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Classic Mysteries



The Forgotten Cases of the Roaring 20’s



report by: Albert S. Rosales





The Forgotten humanoid and other encounters of the roaring 20’s. During those turbulent times in between the two World Wars, right before the Wall Street Crash and the beginning of the Depression, there were little known and mostly hidden encounters with ‘strangers’ among us.


Figure 1. Typical 'Flappers' of the time.

For various reasons, I suspect mainly because of witness reluctance and faltering memories, many of the encounters reported from 1920 through 1929 were mainly ignored and poorly documented. But there is a core of incidents that appear to mirror what was going to occur in the not too distant future. I will attempt to cover some of the least known incidents reported during the time, not only ‘humanoid’ encounters but other high-strangeness events.

Sometime in 1920 a strange series of events took place in Bass Strait, Victoria, Australia. The following narrative is directly taken from veteran Australian UFO researcher Bill Chalker article: “UFOs sub-rosa down under: The Australian Military & Government role in the UFO controversy.” “The Navy submarine depot ship, the Platypus, was involved in the search for a missing schooner, the Amelia J., in Bass Strait. Mystery lights, thought at the time to be ‘evidently rockets,’ were observed. Two aircraft left the flying training school and aircraft depot at Point Cook to join in the investigation. One was piloted by a Major Anderson and the other by Captain W. J. Stutt – an instructor for the NSW Government Aviation School at Richmond…Stutt and his mechanic, Seargent Dalzell, were last seen by Major Anderson flying into a large cloud. Their plane and the schooner were never found.”


Figure 2. Australian researcher Bill Chalker.

Interesting account, what were those lights reported during the search for the schooner, what kind of a cloud was it that the search aircraft fly into and never came out? I suspect we will never know these answers. The area (Bass Strait) is a well known area for Australian anomaly researchers, where UFOs, strange disappearances and other high strangeness incidents have been frequently reported. This case is what I call perhaps a ‘permanent abduction’.

According to Ukrainian researcher, Dr. Anton Anfalov (he quotes UFO Liaisons of the Universe, Lugansk, Ukraine) in the year 1920 during the bloody Russian Civil War and somewhere not specified in the Crimean Peninsula a strange event took place:

A mobile Red Army group was moving along a local road in the rugged mountains of the Crimean Peninsula. There were a total of five soldiers including one woman. They were moving in a cart wagon and were armed with rifles and “Maksim” machine guns. Suddenly they noticed a lighted area on the side of the road and then stopped near the road prepared their weapons and began to check the area. They soon came upon a strange dome-shaped object on the ground and several tall figures walking near the object. The figures were described as dressed in a kind of armored suit, resembling chainmaille. The figures were about 2 meters in height, or taller. Thinking that these were foreign enemies the group prepared to fire upon the strangers with their Maksim machine guns but were suddenly blinded by a bright flash of light and knocked down losing consciousness. When they returned to their senses again, the object and the strange figures had disappeared.

Another interesting event, one that it would have been classified as a CE3 in modern ‘Ufological’ parlance, the action taken in the part of the unknown entities was apparently a self defense action. It is unfortunate that there is not a more precise location provided for this extremely high strangeness event.


Figure 3. Luminous entities

According to veteran French researchers Joel Mesnard and Jean Marie Bigorne sometime during the summer of 1920 near the town of Nontron in the Dordogne region of France the following peculiar event took place: On a Saturday evening, between 2300 and midnight, a group of young people was returning from a dance when they saw in the sky, above a little wood, a strange spectacle; a group of beings of small stature about in the air, and giving off “musical sounds.” The young people could see their little legs move about, and noticed that surrounding the figures were a number of luminous balls that gave to the group a “fiery aspect.” According to the accounts of two of the group, Louise and Marie Grasset, they felt no fear at the strange sight.

It appears to have been an encounter with a sort of luminous and flying entity. The ‘musical sounds’ reported is interesting as there have been many similar reports throughout the years in which ‘musical tones’ have been connected with the appearance of UFOs and strange entities.

According to published reports in the UFO electronic magazines, UFO Roundup Vo. 7 # 28 and Filer’s Files (unknown volume) a ‘classic’ close encounter of the third kind took place in September 1920 outside of Bethel North Carolina. The following is a summary of events:


Figure 4. Typical disc shaped UFO.

During the local cotton harvest 14-year laborer Nicora B. and her family were out in the fields plucking the white bolls from the cotton plants and stuffing them in their trailing tote sacks when they saw something large flying over the farm. They described it as an object resembling two pie pans placed together lip to lip. The silvery object zigzagged across the sky and came to rest in the field in front of the witnesses. Two little bald white men got out and pointed short stick-like implements at them. They were the size of little boys but their faces seemed older. One of the little bald men began digging and poking in the dirt with something like a shovel and put some dirt into a bag. He then took a small plant and placed it in the bag also. Both little men then backed up one after the other and entered the pie-pan shaped object, still pointing the sticks at them as they walked backwards. Presently the UFO took off and zigzagged back in the direction it came.

In later decades hundreds if not thousands of similar events were to be reported, supposed aliens collecting samples from the ground, also humanoids carrying stick-like implements.

Like I mentioned earlier I will be covering different types of encounters with all sorts of humanoids during this time period, not all necessarily connected with a ‘UFO.’ The following case is an example.

According to the Fortean Times website (1993) sometime in 1921 at an unspecified location in Hertfordshire, England the following encounter took place:

During daytime a man was driving down a rural road with nothing going on, when he spotted a roadside tree stump up ahead. Sitting on the stump was a small (18” high) round-face being with a pointed cap which slouched over to one side. Before being able to secure a better look, the being was no longer there.

Of course this case can be classified as an encounter with a fairy, leprechaun, goblin, etc. Is there a different between this sort of encounter and the landing of a disc-shaped craft from which several short humanoids emerge and begin collecting soil samples? At first sight the answer is no, but maybe they are more similar in nature than we think.

One of the earliest abduction type-scenario-incidents was reported by several French Ufologists, among them, Joel Mesnard and Jean-Marie Bigorne. This case was said to have taken place in the French city of Marseille in the Bouches du Rhone region. It apparently took place one afternoon in the summer of 1921. The following is a condensed narrative of the event:

“In 1921---a very hot year---I was playing one day among the hills of the North Canal. I was eight years old and I love to lose myself in the moonlike landscape made by excavation, and from the First World War. Suddenly, two beings, wearing a sort of pliable helmet, literally leaped out from between some acacia trees. Without preliminaries, they dragged me toward what I thought was an oddly shaped tank. They took me up into the machine, without my being able to resist. I suddenly began to cry; and I don’t know whether that moved them, but after a while an opening appeared in the ceiling of the cabin, and in a few seconds I found myself on the ground. However, I had to walk most of the afternoon until I found myself near the road I had left five minute before. When I got home that night, my parents treated me like a little liar, and no one believed me. I can now hardly add much detail to the machine, or its cabin. Doubtless, I was too astounded. I only remember two details; there were square or at least rectangular portholes. The cabin had a kind of soft couch that I sat on. I seem to recall that their helmets appeared metallic. I don’t recall any anatomical details, except that the two beings were very tall and very slender.”

A bizarre tale to be sure and a rather crude abduction scenario; obviously the young witness was let go by his strange abductors, but there are no further details available.

From veteran UFO/Bigfoot researcher, Peter Guttilla from his book ‘The Bigfoot File’ we have the following event said to have taken place one night in August of 1921 in the area of Mount Shasta, California. It includes some interesting details, however brief the narrative is: Elberta Payne was lying sick at her grandmother’s home when she saw two large black “furry creatures” with large eyes, watching her through the bedroom window. Almost immediately she recovered from what was thought to have been typhoid fever.

The apparent spontaneous healing of the witness following the encounter is interesting to say the least since we have hundreds of similar events involving alleged healings after UFO encounters.


Figure 5. Flying humanoid.

Renowned international researcher Jacques Vallee introduced us to one of the earliest reports of a flying humanoid in connection with a UFO. The event reportedly took place at five o’clock in the morning on February 22, 1922 in an area near Hubbell, Nebraska:

A hunter, William C. Lamb, was following mysterious tracks when he heard a crackling noise followed by a high-pitched sound and realized that a circular object was flying overhead. He hid behind a tree and saw this object, now brilliantly lighted, land in a hollow. Soon afterward a “magnificent” flying creature at least 8 ft tall appeared that landed like an airplane and left traces in the snow. It passed by the tree and disappeared; Lamb followed the tracks for 5 miles before giving up.

Stunning case, it was later reported that Mr. Lamb was involved in other encounters and appeared to have been a ‘repeater’ witness.

Another very high strangeness case allegedly took place during another civil war, this time the Irish Civil War, and it is said to have taken place one early morning in April of 1922, in County Donegal, Ireland. According to the INTCAT listing quoting the Watford and South Herts Post of April 30 1964, this is a brief summary of what allegedly took place:

During the Irish civil war, soldier Lawrence Bradley came to a cave, the foliage at the entrance of which was burned. Soldiers sheltering inside said they had been awakened in the early morning by a ‘whirring’ sound, and fired at an object. The object fired jets of fire at the cave. As the soldiers emerged the object, circular and metallic, was beginning to ascend.

Strange indeed, did the exhausted soldiers perhaps mistake a tank (early version) for a more unconventional craft? However, the fact that it was reportedly ‘ascending’ does not make it a mundane object.

From veteran researchers Ron Westrum and Ted Bloecher we have a more ‘typical’ (if that is possible) CE3 event from the summer of 1922 said to have taken place around 22:00 in the city of Detroit, Michigan:

Mrs. Irma Hinz was walking home from a movie with a young friend when the two teenagers saw a large disk shaped object hovering over a vacant lot on Dragoon Avenue. The sky suddenly lit up and the object descended to the height of a large tree and slowly revolved as it hovered. Around the perimeter of the bottom of the object were rectangular windows, lit from within; seated at these windows were approximately 20 entities that were seen only from the shoulders/neck up. They were bald headed, with eyes set close together, and they were staring intently at the young couple. No other features were observed. Mrs. Hinz and her date watched for several minutes, but left quickly when they became frightened. Although Mrs. Hinz told her parents at the time, her mother tended to believe it was a “vision” of some kind. She recalls her date’s name as William O’Brien.

According to Len Wells from the Evansville Courier there was another typical close encounter of the third kind one afternoon in June of 1923 near the town of Mount Erie, Illinois. The witness was a 10-year old boy named Norman Massie and the following is a summary of the incident:

Norman Massie was 10-year old when he went out to take his horses into a pasture. As he led his horses through the gate he noticed an object with lights all around it nearby. He walked to within 50 feet of the object and noticed five men onboard the craft. He described the men as about 4 ft tall with blond hair. As he got closer he could hear them talking. One of the men sat on a chair, and the others called him the “Commander”. The other men made trips back and forth into the object. Massie then overhead one of the men tell the commander that the repairs had been made. The object was described as metallic and standing on three legs. It had a dome on top with holes in it. The top of the object resembled melted glass. The object then rose up and hovered and the tripod legs telescoped up into the belly of the craft, which went straight up then shot away towards the west at high speed.

Several Spanish Ufologists, including Antonio Ribera, unearthed a very strange incident said to have occurred one afternoon in 1924 near the small town of Quero in La Mancha region, Spain. The incident involves a lone humanoid without the presence of a UFO, but using some kind of ‘apparatus’ in order to get around:


Figure 6. Depiction of humanoid maneuvering over a field.

The witness was standing near a local rural church when he saw a short humanoid figure about 1.20 meters in height wearing a tight-fitting green colored coverall. It had its arms and legs in a rigid position and approached to within 2 meters of the witness. The humanoid seemed to have both feet together and resting on some type of circular platform that apparently propelled him above the ground. On his hands, he carried an object or control panel that seemed to operate the floating platform. The humanoid, which had human features, disappeared silently into some distant fields.

The late and groundbreaking Ufologist John Keel (John Alva Kiehl) reported a bizarre possible crash and retrieval case which involved strange characters, perhaps precursors of the modern day M.I.B. The incident is said to have occurred one afternoon in May of 1924 near the small town of Gem, West Virginia:

A farmer outside Gem in monster haunted Braxton County reported seeing an ‘airplane’ crash in a forest. Planes were a very rare sight in those days especially in West Virginia, and a crashing plane was big news. According to the farmer, the plane was very odd in that it didn’t seem to have any wings, didn’t make any noise and seemed unusually large. “As big as a battleship” is the way the farmer described it. A party of men, including the local sheriff and local newsman John Cole systematically searched the woods. Within hours they found the wreck in a small clearing. According to Cole: “We weren’t the first ones there, though. There were already five or six men in the clearing. Some of them were dressed in black business suits, neckties and all, and that seemed damned silly in that neck of the woods”. Others were dressed in coveralls of a funny color---some kind of very shiny material. They were talking among themselves in a rapid-fire foreign language when they found them. They got real excited when they saw the search party. The men in coveralls ran into the wreck---like they were trying to hide. Some of the men in the search party were carrying guns and one of them said to Cole, “By God, they’re spies!” and he raised his gun. The strangers were all small, just a little over five feet tall, and they all looked like Orientals, with high cheekbones, slanted eyes, and dark skin. One of them spoke English. He told the men nobody was hurt, that everything was all right. He said he would call on the sheriff later and make out a complete report. There wasn’t much they could do. No crime had been committed. Nobody was hurt.

According to Cole while he was looking around he spotted a ‘little thingamajig” on the ground. He picked it up and decided to keep it. He doesn’t know why he just didn’t turn it over to one of “foreigners”. He put it in his pocket. They all finally went away, leaving the foreigners to fuss with their contraption. It didn’t look like much of a flying machine. It face, Cole didn’t think it could fly at all. It was like a fuselage of a modern plane, with windows and all. But it didn’t have any wings, tail or propellers. And like the farmer said, it was mighty big. According to Cole at least seventy five feet long, it filled the whole clearing.

He went back home in Weston and went right to bed. He was pretty tired from all the day’s hiking. About three a. m. somebody started pounding on his door. He got up and looked and there was an army officer standing there. He was dressed in one of those broad-brimmed hats they used to wear, with those leg wrappings and all. It was a U.S. Army uniform, but except for his clothes he looked just like those foreigners from the airplane. Slant eye, dark skin, but he was maybe a little taller. ‘You picked up something today,’ he said. ‘We need it back.’ Cole was half asleep and at first he couldn’t think what he meant. Then he remembered the metal ‘thingamajig” It was still in his coat pocket. Cole went and got it. “Is this what you mean?” He asked him. He didn’t answer; he just grabbed it and walked off without a word. He didn’t, seem to have a horse or a car. Cole shuffled back to bed. But the next day he started wondering about it. How had the supposed officer managed to track him down? A couple of days later he went back to those woods and found that clearing. It was empty. The grass and bushes were all crushed down where the airplane had been but there was no other sign of anything or anybody. After the Army ‘officer’ came by Cole figured that maybe it was a secret Army deal of some kind and he thought it was better to leave it alone.

Another report describing a ‘little man’ carrying a sort of stick was reported by author and researcher Graham J. McEwan in his book “Mystery animals of Great Britain and Ireland.” Said to have occurred in Cranagh, County Carlow, Ireland one afternoon in November of 1924, the following is a summary of the events:

A young girl was standing by a farmyard gate tending some cows when she saw a little man appear from behind one of the cows. He walked quickly and tapped one of the cows gently on the nose with a stick he was carrying. He walked by the witness, staring at her, and then walked straight into a bank of solid earth and vanished. He was described as four foot tall, young looking, and wearing a black cap, a red coat, and tight trousers.


Figure 7. Typical abduction scenario.

According to the Canadian UFO flyer ‘Cuforn Bulletin May-June 1988” an apparent early abduction incident was reported from Port Burwell, Ontario, Canada one night during the summer of 1925: The five-year old witness woke up and felt compelled to go outside into the backyard; she then saw a large “train-like” craft approaching. It was emitting a loud whining sound. A light approached the witness and she recalled floating up into the craft. Several small gray beings with large eyes, set far apart took her gown off. The beings were slender with whitish gray skin, large heads, and bulging eyes and were wearing tight fitting satin like outfits. She was later floated up and apparently examined with various instruments. She was eventually released.

This is apparently a very early abduction event describing what appeared to be the typical modern day ‘gray’ humanoids. Later that same summer the same witness reported another similar incident at the same location but involving somewhat different appearing beings:

The witness was lying on the grass outside when she saw a flat silvery disc land nearby; several beings with wrinkled yellow skin came out. She was then apparently taken inside the craft and given a ride. The disc flew at a very high altitude and the witness was returned later.

According to the Swedish UFO publication UFO-Aktuellt 3/1983 page 39, sometime between September 20 through September 30 1925, between 630 a.m. and 630 a.m. a strange encounter which I classified as of high strangeness, occurred, and the following is the summary of the event:

On an early Sunday morning the 8-year old witness had gotten up and gone out into the surrounding area near his home when he found himself on a small country lane. He had no definite goal. It was already bright and the weather was fine. When he came down to a bridge that crossed a creek he looked up out over the area and saw something reminiscent of two deep saucers facing each other. This phenomenon was big as a car and blackish gray in color, stood on four legs in a field, which a few days earlier had been harvested for potatoes.

He doesn’t know how long he watched the strange object when he saw something that looked like a rope ladder being hauled into a gap in the craft, the legs were retracted and the ring that went around the object began rotating around faster and faster, and the craft rose slowly to the side with a faint whirring noise. He did not see any living creatures. He was then seized by a strange fear and felt uncomfortable. He ran quickly home and told his parents what he had seen, but was met with skepticism. He also spoke about it to his best friend and her mother but was ridiculed.

The rope ladder hanging down from an open hatch implies that there were apparently entities inside the object either getting ready to exit when interrupted by the witness or just returning to their craft.

In a 1984 article in ‘Fate’ magazine, authors Rob McGregor and Trish Janeshutz recount an extremely bizarre and improbable tale occurring sometime in the year 1926 near the location of Ancud, southern Chile. Without going into any speculations I will present the following narrative from the article:

The 18-year old brother of Marcelino Zaldivia was sleeping one night on the porch when he disappeared and was not found until Easter week of 1976 when Marcelino, feeling nostalgic about his lost brother visited their old home on the banks of the Rio Pudeto. There seated in the living room and dressed as he’d been half a century earlier, was his brother, now old and evidently demented. When Marcelino asked where he’d been all those years, the man replied only that he’d been on a ‘boat’ and implored him not to ask anything more. When a woman named Elena Vera Guerrero asked him about it, he shook his head and said, “They hear everything.”

This area of southern Chile has been the scene of numerous other bizarre and similar tales. Whatever happened to the unfortunate 18-year old perhaps will never be known. I do wonder who he meant when he said, “They hear everything.”

Seasoned Polish researchers Bronislaw Rzepecki and Marcin Mioduszewski provided me with an interesting case from the area of Ujazd, Poland, said to have occurred one afternoon in September of 1926. The case both involved a disc and related entities:

The witness (Zofia) was alone in a meadow grazing three cows when she suddenly turned around and saw three gray discs (about 2 meters in diameter) hovering just above the ground and three strange entities standing in front of them. There was total silence. All three objects had something resembling opened doors. The humanoids were less than 120-130 cm tall, maybe about 80 cm, and wore dark green suits and something like belts or ropes around their waists. She was unable to see any hair or facial features as the humanoids stood about 100 meters away staring at her. Very scared she began running away. She briefly turned around and everything was gone.


Figure 8. Occupied flying disc.

From French researchers Joel Mesnard & Michel Morel Seythoux we get a brief summary mentioned in the UFO magazine FSR Vol. 37 # 1 of a case which would have been labeled as a CE3 type ‘A’ (occupants seen within UFO) using modern UFO research classifications:

Location. La Combe De Morbier, Jura, France Date: Winter 1926 , Time: evening

A woodcutter reported seeing a large brightly lit sphere hovering at treetop level, several figures, human-like in appearance could be seen inside the object. These apparently ignored the witness.

Quoting Italian UFO researcher Paolo Fiorino in UFO Universe another CE3 type ‘A’ incident was reported sometime in 1927, one morning, in Corbola, Rovigo, Italy:

One morning while a 12-year old girl was going to fetch drinking water at the River Po, she saw a shiny and round object come from the sky. It later crashed in the water seven meters away from her. After a couple of minutes, the witness noticed a big bubble in the water and later the object resurfaced and flew away disappearing into the sky. The girl had the chance to observe the interior of the object and saw a little man who seemed to be seated because he was only visible from the neck and above. The facial features were human looking and he was not wearing a helmet. The object, which emitted a hissing noise, had a diameter of 2-3 meters.

Researcher and author Jacques Vallee illustrates another similar case in his book “Confrontations, a scientist’s search for alien contact.” The following is a summary of this very interesting case: Location. Near Yakima Washington

Date: late April 1928 , Time: 1600 Harry Dillon was driving along an unpaved country road when as he reached the top of a slight rise and saw an object slowly coming into view. The object was described as resembling a metallic hexagon with a dome on top, olive drab in color. The witness could see rivets along a vertical section and a two by three foot window set in a metallic frame. In the window, he could see the upper torso of a man dressed in a dark blue uniform. The man had a dark complexion and was totally human-like. He looked intently in the direction of the witness’s car, and then the object rotated, flew across the road, and shot away at terrific speed.


Figure 9. depiction of entities seen at Bolton.

Long time English researcher Norman Oliver shared with us in Quest UFO Magazine Vol. 11 # 4 a humanoid sans UFO encounter said to have occurred on November of 1928 one late evening in Bolton, Lancashire, England: A young boy, Henry Thomson, playing with a gang of friends was running through a dark alley when he saw in the backyard of a house three strange figures peering into a lighted living room. The central figure was tallest; it turned and looked at the witness. He mumbled at the other two and they all turned. A wide black eyepiece divided down the center by a ribbed silver piece covered the face of the tall entity. All three appeared to be wearing inflatable rubber suits with dark boots. On their heads were transparent dome-like helmets. Tubes came from these and joined tanks that were on their backs. They had pale heads shaped like light bulbs, slit-like eyes, scarcely any nose, and no visible mouth. One made a strange noise, and all three began to move toward the boy. He ran away from the area in terror.

One of the strangest incidents of this roaring decade was said to have taken place one morning sometime in 1929 in Hertford, England. The incident is summarized by researchers and authors Janet and Colin Bord in “Modern Mysteries of Britain”. It definitely involves a humanoid and an ‘unorthodox’ conveyance to say the least: A sister, 5, and brother, 8, were playing in the garden one morning, at that date the road was a lane, with just two pairs of houses, one of which was theirs, and behind the houses there was an orchard. As they played, they heard the sound of an engine---years later the sister would likened it to a quiet version of a trainer plane. Her brother and her looked up and saw, coming over the garden fence from the orchard, this small aeroplane (of biplane type) which swooped down and landed briefly, almost striking a dustbin. It remained there for possibly just a few seconds and then took off and was gone, but in that short the girl had a perfect view of the tiny biplane but also of a perfectly proportioned tiny pilot wearing a leather flying helmet, who waved to them as he took off. Neither she nor her brother spoke of the strange sight until years later. She estimated the wing-span of the tiny aircraft at no more than 12-15 inches, with the tiny pilot in perfect proportion thereto.


Figure 10. Larger version of a 'real' trainer biplane.

A more ‘mundane’ incident (if there is such a word in the world of humanoid encounters) was given to me by veteran Brazilian researcher Antonio Faleiro from Passa Tempo Minas Gerais. It consists of brief but very interesting details of an incident said to have occurred in 1929 (no specific month) in the town of Paraguaco, Minas Gerais, Brazil: One night a large shiny white metallic craft with several window-like apertures was seen on the ground. Two giant humanoid figures about 2.50 meters in height stood next to the object. These wore silvery outfits and brown boots and gloves. No other information.

In his excellent book “When saucers came to Earth,” Italian researcher and author Maurizio Verga gives us the following very ‘high strangeness’ report:

Location. Roccagloriosa, Salerno, Italy

Date: summer 1929 , Time: 1400

A girl was working in a field when she looked up and saw a stationary ball of white light in the sky. This then descended vertically, stopping just a few centimeters above the ground, and while descending the ball greatly dimmed creating a sort of “opening” in the center of the sphere. After 5 or 10 seconds, a female figure emerged from the opening wearing sumptuous black garments, “like those from the 19th century”. Inside of the ball, 2 or 3 small beings moved slowly and peered outward. The female figure walked toward the witness, without her feet touching the ground. Thereafter, she turned left and was lost in some trees. The girl was frightened and made the sign of the cross. She then ran to call her father. When he arrived at the landing site, he smelled the fragrance of roses.

There seems to be a combination of unusual factors in this case. The female entity could have been interpreted as a type of ‘Marian’ vision, the small beings unfortunately are not described, but in modern terms they could represent ‘aliens’. The fragrance of roses at the site is also interesting, which tips the balance to the Marian vision hypothesis. Whatever took place was definitely out of the ordinary.

According to French Canadian UFO researcher Henri Bourdeleau, on or about June 15 1929 at Fermeneuve, Quebec, Canada what appears to have been a close encounter of the third kind took place:

Louis Brosseau, riding home to Fermeneuve, saw on a hillside a sort of black “cloud” with a yellowish light coming from within. Approaching on foot to within 150 ft, he saw it to be a dark object on the ground; he could indistinctly see, in the darkness, 4 or 5 small “yellowish” colored men running around in a 20-foot radius. The dark object rose and passed over him at about 50 mph, “purring like a milk separator,” with a rush of air; coming from it he heard two voices as if in argument. The object was about 50 ft in diameter, with windows “lit like the moon,” and with black protuberances 3 ft apart all around the circumference.

Quoting an entry on the NUFORC site (National UFO reporting center) we learn of an alleged incident said to have taken place one afternoon on July 5 1929 near Burns, Oregon:

The witnesses were traveling east of town climbing up through a cut in the rim rocks when an object, very slowly flew over the top of the car, about 50 ft above the rim rock. The object stopped and through a transparent window the witnesses could see two completely human-like figures that appeared to be pointing down at them using their arms and hands. One of the witnesses stepped out of the car but his mother demanded that he get back in. He stood on the running board observing the craft, which was two tones of brown. The craft, which had windows in the middle section, hovered for about 40 seconds emitting a soft hum. One of the figures then moved to another window and the craft suddenly accelerated and was gone in the blink of an eye.

Russian researcher and author Aleksey K. Priyma in his book “UFOs witnesses to the unknown” mentions another close encounter case that allegedly took place in the Pestovskiy area in the Novgorod region Russia, one day in August of 1929. It again involved an object with occupants seen inside through a clear or glass-like dome:

17-year old Anna Petrovna Poletayeva was walking on a road on her way to visit her parents. The road passed next to Gusevskoye Lake and as she glanced at the lake she noticed a flying craft hovering above the lake. The object was round, small, without wings. Its lower part was yellow-reddish in color, resembling copper. The upper part was a glassy cupola. The glass from the cupola was joined to the lower part by large “copper” bolts. The UFO hovered about 15 meters above the water. Anna could see two small sized “people” inside the glassy cupola---one male and the other female. They were dressed in gray tight-fitting suits. Both were smiling, looking at the witness. Their faces were very much like ordinary humans. Feeling initial fear she panicked and ran from the area, then stumbled and injured her elbow. She looked back and the object was still hovering in the same place.

I will finish my case summaries with an incident reported by Greek researchers C. Trantafyllou and Homer Carajas of an incident said to have taken place one midnight during August of 1929 in the village of Krini in Chalkidiki, Greece:

Theocharis Moustakas was carrying flour in his cart, returning home after the grinding of wheat at Krini mill. Suddenly he saw an object like a “parachute” (semi spherical) landed on a nearby field and three “little people” speaking a very curious language between them. They were dressed in white clothing with white hoods and their skin was also white. Near them was a fence and the small men repeatedly jumped over it with ease. The witness was terrified and went to the village running. Some of the villagers told him that he had seen “devils” while others laughed at him.

Of course, there were many other incidents and strange encounters during the roaring 20’s, I could not have possibly include them all. I hope I was able to chose the most interesting and perplexing cases. The fact is that whoever or whatever these entities are, they have been with us for decades before the so-called modern era of encounters began on June 24 1947. Many of these ‘ancient’ or like some like to say ‘pre-Arnold’ cases are mirror images of modern cases and were mere glimpses of things to come. Please feel free to contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for additional information or if you have any questions.

Sincerely, Albert S. Rosales, April 20 2013


Sunday, December 08, 2024