at the object, she thought at first that it was an aircraft of some sort but then noticed that the object wasn't moving. She described four white lights spaced evenly on the underside of the "boomerang" that to her seemed brighter than streetlights. She also described what appeared to be some sort of opening or "door" on the underside of the thing.
The witness then became scared and drove away. After gaining her composure she went back to the scene to have another look, but by that time the strange object had vanished.
On July 4 at about 10:30 p.m. four persons who were watching a neighborhood fireworks display on Bancroft Road in Cleveland, observed a star-like object moving at an apparent rate faster than a normal aircraft.
The object was first noticed in the southwest portion of the sky, at an elevation of from 70 to 90 degrees. The UFO was moving swiftly towards the northeast, where it was lost from view after about one minute.
One of the witnesses who observed the thing through binoculars stated that the object was delta-shaped and a metallic gold in color with a red "beacon" light in the center. The witness further stated that through the binoculars the light was so bright that he had to put down the instrument, as his eyes began to become irritated.
At 9:00 p.m. on July 24 four persons in the South Euclid area reported seeing a large round object, flat on the bottom with some sort of dome on top, traveling from west to south. The witnesses described the object as being a dull silver in color on the bottom and seemingly spinning or wobbling as it slowly moved over their area. The UFO was in sight from five to ten minutes and seemed to be slowly gaining altitude until it was finally lost to sight.
A police officer from the Cleveland suburb of University Heights was driving eastbound on Euclid Avenue in a business section of Willoughby after getting off duty for the day. At 1:05 a.m. on October 30, there was very little traffic on the street, allowing the witness to expect a quiet and uneventful drive to his destination. Suddenly, the placid drive was interrupted by the sight of a large unlighted hemispherical object directly above and in front of his car. The object seemed to be illuminated by the reflected light from the car and the streetlights on the roadway, and looked to be a dull gray in color. The witness was sure that the UFO was definitely solid, and not any sort of atmospheric phenomena or reflection.
Since the object was also traveling toward the east, the witness increased his speed to attempt to keep pace with it. He estimated that it was flying at a speed of 60 miles per hour, and that it was keeping a stable altitude.
After keeping pace for somewhat less than a minute, the witness was fast approaching a freeway intersection that had some amount of traffic, so he was forced to slow his car to a safer speed. It was at this time that he lost sight of the object due to his slower speed and the fact that the intersection was brightly illuminated, and seemed to "blot out" the object.
All in all the witness said that he was quite shaken by his experience and had never seen anything like it before.
