Number 98

"We tell it as it is"

SKYLOOKThe UFO Monthly

$1.00

January, 1976

OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF AfC/F'OA// MUTUAL UFO NETWORK, INC.

Mushrooms have, in one way or another, been a part of a Another such case, not verified, but interesting, has come tonumber of UFO cases involving landings for several years. our attention from Argentina. The story begins on page 12.

Founded 1967

SKYLOOKThe UFO Monthly2ti Ktlpewooil DriveQuincy. I l l inois ti2:U)l

Dwight ConnellyKdi l . - i r

Carolyn ConnellyBiiMru-ss M; i tuner

Walter II. AndrusDin-dor of Ml ' i - 'ON

Ted Blot-Cher!ltim;moi(l/Oc(jupunt Cases

Joseph M. BrillK i i i l n n ; ; ! AssisUint

The Rev. Dr. Barry DowningReligion and UFOs

Ann DruffelCal i forn ia Report

Lucius ParishBooks, Periodicals, History

Marjorie FishExtraterrestrial Life

Stan GordonCreatures & UFO's

Gary GraberAn 1st

Richard HallCommentator

Mark HerbstrittAstronomy

Rosetta HolmesPromotion/Publicity

Bob Kirkpatrick

Ted PhillipsUFO Landing Traces

David A. SchrothSt. Louis/Mass Media

John F. SchuesslerUFO Propulsion

Norma E. ShortEditor-Publisher Emeritus

Len Stringf ieldEditorial Assistant

Editor's ColumnI am very pleased to announce

that veteran UFO investigatorand writer Len Stringfield isjoining SKYLOOK as an editorialassistant, further enhancingwhat most observers feel is thebest staff on any UFO magazinein the world.

Len has contributed severalreports in the past as a fieldinvestigator for MUFON. Currentplans call for him to write aby-lined column each month inwhich he pieces together a num-ber of reports, news items, andcomments. Hopefully, he willalso find time to occasionallywork on a feature article whichrequires more than the usualamount of work, thus furtherlightening the editor's load.

Len is no stranger to UFOpublications, having publishedand edited the monthly newslet-ter ORBIT from 1953 to 1957(with a paid circulation of2500). During these years Lenwas director of an internation-al UFO research group known asCRIFO (Civilian Research, In-terplanetary Flying Objects),the largest research group op-erating at that time.

Also during the 1953-1957period, Len worked in coopera-tion with the Air Defense Com-mand of the U.S. Air Force, in-vestigating and reporting UFOactivity.

In 19S7 he published a paper-back book entitled IMSIDESAUCER POST, 3-0 BLUE, whichreviewed his work during the1953-1957 period. The titlecomes from part of his AirForce code number. (Inciden-tally, Len still has a few cop-ies of this book available for$3.00. I recommend it.)

Other work in the field in-cludes public relations for NI-CAP from 1957 to 1970, earlywarning coordinator for theColorado Project under Dr. Con-don from 1967 to 1969, presi-dent of the Cincinnati UFO So-ciety in the late 1950's, in-vestigator for the Center forUFO Studies, and investigatorand director of public rela-tions for MUFON.

He is employed as directorof public relations and market-ing services for DuBois Chemi-cals in Cincinnati.

In This IssueIllinois woman sees possible humanoids 3Several Cincinnati sightings being investigated 5Missouri woman reports close sighting 6Ft. Smith Conference reviewed by Pitts 9Sightings in USSR—by Joe Brill 11Mushroom traces reported in Argentina 12UFO reportedly breaks electric line 14UFO kidnaping possibly averted 15Commercial pilot reports daylight disc 16Bright UFO seen from private plane 19In Others' Words—by Lou Farish 20February Sky—by Mark Herbstritt 20

The contents of SKYLOOK are determined by the editor, and do not necessarily represent theof f i c ia l position or judgment of MUFON. Opinions of contributors are their own, and do not necessarilyreflect those of the editor, the staff, or MUFON.

SKYLOOK THE UFO MONTHLY is published monthly by Dwlght Connelly, 26 Edgewood Drive,Quincy, 1L 62301 USA. Subscription Rates: $8.00 per year in U.S.; $9.00 per year foreign; single copy, $1.00,Advertising rates: $5.00 per column inch. All ads subject to approval of the publisher.

Copyright 1976 by SKYLOOK THE UFO MONTHLY, 26 Edgewood Drive, Quiocy, 1L 6230L Permissionis hereby granted to quote from this issue of this magazine, provided not more than 200 words are quotedfrom any one article, provided that the author of the article is given credit, and provided that the statement"Copyright 1976 by SKYLOOK THE UFO MONTHLY, 26 Edgewood Drive, Quincy, 1L" is included.

Second Class Postage paid at Quincy, IL HJ301

Page 2

Alton, IL, area

Woman sees possible humanoidsBy David Schroth

Investigated and reported by DavidSchroth, SKYLOOK staff member andmember of the UFO Study Group ofGreater St. Louis, assisted by RobertMurphy of the UFO Study Center ofGreater St. Louis.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The followingis a preliminary report on apossible close encounter UFOexperience which occurred inthe -vicinity of Alton, IL., onthe night of -Oct. 12-13, 1975.The term "UFO experience" isused here in its most ..generalsense, for although the witnessobserved entities similar tothose described in many, closeencounter UFO reports .of thethird variety, at no time dur-ing, prior to, or following theexperience did she see any ob-ject or 'vehicle with whichthese entities may have beenassociated. The witness has re-quested that her name not beused (it is on file with SKY--LOOK), and that the exact loca-tion of the incident not bepublished. The report is .basedon-two tape recorded interviewswith the witness. The case wasreferred to the investigator bythe Center for UFO Studies.,

The Witness

1 The only witness in this caseis Mrs. X, _ a housewife, 26years old, who resides with herhusband and three children in asubdivision near Alton. Priorto her UFO experience on Oct.13, Mrs. X had had no particu-'lar interest in the subject ofUFOs other than that acquiredfrom-reading occasional news-paper accounts of UFO sight-ings.

The Incident

On the night of Oct. 12 (Sun-day) , Mrs. X waited up to seeher husband leave for work atabout 11:30 p.m. Although she

Woods

L

Hicksresidence

Drive

wasn't especially tired, shethen went to bed and slept forapproximately 2 hours. The bed-room is located on the upperfloor of the house; its windowfaces north and looks out on awooded area that extends about250 feet behind the house. Be-yond this wooded area lies anabandoned quarry. (See Sketch1.)

Mrs. X awoke at about 1:30a.m. and tried to get back tosleep, reflecting on the eventsof the day before. At thistime, the family dog ("Sarge"),a 5-year-old Irish sheep dog,was sleeping on the lower floornear a patio door at the rearof the house.

This door is situated on thesame wall as the window of thebedroom upstairs, and thus of-fers the same view .of the

aforementioned wooded area be-hind the house. The only lightin the house at the time theincident occurred was a smallnight light in the bathroom onthe first floor. Also, itshould be pointed out that thesubdivision in which Mrs. X re-sides is very dark at night,for there are no street-lights.

At approximately 0200 on Oct.13, Mrs. X heard the dog barkin a "vicious" tone that shehad never heard before. Think-ing that a fox or raccoon mighthave been disturbing the garb-age (which event had occurredin the past), she arose immedi-ately, without turning on anylights, and looked out the bed-room window.

It was then that she saw ahuman-like entity run from the

Page 3

vicinity of the rear of thehouse towards the wooded area--a distance later determined tobe 55 ft. (See Sketch. 1.) Shethought to herself: What couldthat be?, and reported that herfirst impression was that of asilver wolf running on twolegs. She said:

The Entities

"I was trying to rationalize,when it turned and looked di-rectly at me--or toward theback of the house, I shouldsay. It was definitely thefigure of a man. It was about3% feet tall, and it was lumin-ous from head to toe, likealuminum foil would (glow) witha light cast on it in the dark--a glow like that." .(SeeSketch 2.)

Mrs. X kept her eyes on theentity as it stood still for amoment or so, "like it was de-bating whether to come back in-to the yard or go back into thewoods." (Note: The yard behindthe house is not fenced in, andthus leads directly into thewoods.)

At that time, three more en-tities, identical in appearanceto entity no. 1, came into Mrs.X's field of vision from thevicinity of the house immedi-ately next door (west) to hers.(See Sketch 1.) These threeentities joined entity no. 1,and all four entities then ran,in single-file, back into thewoods.

Mrs. X lay back down in bedat that point. Aside from herthree young children and thefamily dog, she was alone inthe house. She reported thatshe was very frightened:

"It terrified me. I've neverbeen so frightened....! don'tget scared easily, but I waslying there and I knew what Ihad seen...JI wanted to seemore--! wanted to see if theytook off or if they turned inthe woods or what, but I wastoo afraid to look because Ithought, if it (entity no. 1)had seen me staring at it, thenI didn't know if it might getbrave and decide to come backand try to get into the house,

Page 4

or what."Mrs. X then called her hus-

band and asked him to come homeat once, which he did. Mr. Xand a neighbor armed themselvesand searched the wooded areabehind the house, as did sev-eral Alton, IL., police offi-cers whom Mr. X had called toreport the experience.

No evidence of anything outof the ordinary was found, norwere any personal possessionsor household objects missingfrom the Xs' residence then orfollowing the experience. Sofar as is known as of thiswriting, -no neighbors or resi-dents in the general area hadREPORTED any UFO sightings orexperiences on or near the 13thof October.

Additional Details

Further details about theentities and the experience ingeneral are as follow:

APPEARANCE AND BEHAVIOR OFENTITIES. All four entitieswere alike:

"Their bodies were erect....They all ran stiff-legged, likethey were on their heels—liketheir feet were pointed up....Everything (about their bodies)was pretty well proportioned...Everything was covered. Itlooked like it was all onepiece from head to .toe, and itwas all the same color (silver)....Aluminum foil is what it

most resembled to me....Theoutfit was silver, but it gaveoff a white glow....They lit upthe path .as they went. Theyhad nothing in their hands thatI could tell. But they gaveoff a glow...."

Mrs. X reported that the en-tities resembled a human morethan a robot. At no time dur-ing the experience did she hearor see the entities talk amongthemselves or communicate byany kind of gestures. Nor couldshe discern any features or de-tails in the facial area, forunlike the rest of their bod-ies, the facial area was dark.

UNUSUAL QUIETUDE. Mrs. Xmentioned that she had noticedan unusual silence at the timeof her experience:

"Everything was so quiet outthere--you didn't hear a bush,you didn't hear anything. Itwas just unusual....There wasno wind, and it was reallyquiet. Everything was still—it was just very, very still."

When queried about whatsounds she might ordinarily ex-pect to hear at that time ofthe morning, she suggested thechirping of birds or crickets,the wind--"just sounds; nothingthat you'd really listen to orpay attention to. It just stuckin my mind that it was deadquiet.

"It was so quiet that, evenwith the window closed, withthe four of them going down in-to the woods, they would haverattled enough branches andleaves on the ground .to makenoise, and they DIDN'T make anynoise....To me, I remember itbeing awfully still."

Concluding Remarks

On the morning following herexperience, Mrs. X composed twopages of notes, recounting theevents of the previous night.She also called the ST. LOUISPOST DISPATCH to inquire aboutthe name and phone number of alocal UFO organization to whichshe could report her experi-ence. She was advised to con-tact Dr. J. Allen Hynek of theCenter for UFO Studies, whom

Youth reports series of encounters

Cincinnati area has variety of sightingsBy ten Stringfield

EDITOR'S NOTE: Following is a listof preliminary reports from the greaterCincinnati area for the period Oct. 22-Noy.10,1975.

Oct. 22,- 1975: After dark,engineer observed UFO hoveringover .Covington, KY,- MunicipalBuilding (across river fromCincinnati). from 14th- floorwindow. The UFO moved close tohis .window at low , level.Through binoculars he could seerotating lights around thedisc-shaped object's catwalk.The UFO. had a. peculiar • set of"wings" •protruding from thebody. He got camera, went out-doors., and watched UFO go a-round his building at low lev-el, making no. sound. Before hecould .adjust his camera.1 the UFOshot away. •

, Oct. 22, 1975: About 11 p.m., the night the CincinnatiReds won the final game of theWorld. Series,-Mr., and Mrs.. J.S.saw a bright, red. glow in their

she then called and to whom sherelated an account pf.-what shehad seen.

Personal Impressions. •

Throughout the course of a-bout five hours (total) discus-sion with Mrs. X, this investi-gator found her to be intelli-gent, articulate, and.thorough-ly sincere. Her account of whatshe had seen remained consis-tent, both in her own descrip-tion of her experience and inher responses to questions a-bout the experience. . . ..

Accordingly, it is the im-pression of this investigatorthat Mrs. X has related a sin-cere and truthful account of areal experience. However,whether this experience in-volved entities of an anomalousnature and from an unknownsource or (human) prankstersremains an open question.

house ^window. They went out-doors expecting to see ."vic-tory" fireworks. Instead theywere surprised to see theirneighbor's house, yard, trees,and " street bathed in a redglow.-. Both saw a round, . redball in the sky moving low andsoundlessly across the sky in ahorizontal flight pattern.

Oct. 23, 1975: About 9 p.m.S.C. and girlfriend and anotherfemale passenger in car inFairfield, OH, were pursued bya low level UFO. The UFO passedover the car and while drivingup a grade in -the road, theUFO's cigar-shape was caught inthe car's headlights. UFO sentout a rod device with foursmall orange balls at the tip.Girls became hysterical.

Oct. 26, 1975: About 1:20p.m., an "instrument rated"pilot in Cherokee craft, flyingnear New Baltimore, OH, calledto the control tower of theGreater Cincinnati Airport toreport observing an unidenti-fied silver, hovering object at8000 ft., in clear weather,visibility 12 miles. Radarconfirmation negative, but theUFO may have been undetected byradar's "cancellation" effect.The UFO. shot off and out ofview.Oct. 27, 1975: At 8:30 a.m.

two artists for a publishingcompany in Eastern .Cincinnatisaw a brilliantly lighted discfrom their second story officewindow. The UFO hovered, andoccasionally vacillated jerk-ily, over electric power line,about a half mile away. Afterabout 30 to 40 seconds, the UFOshot off . at 30-degree anglewith the incredible speed of a"flashlight beam."

Oct. 27, 1975: About 11 p.m.Cincinnati police officers re-ported seeing UFO in easternCincinnati. They • described itas a large bright light withlittle red lights on both ends.One officer on duty drove to

Ault Park, at a higher alti-tude i to view the light. Heconfirmed the unidentifiedlight. "I've never seen anyrthing like it," he said.

Oct. 27, 197.5: About 10:45p.m. J. H. of Westwood in West-ern Cincinnati saw two UFOs forabout 10 minutes. He said theywere about 1000 ft. high andflying back and forth about 100feet apart.

Oct. 28,.. 1975: About 2:30a.m. police patrolman R. P. ofCampbell County, KY, also sawtwo UFOs while driving on ahighway.. He said one of theobjects was on his left, theother to his right and that hewas driving between them "veryclose"! The UFOs made no sound,,he said.

Oct.. 2-9, 1975: In evening,S.R., a boy 15 years of age,was walking home after sellingcandy for a school benefit.Suddenly a UFO, shaped like a"beer can," appeared about 25ft. overhead. On top was awhite light with rotating redlights on the bottom. The UFOmade no sound and after hover-ing for about 20 seconds, itshot .straight up into sky. S.R.came home frightened, tried torelate his sighting to unsympa-thetic parents. He called thepolice, who gave the boy myphone number. I was not avail-able.

The next' day S. .R. left a"runaway" note on the kitchentable, 'in which he expressedgreat agonizing fears of theUFO and said that he knew thatthe UFO was after him. Hesigned his note with love andpromised to call when he wassafe. The father, J.R., whohad been in touch with thepolice, called me in his con-fusion over his son's behaviorand the UFO. He said his sonwithdrew $500 from his bank ac-count and was missing.

The next day, the boy wasapprehended by security police

Page 5

at the Atlanta airport. He wasbrought home and before retir-ing from fatigue asked to callme. He was incoherent andstill frightened. He admittedthat he was still shaking infear of the UFO.

I have since had severaltalks with S. R. and he has re-lated the root of his fears.One year ago, in Oct., 1974, hewitnessed a UFO with portholesin his high school yard at treetop level. This frightened theboy, and while in bed that samenight he"said he experienced adream or in a trance-likestate, saw an unhuman, oval-shaped head with oval eyes andwrinkled skin that had no nose,and a slit for a mouth beforehim. The "creature" relatedtelepathically that he would

UFO NEWSCLIPPINGSERVICE

The UFO NEWSCLIPPINGSERVICE will keep you in-formed of all the latest UnitedStates and World-Wide UFO ac-tivity, as it happens! Our ser-vice was started in 1969, atwhich time we contracted witha reputable international news-paper-clipping bureau to obtainfor us, those hard to find UFOreports (i.e., little known photo-graphic cases, close encounterand landing reports, occupantcases) and all other UFO re-ports, many of which are car-ried only in small town orforeign newspapers.Our UFO Newsclipping ServiceReport, is a 20 page photo-offset,monthly publication containingthe latest United States and

' Canadian UFO newsclippings,with our foreign section carry-ing the latest English, Austra-lian, New Zealand, South Afri-can, and other foreign UFOnewsclippings! We publish moreUFO reports from around theglobe than ANY other publica-tion in the World! Stay informed-subscribe to the UFO NEWS-CLIPPING SERVICE!For subscription informationand sample pages from our ser-vice, write today to:

UFO NEWSCLIPPINGSERVICE, Dept. S3521 S.W. 104thSeattle, Washington, 98146

take him away and not to be a-fraid.

On Oct. 26, 1975, S.R. saw adisc-shaped UFO come in- low •over his house. ''The bottom,"he said, "was dull reddishblack and was divided intosquares like graph paper." Thenon Oct. 29, S. R. had his finalexperience with the "beer can"UFO.

Nov. 4, 1975: About 6:45 inRoss, OH, six witnesses in carspotted UFO hovering at treetop level. It was cylinder-shaped, about 75 feet in di-ameter with blue, green and redrotating lights. Square win-dows were observed. While theUFO hovered over a wooded areait started into a spinning mo-tion; a small glowing red ballof light, about 3 feet in dia-meter was ej ected out of thebottom. The car's engine andlights went out.

After the red ball disap-peared, the witnesses wereshocked to see "landing gear,"glowing blue, come out of thebottom of the UFO, which ap-peared to land in a woodedarea. When the object vanishedfrom sight, the car's enginestarted, as did all the "woodsyinsect" sounds which had stop-ped, according to witnesses.

Nov. 10, 1975: About 6:30p.m. two gas station attendantsin Ross, OH, saw a large steadyglowing white light in the skyabout five times larger thanthe brightest star. The UFOmoved toward the station and"blinked out." When the UFOdisappeared, both attendantssmelled the strong odor of sul-phur. Also a motorist drivingin for gas also remarked aboutthe strong, offensive odor.

During this period, investi-gators in Greater Cincinnatihave recorded 16 individual re-ports of "unexplainable" noc-turnal lights in the sky. Somereports indicate "close up"lights, which are not includedin this Preliminary Report, asquestionnaires have not beenreturned. Most of the reports,in my opinion, have celestialor other conventional explana-tions.

MissouriBy Ted Phillips

Date of sighting: Nov. 28, 1975, 0500(CST).

Location: Sedalia, MO.Witness: Mrs. Carol K., age 23.

I received the following re-port during a conversation withthe witness on Dec. 1, 1975.The witness called me on Nov.30, 1975. She has not reportedthe event to the news media.No additional witnesses havebeen found to date. The witnessis a high school graduate, veryintelligent, and seeks no pu-blicity.

The following is taken, inpart, from a taped interview atthe home of the witness.

Mrs. K: I was sleeping andI heard the door close (herhusband leaving on a huntingtrip) and I got up and wentthrough the house. I wanted tobe sure the door sound was myhusband leaving. Suddenly, Iheard a weird, kind of likethunder or rumbling noise. Itchanged right away to a kind ofbuzzing like electricity. Thedog started barking and growl-ing, and the other dogs in theneighborhood were barking. Ilooked out the kitchen window--our dog was running in circlesand really growling.

Phillips: Were the dogsbarking before you heard thesound?

Mrs. K: No.Phillips: What happened after

you heard the sound?Mrs. K: I went to the front

window and saw this weird look-ing star (N-5°, 25° above thehorizon) with a circle aroundit. A kind of blue-green halo.It was getting bigger andbrighter and you could see thegreenish-blue color around itsort of like a circle. Thecenter was just white, realbright and perfectly round. Thecircle around it wasn't as

Page 6

Animal reaction noted

woman reports close sightingbright.

Phillips: As you watched,did the halo"'appear' to be spin-ning, any motion at all?

Mrs. K: No, it just gotbigger, it was coming straight(south). Then it turned to theleft (W) and kind of glideddown.

Phillips: Did it move rap-idlv?

Mrs. K: No, real slow.Phillips: -. How long did you

see it before if turned, anddid it stop before it turned? •

Mrs. K: Oh, I -can't say,'maybe 2 minutes. It didn'tstop; it just turned and glideddown. When it turned it looked;like a three-pointed star witha tail, you could see the glowaround it. . ..

Phillips: What did this taillook like?

Mrs. K: Not like fire, youcould see sort of like a pathbehind it. It was bright whitelike the thing was.

Phillips: Could you stillsee the blue-green halo whenthe-tail'appeared? , :

• „ Mrs. K: No, it disappearedwhen it turned. After it turnedleft .it moved to the left justa little way and then it kindof flipped over or somethingand I could see what lookedlike spinning blades, face on.It was round now and spinningand a glow behind it. It wasblue-green again. It went ashort way and then I couldreally see it. It moved realslow and downward behind thattree. It stopped there for may-be 2 or 3 minutes.

Phillips: Did it wobble?Mrs. K: No, it was steady.

After it stopped for a shorttime, it moved between thesetwo trees (140 ft away) andtilted up and L could see partof the bottom. I could seestreet lights reflected on thebottom. The surface looked

PHASE 1

.STREETDII-.KED

UG!!T

\

/WITNESS

like metal; it was silver withthe little red lights and thebig red ones. I could see awhite top (dome) and /three cir-cles in the white. There wassomething, like a black, cross atthe back. When it tilted Icouldn't see the little redlights, just the big ones, andthey turned toward the ground.

Phillips: The lights turned?Not the.object?,

Mrs.;K: Yes, after the ob-ject tilted, the lights turnedtoward the ground. Also I could

see part of the white top andthe three, circles on the toplooked like bubbles. <•.

Phillips: Could you,see lightcoming through the bubbles?

Mrs. K: No, they were' out-lined on the white. ' After ittilted and the lights turned Icould see two big circles onthe bottom and a door or some-thing between them. It stayedthere for a minute or so andthen it moved toward me a lit-tle bit. I could see the big

Page 7

lights tip and shine on thesnow (10 inch snow cover);after that it raised up a lit-tle bit

Phillips: Straight up?Mrs. K: Yes, but slowly,

and then it went away from me alittle bit, raised up againand went away over the house(to the NW) and disappeared be-hind the house.

Phillips: How long did yousee it?

Mrs. K: I really don't know....probably 15 minutes atleast. It moved away very slow-ly.

Phillips: Did you have anylights on?

Mrs. K: Yes, one light inthe kitchen; it dimmed severaltimes and that street lightseemed to get dim also.

Phillips: Did the sound con-tinue during the sighting?

Mrs. K: Yes, until it movedaway, a kind of buzzing.

Phillips: How about the dogs?Mrs. K: * They started bark-

cars go by?Mrs. K: Just one.Phillips: Does the dog norm-

ally bark a lot?Mrs. K: No, he is a very

gentle dog and it was strange--he never growls, but he wasbarking and growling and run-

ning in circles and the otherdogs were barking.

Phillips: Have you seen aUFO before?

Mrs. K: No.Phillips: Have you read about

them?Mrs. K: Not much.

Other sightings reported in Sedalia, MO

ing beforeit left.

Phillips:telephone?

Mrs. K:Phillips:

Page 8

I saw it and until

You don't have a

No.Did you see any

By Ted PhillipsOn Nov., 13, 1975, at 2215,

at Otterville, MO., located 11miles east of Sedalia, Mrs. Xobserved a very bright blue-white sphere approaching herfarm home. The object made alow pass below the trees andstopped for a short time verynear the ground and about 40feet from the witness. The ob-ject ascended vertically anddisappeared. The witness wasalone and became quite fright-ened. She called a relative tocome and stay with her. Notraces were found.

On Dec., 7, 1975, at 0230,at Sedalia, MO., a single wit-ness (male, 37 years old) ob-served a bright blue-whiteglobe to the south as he wasdriving east on 16th street onthe east side of Sedalia. The

object appeared to pace theautomobile for a short time,accelerated and moved ahead.Witness attempted to follow theobject until he arrived at theend of 16th street. The objectdropped toward the ground andhovered briefly about 20 feetabove ground level near a barn.The witness stopped his car andwatched as the object moved a-way toward the east. At theclose point the witness claimedhe could see three "windows" ona dome. Rotating lights werealso seen near the center ofthe object.

These two cases and severalothers are being checked atthis time. During the past twomonths there have been at leasteight reports in the Sedaliaarea, and rumors of several ad-ditional reports.

'Breaking the ice'

Ft. Smith Conference reviewed by PittsBy Bill PittsDirector,

Ft. Smith UFO Conference

Editor Dwight Connelly verykindly has offered me an oppor-tunity to discuss various as-pects of the recent Fort SmithUFO Conference in general—andhis "critique" in particular(see October SKYLOOK).

First, I would like to takethis opportunity to thank SKY-LOOK for . advance notices ofthe, then, forth-coming confer-ence, and express my apprecia-tion to,the many MUFON membersattending—along with the di-rectors and members of all theother UFO organizations ofnote.

As Editor Connelly so aptlynoted, three out of four direc-tors of the main UFO organiza-tions in attendance at the con-ference is an exceptional feat.John Acuff of NICAP did not. at-tend, but I respect- his reasonsfor not doing so.

Breaking the Ice

Since this was the first ef-fort toward bringing all per-sons interested in the UFO phe-nomenon together in a combinedmeeting, I am very pleased atthe response. I am not complet-ely happy, , nor content, withthe conference, but, as oneperson attending said, "Theconference as a whole was wellworth the time and effort. Per-haps it broke the ice. Here'slooking forward to the day ofthe thaw!"Mankind, in it's best estate,

is subject, to many errors,trials, and tribulations. Itbecame evident at the confer-ence that not everyone would bein complete agreement. Openanimosity between directors oftwo of the UFO organizationsproved how men, in search for

authority,, show that they can-not cope with certain situa-tions--in this case, even opencooperation.

As the chairman-director ofthe conference, I started tocomment on this before the en-tire group in attendance, butconsidered that everyone wasintelligent enough to draw hisown conclusions. I stated atthe conference, and do so again--the problem of the UFO phe-nomenon is greater than any in-dividual, or group, professingan interest in it, and that itbehooves each of us to conductourselves in a friendly spirittoward each other so that UFOinvestigations do not becomebogged down with human conceit,and deceit.

Charles Hickson's Role

Regarding .Hickson's not tak-ing a polygraph examination atthe conference, I can onlystate that it is up to Hicksonto prove that he had such anexperience--and not up to anyUFO investigator. After all,regardless of the amount of in-vestigating after the fact, orwhat any of us may believe a-bout Hickson or another alleged"contactee," the "burden ofproof" is on them.

Hickson had been invited toattend on a general basis in myfirst letter to him, because Idid not know exactly how tocontact him or, indeed,, whetherI would even hear from him.After he called me; answeringmy request that he do so, Istipulated that he was beinginvited with-the express stip-ulation that he receive a poly-graph examination during theconference, and to which heagreed.

" He mentioned this fact tothe National Star reporter in astory which later appeared in

the Aug. 26 issue. Hickson, inthe same article, is quoted asbeing the "focal point" of theconference, and that he (Hick-son) would "detail three newUFO sightings before a worldbody of scientists" at the con-ference.

This all turned out to bepublic-relations material forHickson, and it was only at themoment I was to take Hicksonfor the Polygraph examinationthat he told me that he couldnot take it—for the reasonthat the "climate" was notright. It is my interpretationthat the "climate" was going tobe too hot, and Hickson repeat-ed to one of the newspaper re-porters that the polygraph ex-amination may tend to discredithis initial experience and hurtthe sales of his forth-comingbook.

In this, I believe that Hick-son is telling us something hedid not intend to let out..

Dr. James Harder told me atthe conference that,he had not,at Pascagoula, placed Hicksoninto a deep trance; thus, wenow have the information thatthe hypnotic session .(accordingto Hickson's own promotion ma-terial) is not any more conclu-sive than was the polygraph ex-amination in New Orleans. Iwill leave Charles Hickson tothose who choose to believehim.

The other person at the con-ference , and who did receive apolygraph examination, failedhis exams--but is happier be-cause of it. He was not tryingto gain publicity, and, infact, is shunning it. Thisperson believes that he had theexperience, back in 1953, buthas been hoping that it did nothappen. His testimony has moreinformation than did Hickson's,and I am obtaining additionalinformation from him.

(continued on next page)

Page 9

'Order of Events

To get on to Mr. Connelly's"critique"--! think he has-beenmore than kind. The • reasonHickson was placed on Fridaynight's program was a part of aprogressive program that I hop-ed to build from--knowing thatother speakers would be refer-ring to the Pascagoula inci-dent .

It was not possible to haveall the speakers at the mostconvenient moment for all at-tending, and we had to startsomewhere.

All but two of the speakerswere- from invitations only.Two of them contacted me andasked to be on the program,manely Stanton Friedman andWilliam Spaulding, both of whomadded much to the conference.Also, since many UFO reports dorelate to radar, I wanted toget this portion of the pro-gramming at' an early spot, sothat those attending would un-derstand what radar is and whatit is not.

It must be remembered, too,that not everyone attending theconference had attended anyother UFO meeting, or sympos-ium, so it was important forthem to see, and hear, all thebasics--as well as the direc-tors of the UFO organizationsrepresented.

Personally, I could have satthrough the entire week-endjust listening to Dr. Hynek, anhonest, learned person who hasmy deepest respect. To me, areal "sleeper" was Dewey Four-net, who probably has more realbackground on the flying saucerUFO experience than anyone liv-ing- -with the exception of Dr.Hynek.

The workshop sessions werenot originally scheduled forthe program. A phone call fromMark Chesney, of the Center forUFO Studies, assured me thatthese sessions would add im-measurably to the conferenceand were a "must." Thus, Iplaced Mark in charge of thesesessions. While he was at theconference he became ill, and Idid not see him until SundayPage 10

noon, after the conference wasover. Those participating inthe workshop sessions, however,did manage to "carry the ball,"and received much interest fromthose attending the sessions.

Other Factors

The "after hour" parties were"split" due to a motion picturecrew, and others, staying atanother motel, . approximatelythree miles from the headquar-ters motel. There was nothingwe could do about this divisionof persons.

For those who chose to turnin early, the 8 a.m. sessionwas no.problem. No one knew itwas early any more than did I;however, again, • we had tostart, and stop, sometime.• Theprogram was very full, : and itwas my contention . that thoseattending could sleep when theyreturned to their respectivehomes.

An area at the headquartersmotel was available for meet-ings, and just general gettingtogether,, throughout the week-end. This was announced on morethan one occasion by me, and ifno-one was interested in util-izing the facilities, it wasnot for me to make them do so.

There are many aspects ofthe conference planning I couldtell you about. You may, ormay not, be surprised at. howmany times I had to change thetentative schedules because onespeaker would not appear justbefore, or just after, another.Some would not appear on anytype of panel, if another wasgoing to be .on the panel. Thisis the human element.

I had to make decisions, how-ever, because I not only insti-gated the idea for the confer-ence, but I was the only personworking on it and getting itall together. I had to reachsome decisions for the finalprogram--arid did sb--not to theentire liking of those partici-pating—not even to my own.Frankly, only I am to blame forany improper placement, orscheduling, of the programmaterial.

I hope that the conference,

if there was anything at allgood gained from it, will letothers in the future rememberwhat to do, and what not to do.I wish I could tell you of thepersons who called, or wrote,about UFO experiences and whowanted to be on the program;those who contacted me to ad-vise that aliens from otherplanets exist .in the mountainsof Kentucky1and that they wouldgive me some "signs" prior tothe conference; of occult-psy-chic overtones, and some re-ligious, arising from "dreams"persons were having and which »had taken them to other plan-ets, during their dreams, and -••they wanted to tell the scien- •«>tists 'attending about these"dreams."

These, and others, becamealmost an everyday phone calland/or letter. Dr. Hynek hadasked me how . we were going tokeep away the "kooks," --and Iassured him that there wereprobably some, in the UFO organ-izations—maybe, even on theprogram. His question, reallyinterested me, however, andshowed that, the UFO phenomenonhad- "come a long way, baby--when ."flying saucer" fans werewondering how to keep away"kooks."This became an amusing aspect

of it all to me—especially attimes when I wished I had neverthought of having such a con-ference. Dr. Hynek's questionpulled me through some other-wise discouraging moments. Be-lieve me, it is one thing to '?>'hear about a meeting--to sitback and enjoy it--and another *'thing to worry about the pro- *1graming of it.

Future Conferences

I have much material forother conferences, should theyever be held. I'would changesome of the format, if I hadanything to do with another,not because I think I was wrongon this one, but know that thehuman mind can absorb just somuch—and, then, it is nice toget away .from it all, for atime, anyway.

A closed book or a new one?

By Joe Brill

For the past several years Ihave endeavored to present tothe readers of SKYLOOK magazinethe documented facts on the ob-servations of Unidentified Fly-ing Objects over the SovietUnion and the communist nationsof Eastern Europe. To those whohave read the facts of thecases presented in the pastyears, it is obvious that theseareas of,our world are as fre-quently visited by UFO's as isthe rest of the world.

I have arrived at the pointwith this regular column whereI believe it should cease. Andso, this article will be thefinal installment of informa-tion to show that not only doUFO's frequently appear overthe Soviet territories, butthat some scientists considerthese observations as 'scienti-fically important.

On June 24, 1975, Doctor Fe-lix U. Zigel. wrote'to me thathe had completed Part 2 of "Ob-servations of UFO's in theUSSR," but that it would be"impossible" to transmit .thiscompleted work to me at thistime.

Dr. Zigel expressed his de-sire to be of a greater assis-tance, but stated, "Unfortun-ately, not all depends on meand I can do only what is in mypower personally for the devel-opment of a fruitful, scienti-fic cooperation between theUSSR and American research con-cerning the UFO phenomenon."He also made special mention to"send niy best wishes to Mr.Walter Andrus for his effortsin this field." '

Since this letter of June24 I have not received any re-sponse from Dr. Zigel to myletters of inquiry as to theauthenticity of the recentNATIONAL ENQUIRER . featurestory, which directly quotedhim and related several ac-

Sightings in the USSR

Dr. Felix Zigel

counts which I had not pre-viously heard of. It now ap-pears that the curtain of si-lence has again been drawn onDr. Zigel and his research onUFO's in the Soviet Union.

In addition to the letterof June 24, Dr. Zigel encloseda "Prospectus" on a book en-titled "INTERPLANETARY VEHICLESAND UFO's" of which he is theauthor. This was dated June25. He indicated that any in-terested American publishershould write directly .to: Ail-Union Agency for Author'sRights, Lavrushinsky per. D.17, Moscow. 109017, marking itto the , attention of Boris Mik-hailovich Zatsepin.

Dr. Zigel was hopeful thatsome American publisher wouldbe interested . in publishingsuch a manuscript. The follow-ing is the translation of theProspectus for Dr. Zigel's com-pleted work:

Prospectus

In the new PROGRAM OF IN-VESTIGATION OF PROBLEMS CON-CERNING EXTRATERRESTRIAL CIVIL-IZATIONS . of the Academy ofSciences of the USSR (1974), onpage 19 there is a point con-cerning interplanetary vehic-

les, where the following isstated:

"Special attention should bedevoted to the discovery of ve-hicles of extraterrestrial civ-ilizations that may be found inthe solar system or in orbit a-round the Earth. For such asearch for quickly moving ob-jects, the system of continuoussurveillance of all the heavensmust be supplemented by creat-ing a special radio directionalbearing system. In the initialstage, use could possibly bemade of the already existingcomplexes intended for cosmiclink-ups and.radio location."

Thus, the search for extra-terrestrial and interplanetaryvehicles in orbit around theEarth has become- a serioustopic of scientific investiga-tion in connection with extra-terrestrial civilizations.Clearly, among these vehiclesare those that are able to de-scend into the Earth's atmos-phere or even to accomplish alanding on the Earth's surfacefor a complete collection ofdesired information.

In connection with this,there is now a need for bookswhich examine on a highly con-temporary scientific and tech-nical level, but in sufficient-ly popular form, the interstel-lar problems involved, the pos-sible forms of constructionand other parameters of inter-planetary vehicles, and in par-ticular the propulsion systems.These questions, in the mean-time, are unfortunately scanti-ly treated in scientific liter-ature—as -is also the case forthe methods for discovery andstudy of interplanetary vehic-les.

I offer a book that shouldfill this vacuum. In the firstsection of it, the problems ofdirect contacts among civiliza-tions of the Cosmos will be ex-tensively examined. Also, civ-

Page 11

ilizations on a higher levelthan civilizations here onEarth, for cosmic flightsprobably utilize cosmic mass-energy resources in full mea-sure externally (that is, notprovided on board cosmicships); then, in the book therewill be a detailed examinationof possible earthly energy forcosmic flights in the future.In particular, electrostatic,

electromagnetic and quantumflight .systems will be subjec-ted to critical analysis. It isproposed to survey the problemsof "anti-gravity" and receptionof energy from a physical vac-uum and of utilizing them topower vehicles for a measureddistance.

In connection with this, itis proposed to analyze possibleforms of construction of inter-planetary vehicles and theirphysical characteristics. In-dividual attention' will begiven to methods of discoveringinterplanetary - vehicles in theneighborhood of the Earth andin the Earth's atmosphere.There has to be reported anew

the 'search for interplanetaryvehicles and the problems of"flying saucers" . or UFO's. Inthis book there will be de-tailed a basic new method ofstudying reports of UFO's thatwill permit screening out er-roneous' observations when balllightning, optical phenomenain the atmosphere, or apparatusmaintained from Earth are.takenfor interplanetary . vehicles.It is proposed to explain indetail the methods of revealingvarious counterfeit and falsereports relating to UFO's.

In this book there will begiven in detail an account ofthe investigations of UFO's ob-served in the USSR, in particu-lar of the celebrated TungusUFO of the year 1908. Sincethe UFO phenomenon extends overan important range in time andin all historical periods, Ipropose to examine, exceptinganalysis of contemporary UFO's,such remarkable UFO's of thepast (for example, the so-called "Kirillid wave" of1913). (I would imagine Dr.Page 12

Mushrooms, other traces reported

Zigel is referring to the UFOflap which lasted for threeweeks in January of 1913 overDover, Cardiff, Newport andNeath, England. The "LondonStandard" of Jan 31, 1913, pub-lished a list of the towns fromwhich unknown flying objectswere sighted by local citizens.J.B.)

The principal aim of thebook is to give the reader arigidly scientific approach tothe problems of the study ofUFO's and to uncover falsifi-cations and unscientific ab-surdities having to do with"flying saucers." Such a bookshould prevent the spread ofpseudo-scientific, sensationalstories about serious problemsof the search for interplane-tary vehicles and at the sametime attract scientific work-ers from all countries to ser-ious study of this theme.

The book will be useful onall themes that concern prob-lems of cosmic flight and pro-pulsion systems for the future.In a supplement to the bookwill be given a complete cata-logue of communications re-ceived concerning the observa-tions of UFO's over the USSR."

Date of possible sighting: April 20,1975.Location: Jachal, Argentina.Source: Newspaper SAN JUAN.Translated by: Bill Armstrong.Submitted by: Joe Brill.

April 24 EditionYesterday morning two tech-

nicians from the National High-way Department who work as in-spectors for the Benito RoggioS.A. (Incorporated), which isbuilding the stretch of roadfrom Jachal to Zanja de DonaJulia, on the route to Rodeo,visited our correspondent inthe city of the north. Theyreported to him that somechildren had consulted themMonday as to whether during thepreceding night they had beenworking on the side of somehills located opposite thePachimoco dam at some one hund-red meters south of the provin-cial school Bienvenida Sarmi-ento, which is located in theplace, and at about ten kilome-ters from the plaza San Martinin Jachal.The technicians, Raul Marquez

and Vicente Monfrinotti,answered the children in thenegative, since on Sunday nightnobody worked on the road,least of all on the side of thenearby hills."But our curiosity was a-

roused, said Marquez, "and wewent to make an inspection ofthe area, where we had thegreat surprise of encounteringa series of marks and circum-stances which would indicatethe landing of a UFO."

Immediately and accompaniedby Marquez and Monfrinotti .andby the Jachal superintendent,Sr. Jesus de la Cruz Vidable,as well as by cameramen fromthe local press, our represent-ative went to the place, whichhad been the site of the al-leged landing.

The place is located as weindicated above, on the side ofa hill and is almost in thebackyard of the Vienvenida Sar-miento School, or better said afew meters from it. It involvesa hard, rocky terrain. At the

site were found the tracks ofthe bases, or landing pads, ofa tripod or something of thatnature. The mark of said basesindicates a perfect equilateraltriangle having a distance ofexactly four meters one fromthe other, and each track mea-suring thirty centimeters indiameter.

The ground where each one ofthe three bases of the tripodsettled, in which there re-mained a mark of approximatelyone centimeter in depth, isfound completely burned, dark-ened by the heat. In the centerof the triangle marked by saidtracks can be seen a largepatch of soot or smoke likethat which remains after theburning of gun powder, therebeing found completely scorchedsome small plants of arum andof "core" which are in thatplace.

On touching, the rocks whichhave been stained (by the soot)soil the fingers with somethinglike soot.Around the three marks of the

bases of the supposed tripodwere some enormous mushrooms,which amount to seven all'told.

The caps of some measuresome twenty centimeters in di-ameter, and the stems measuresome seven'centimeters.

As we said, the area is com-pletely dry, of rocky soil,where the last thing one couldexpect to find growing is mush-rooms, which normally appear inplaces with much . moisture.Proof of this statement is thefact that in the immediate sur-roundings there does not exista single plant of this typewhich in a strange and suspic-ious number appear at the siteof the possible landing.

Yesterday when our corres-pondent was at the place wherethe mushrooms appeared itseemed that the strong wind onMonday had uprooted them fromthe site where they originallywere since they were found halfdried.

In general terms the impres-sion which has been left withthose who have visited the siteis that without any doubt some

unidentified flying objectlanded there, since the marksof the tripod would so indi-cate. Also, the scorching ofthe plants, .the patch likeburnt gun powder on the ground,the existence of mushrooms in atotally unheard of place, andthe appearance of lights at aplace and at a time inappropri-ate.

Our correspondent in Jachalhas presented the news of thisevent to the authorities of thePolice District twenty-one,whose head, Chief Sixto Carba-jal, immediately went to thesite, . taking proper steps toinsure that the found tracesshould not be erased by thepublic which had begun to visitthe place.

April 25 Edition

Just as we indicated in ourarticle yesterday, the possibleappearance of flying .saucers inJachal has awakened a true ex-citement in the area,- where agreat number of the people haveparaded incessantly through theplace of the supposed landingso that, it has been covertedinto a center of true attrac-tion.

The most important news onthe case is given by the cir-cumstance that the authoritiesof police district twenty-onehave collected the mushroomsand samples of the rocks andburned ground, which have beensent to the Space Experimenta-tion Station of Chamical in theProvince of La Rioja, so thatthey might duly analyze them.

On Wednesday afternoon themushrooms collected at Pachimo-co were examined at the head-quarters of district twenty-oneby an agricultural engineerwho, after minute examinationof the mushrooms, reported notknowing of such a species andshowed his astonishment at theextraordinary size of the same,the diameter of the cap on oneof them reaching twenty-twocentimeters.

April 28 Edition

The carrying out of a hoax

enters into all the possibil-ities. With the purpose ofestablishing whether, in thearea of the Pachimoco dike,there are other mushrooms likethose found at the site of thepresumed landing, our repre-sentative in Jachal visited thesite yesterday and talked aboutthis matter with the person incharge of the dike, Mr. JulioBalmaceda, who has filled thisposition for 9 years, . but dur-ing this time he never sawmushrooms of this size nor anysmall ones. This discards thepossibility that they were cutin the surrounding area andcarried to the site where theywere found.On the other hand Mr. Marquez

and Mr. Monfrinotti indicatedthat when they discovered thetraces at the site, outside ofthese there were no signs ofhuman tracks belonging to thosewho could have been the authorsof the joke.

When our representative wasat the Pachimoco dike yesterdayhe met Nestor Simon in passing,accompanied by his family. Hiswife, Mrs. Juana Ontiveros deSiman, told that approximately20 days ago, when she was iron-ing in her home, located in thedistrict of El Fical, 17 km.from the Pachimoco dike, shewas called by shouts to thepatio by her daughter, JuanaBeatriz, 11 years old. -

When she went there, thedaughter showed her a light tothe west which illuminated thearea with a sky blue color,while it remained rocking for 5minutes, more or less, until itdescended sharply in the areanear the Pachimoco dike. Thissame spectacle, said Mr. Simanand his wife, repeated itselfdays later.

Several neighbors of thewestern sector of Floridastreet indicated that on Fri-day, April 25, around 8 p.m.,they saw something "like a ballof light" which remained oscil-lating for 8 minutes, also atthe height of the Pachimocodike, finally to disappearleaving a tenuous cloud in itsplace.

Page 13

Tandil, Argentina, plunged into darkness

UFO reportedly breaks electric lineDate of sighting: April 14,1974.Location: Tandil, Argentina.Investigated by: Organization of Tandil

for the Investigation of .ExtraterrestrialPhenomenon (OTIFE).

Submitted by: Jorge A. Bruno, directorof OTIFE, through Joe Brill.

Translated by: Dr. Willard Armstrong.

.The plunging of the city ofTandil, Argentina, into dark-ness at 4:05 a.m. and the al-leged observation of a UFO hit-ting a power line at the sametime are two of the ingredientsin the strange case .involvingSebastian. Ac'evedo.

At .approximately 3:45 a.m.Acevedo, 35, began, his -usualwalk to work, leaving the hum-ble hut of clay and cardboard 'where he lived with his wifeand three children on the out-skirts of Tandil. Having barelycompleted the first grade, Ace-vedo' is semi-illiterate,' andhis major goal in life has beento obtain a! bicycle with whichto travel to work at a grainprocessing factory in Tandil.

Having walked slightly morethan three blocks through pat-ches of fog arid the cool nightair, Acevedo looked into thesky and saw a luminous pointwhich seemed to fall. He des-cribed it a's "a star which wascoming down I"

An Intense Light

He gave little attention tothis, supposing it was a mete-orite or "something similar."He had walked about 15 feetfarther when a powerful lightshown from behind him. He sup-posed it was an auto, so hestepped to the right to get offthe pavement. At the same timehe turned his 'head toward thelight.

He then noted that the lightwas coming from some sort ofmachine in the air which hadapparently approached at a -highrate of speed, and at that in-stant had stopped over hisPage 14

head. The machine made a tre-mendous noise, according toAcevedo, similar to "one thou-sand welding machines."

The machine was about eightfeet in diameter and was shoot-ing off "possibly six or seven"flames from its edges. The de-vice now opened its undersideand a red beam of light coveredAcevedo, totally paralyzinghim.

'.'I wanted to call for help,but I could not," he explains."I wanted to run, but I couldnot. I felt a very strong painin my chest as'1 if my heart wasparalyzed. While that thing wasthere it lifted me, twice, toabove thirty to forty centi-meters (12-16 inches) off theground."

Acevedo said he was liftedvery slowly, "as if it wantedto suck me in," and that he wasdrawn very close to the object:"I am sure that if I. had beenable to move my arms I couldhave touched it." He said thatthe object rose as he rose.

Acevedo said the obj ect gaveoff intense heat ".like that ofan oven .like those that are inthe steel mills."

The opening on the undersideof the object was described asbeing about half the size ofthe "machine" and "it openedlike those doors in the westernsaloons in the movies." Thelight . which came through theopening was "very strong andComing down as though enclosedor restrained. Here it was andsuddenly it ended. It was notlike the beams from spotlightswhich you don't know where theyend."

Saved by Watchman?

At this moment the watchmanat a nearby factory came outshouting, "What's going on."Acevedo believes this saved himfrom being abducted by the ob-ject.

The watchman, Juan Reyes,said he was, frightened becausehe thought a transformer locat-ed at the entrance of his fac-tory (Tandilera De Magriasco,manufacturer of cheeses andcandles) had caught on fire.The watchnan observed the greatluminosity, but did not see theobject, .since only Acevedocould be observed after Reyesopened the factory gate. Ace-vedo was .reportedly observedturning around in circles inthe-middle of the street.

Another indirect witness wasthe manager of the factory,, wholives in the factory building.He says he heard the noise andwas aware of the illumination,but attributed it to truckscoming to load merchandise. Hedid not realize that the timewas 4 a.m.. rather than the 6 a.m. time scheduled . for suchloading. The manager's son al-so observed the illuminationand heard the noise.

Immediately following theencounter, Acevedo said he was"very dizzy and I was verythirsty indeed. I was sweating,I am certain, because of theheat which that thing gaveoff." He said the manager tookhim to the main office, wherehe had to tell what had hap-rpened. "I.did not want to. Ihad to go to work. I was verynervous, but I had to go towork. I am a poor man .and noone hands out money."

Followed Power Lines

Acevedo said that the objectmoved straight up as it lefthim, then banked at • an angle,following along and above the.power lines until it reachedthe highway (where the powerlines cables cross Route 226)."There.it collided .with some-thing," said Acevedo, "somecable or something else, be-cause the .light became muchbrighter after it rose up a

Possible kidnaping by UFO averted by youth

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following ac-count appeared some years ago in GeneDuplantier's magazine SAUCERS,SPACE, AND SCIENCE. It is interestingin view of the recent Travis Walton case(January SKYLOOK) and the 1974 Tandil,Argentina, case (this issue). The sketchaccompanying this story is by Duplantier.This account was provided by Joe Brill.

This incident took place inThompson, Manitoba, Canada,sometime between June 15 andJune 30 of 1967. It occurredat 6 p.m. and was seen forthree or four minutes by Mr.and Mrs. D. F. LeMarquands,three of their children, fourneighbors and two other chil-dren.

Mrs. LeMarquands had justentered the house when sheheard a beeping noise at aboutone second intervals. Lookingout the window, she saw dirtand debris moving rapidly a-round ! the house in a circularpattern. Upon going outside,she saw her husband who hadjust driven into the yard. Heand the five children werestaring up into the sky.At first, only dust and dirt,

moving in a vortex, could beseen. But then Mrs. LeMarquandswas able to see the objectwhich was causing the distur-bance. She described the objectas being large and shaped muchlike a pack of cigarettes, al-though she later commented thatit might have been cube-shaped.

It was revolving counterclockwise and appeared to havealternating shiny aluminum andblack sides as it moved. It hadno apparent openings or lights,and it was now dead silent.

As she watched the object,Mrs. LeMarquands was distractedby a scuffling sound and shelooked to the ground to see a13-year-old boy from across thestreet pinning down her 8-year-old daughter. At this time the

object started moving off at aforty-five-degree angle, lev-elled off, hovered, and thenleft on a level course towardsthe southeast.

Mrs. LeMarquands' attentionwas then drawn toward the chil-dren, all of whom were visiblyshaken, except her 8-year-olddaughter. The whirlwind hadstopped, and the little girlwas now standing by herself.The other children were even-

tually sufficiently calm enoughto relate that their 8-year-oldplaymate had risen into the airtowards the slowly revolvingobject. The 13-year-old boy hadgrabbed her when she was aboutthree feet off the ground. Thechildren reported that thelittle girl's skirt, blouse,and hair had ridden straight upher body when she was rising.

When asked if she could re-member anything, the girl re-plied that she could remembernothing from the instant thewind started until she stoodup.

Mrs. LeMarquands further re-ported that all the debris thathad been blown up had beendropped in a yard across thestreet as the object moved off.She also stated that the "wind"had revolved around their homeonly, without touching eitherof the neighboring homes northe grass outside the "circle."

"It was almost as though ahuge glass container had beenplaced over them, the area in-volved was so exact," Mrs. Le-Marquands reported.

bit."Street lights which had been

burning were off when Acevedowent into the factory with themanager, he said. The BuenosAires Electric Company's sub-station is located about 1800feet beyond the highway wherethe object appeared to collidewith something. The time was4:05 a.m., according to thewatchman's watch. At this time

the city of Tandil had justbeen plunged into darkness.

An investigation, of the arealater revealed that one of the13,200 volt cables carryingpower to Tandil had been cut atthe point where Acevedo notedthe intense flash of light asthe object left him. The cablehad fallen to the pavement atthe intersection of Route 226.

This corresponds with Ace-

vedo 's report that the lastthing he saw was a fire runningalong the high tension wires inthe direction of the electriccompany's substation located1800 feet beyond Route 226.OTIFE investigators concluded

that the UFO had made contactwith the cable going to thesubstation, causing an excessof voltage which caused the im-mediate breakdown and fire in a

Page 15

transormer in the substation.Electric company technicians

could not explain why the sevenautomatic relays at the step-down substation did not operateproperly to protect the sub-station. The substation at Tan-dil suffered the complete des-.truction of.feeder 104 and sec-tion 4 of feeder 105, as wellas fire damage. Damage wasestimated at two million pesos,and the report of the incidentwas classified as secret byauthorities.

The. official cause of thecable break was listed as wind,even though the cable was brok-en .between towers,.and the windthat night was blowing a,t only13 to 15 kilometers per hour(8-9 mph).

Additional Sightings

Jn checking the Acevedo case,OTIFE investigators found otherwitnesses who said they had ob-served three luminous discsabove the mountains at 11 p.m..on the night of April 13, a fewhours prior to the:Acevedo in-cident .

A resident of Tandil and hisfamily were reportedly witness-es just after midnight on April.14 to a red UFO over one of thelow hill's of Tandil whichcaused- interference on their TVset..

A woman reportedly observedat 3:45 a.m. on April 14 an in-tense reddish light -which sur-rounded her house in a Tandilsuburb. The light reportedlycame from a circular obj ectwhich left at a high rate ofspeed without making any sound.A taxi driver who had taken thewoman home shortly before hersighting confirmed seeing thered glow, but he had not seenthe object.Two men traveling from Tandil

to Olavarria in the early hoursof the morning of April 14 re-portedly saw at a point 14 ki-lometers (8% miles) from Tandila "being of low statue" on theside of the road, which ap-peared to have no face. Theirauto was then illuminated onthe inside with a very brightwhite light, they said.Page 16

High speed 100-degree turn

Commercial pilotDate of sighting: July 6, 1975, 1700-

1730 (EOT).Location: 30 nautical miles NNW of the

Wilkes-Barre, PA, VOR stations.Investigated by: Raymond E. Fowler,

MUFON director of investigations.Type of sighting: daylight disc by com-

mercial pilot.

Sighting Background

On or about Sept. 13, 1975,I received a telephone callfrom Allegheny Airlines FlightCaptain Robert L. Hobson, whoinformed me of a UFO sightingmade by a friend, an AlleghenyAirlines flight captain and hisco-pilot (who prefers not tofile a report). Captain Hobsonknew of me because of a per-sonal UFO sighting that was re-layed to me via the FAA. Imailed a letter and a Form 1 toCaptain X requesting him tofill it out and return it tome.

Sighting Description

(Transcribed from"Personal Account" Form 1)

"I was about 30 nauticalmiles NNW of the Wilkes-BarreVOR, in the captain's seat of aBAG 111 turbojet, at an alti-tude of 17,000 feet, eyeballinga line of thunderstorms thatlay across our normal route offlight. The storms lay in aNE-SW line, the SW end of theline ending in the Wilkes-Barrearea, and the line running NEas far as I could see, and theradar painted it all the wayacross the tube on the 60-milescale. • -

"The closest storm lay atabout our 10 to 11 o'clock po-sition and the radar showed asignificant rain gradient, andlightning was visible 'to theeye. We were operating inclear air (with) good visibil-ity and cloudless skies aboveand behind us. Our heading wasabout SSE.

. "At the time we saw the disk,the closest .storm was about 20nautical miles (from us) on theradar and the disk was some-where between us and the storm.'My First Officer and I saw thedisk at about the same time.,We both watched it intently.

"The airplane was on auto-,pilot and we? were closing onthe object. Our airspeed wasabout 300 kts. (300 knots/nau-tical miles ,per hour). It;quickly took (on) a disk-likeshape. At this.point, .it waslower than we were and moving,from our . left to right, orroughly E to .W. '

"My initial impression was-that we were looking at a bal-loon. As you know, the prevail-ing winds in these latitudesare W to E and this westwardflight of a balloon-puzzled me.However, I know that thunder-storms will often create astrong counter-clockwise; flowof air and a balloon on thenorth side of a storm mightwell drift westward. •

"I quickly realized that thespeed of the object .was" far*higher than you ..might -expecteven in the strongest wind.This thing was technicallytraffic for me so I asked theAir Traffic Control Center (NewYork), if he had a radar target,at 11:00' o'.clock ' (relative toour nose) and about 10.. miles(away).He said, 'Negative, notarget in that area."

"Very shortly after that, itmade a sharp (more than 100 de-grees) turn to the left andflew right into the thunder-

reports daylight disc

LAST SIGNIFICANT STORM

VERY QUICKLY

nautical miles

AIRCRAFT POSITION KIILN LAST SAW UFO_ 6

BflCIlK

17. ooo ft

( 7 HILLS FROM C1.01DS)'

WIND D I R E C T I O N o UESTSPEED •= 10 KNOTS

10

12

16

18

AIRCRAFT POSITION WHEN FIRST SAW UFO

(20 MILKS FROM CLOUDS)

storm. The size of the disk atthis point was about 'one-inch1

across as viewed from our posi-tion. We never saw it againafter it entered the.storm."

Note: After takling withCaptain X by phone, he real-ized that his estimate of 1inch in diameter was too largean apparent size if the fullmoon were % inch in diameter.His description of 1/3 the di-ameter of the full moon on Form1 is a better estimate for theobject's apparent size whenclosest to the aircraft.

Interview and Interrogation

Upon receipt and study of

the signed Form 1, I phoned thewitness on Oct. 2, 1975, andwent over the Form-1 with himto assure its accuracy. Thefollowing additional informa-tion resulted from this conver-sation.

1) Accurate apparent sizewas 1/3 full moon's diameter,not 1" at arm's length.

2) Object's 100-degree turnruled out a balloon in hisestimation.

3) Object's 100-degree turnand maneuver into thunderstormclouds coincided with his radioenquiry to New York Air TrafficControl as to whether they hada target in that area.

4) Air Traffic Controller

broke off contact abruptly whenwitness told him by radio that--"Whoever is inside that'thing' is going to get theride of his life" --when itentered. the thunderstormclouds.

5) The BAG 111 aircraft'sradar was not fine-tuned enoughto pick up the UFO at that dis-tance unless the antenna waspointing directly at the UFO.Even so, the target size wouldbe small and probably would belost in the signal noise on thescreen. The radar is designedfor weather targets.

6) It is possible that theobject was masked from groundradar because of its close

Page 17

proximity to the thunderstormclouds.

On Oct. 8, 1975, I mailedCaptain X a scaled drawing ofthe UFO sighting event. On it,I. noted . the farthest andclosest positions of the air-craft to the thunderstormclouds during the UFO sightingperiod. I asked him to sketchin the UFO's"' relative positionand flight path: to divide theUFO flight path into two legs(A - B and B - C) intersectedby the 100-degree plus turn;and, to denote the estimatedflight duration time of eachsegment. (See sketch.)

On or about Oct. 27, 1975, Iagain phpned the witness to re-mind him to send the requesteddata to me. I'asked him tocarefully consider the accuracyof his initial three-minutesighting duration, estimate.When I received the requestedannotated sketch, I noted thathe had revised the UFO sightingtime duration from 3 minutes to2 minutes and 45 seconds.

Additional Witness Check

.The Co-Pilot elected not tofile a. report;

Natural Phenomena Check

Only ball lightning wouldfit the description of the ob-served object in shape. How-ever, color, size, speed,maneuver and time-durationwould seem to rule out balllightning.

Man-Made Object Check

The Department of Commerce,National Oceanic and Atmospher-ic Administration, Climatologi-cal Records, Washington, D.C.(A.C. 202/427-7919) informed methat weather balloons in thatancl other areas throughout theUnited States were launchedonly at OOOOZ and 1200Z (8 a.m.and 8 p.m. EOT).

When I described the UFOevent to this office, they wereof the opinion that it was not

any kind of a balloon.A check with the local

National Weather Service branchin Boston, MA, confirmed theseNational Launch Times. I didnot check out the possibilityof an experimental researchballoon as there would be toomany possible launch sources--colleges, universities, govern-ment projects, etc.

Data seems to rule out anykind of balloon. See SIGHTINGEVALUATION for pertinent datanegating a balloon.

Other Possibilities

Caliber of the witness wouldrule out hoax or hallucination(shared with co-pilot?).

Sighting Evaluation

The object was 1/3 the appar-ent size of the full moon or a-bout .08 of an inch held atarm's length according to thewitness. It was situatedagainst clouds which radar in-dicated were 20 and then 7 nau-tical miles from the aircraftwhen the object was first andlast seen. The object was mov-ing into the wind when firstseen and executed more than a.100-degree turn before enteringcloud cover.

When observed it was sil-houetted against a line ofclp.uds. Visibility around andbetween the aircraft and theclouds was unlimited. The ob-ject was observed for about 3minutes (estimated 2 minutes,45 seconds). The abrupt turnand disappearance into thethunderstorm clouds took onlyan estimated 5 seconds.

The following negative fac-tors, based upon rough (butconclusive) calculations ruleout the possibility that theobject might have been a bal-loon if the witness' estimatesare taken as being fairly ac-curate.These factors are based upon:

the object's .08" at arm'slength apparent size; its esti-

mated location and flight pathin relation to the cloud lineand- Approaching aircraft; the300 nautical miles-per-hourspeed of the oncoming aircraft;and, the estimated sightingtime duration.Rough estimates indicate that

the object would have had to beover 100 feet in diameter todisplace an apparent diameter -of .08" held at arm's lengthwhen the aircraft was at least7 miles from it as judged bythe known distance to the cloudcover it was silhouettedagainst when last observed. Itwould have had to be a verylarge balloon! ,• Another point to consider innegating the balloon possibil-ity is the object's speed. Ifone takes the scaled UFO loca- .tion and flight path at face,value (See sketch), the UFOwould have travelled 18 nauti-cal miles between Points A andB in 2 minutes and 40 seconds.This would place its speed atover 400 knots.

Add to .the above data thatthe object was moving about di-.rectly into the wind and thatit performed a fantastic plus100-degree turn when its posi-tion was communicated via radioby the witness, and the balloonanswer is very weak.

The above reasoning coupledwith the training of the wit-ness (es) cause me to place thisUFO sighting in the unknowncategory. •

1975 MUFONSYMPOSIUM

PROCEEDINGS•(111'pages)

The 1975 Proceedings is availablefrom MUFON, 103 Oldtowne Rd.,Sequin, Texas 78155 for $4.00 post-paid.

Page 18

Bright UFO seenfrom private plane

Date of sighting: Nov. 22, 1975, 17:50-17:55 (EST).Location: 15 miles north of Walterboro,

SC.Witnesses: Frank Auman, Jr., Ashe-

boro, NC, contractor, county commis-sioner, pilot; and Arlan Keith Andrews,MUFON engineering consultant.Type of sighting: brilliant white light

in daylight.

By Arlan Keith Andrews

Frank Auman is an experiencedpilot with over 2000 hours offlying time. While we were fly-ing enroute to Savannah on thereferenced date, I askedwhether he had ever seen UFOswhile flying, since we are bothinterested in the problem. Hesaid that he had once seen abrilliant white light near thehorizon and that it had per-formed maneuvers and actedstrangely enough to convincehim that it had been a UFO.Within five or ten minutes of

that conversation, we spotted awhite light to our left (south-easterly, since we" were headingsoutheast, ourselves--see map).We speculated on its being asatellite, but saw that it wasbelow the clouds. We had hadcloud reports from ground con-trollers that the clouds wereat 20,000 feet, and our own al-titude was 4000 feet.

At the time we were on IFR(instrument flight rules) andwere flying over or parallel toInterstate 95 for safety's sakein case of engine failure.

When we decided that the ob-ject probably was not an air-craft either—since there wereno red or green lights, and thewhite light was not flashing,nor were any beacons visible—we looked at the time and ourlocation--it was approximately5:50 p.m. and we were about 15miles north of Walterboro, SC,heading south.

We continued to observe thelight and it appeared to beangling slightly toward us (see

estimated trajectory on accomp-anying map) and appeared as ifwe would pass close to it, aswe continued on our own flightpath.

I picked up my 35 mm cameraand prepared to take somephotos of the light, but waswaiting until it got brighterand closer, because havingtaken pictures of stars atnight, I knew that a half-second exposure or more wouldbe necessary to get a goodimage, and I didn't wantblurred or elongated picturesif it were indeed a UFO. Withthe camera (SLR type) up to myeye I waited for the object toget closer. At about the timeI decided that I had better getsome kind of exposure just incase, the object made a slightwobble (it appeared to me), andmade a hard left turn. It ac-celerated and within tenseconds had disappeared intothe still-sunlit sky to ourright. I did not take a pic-ture.

It is important to note sev-eral facts here. First, therewere never any other kinds oflights visible, so either theobject glowed white all over,or (less likely, I imagine) abright light was trained on usthe whole time.

Secondly, we saw that theobject was under the cloudswhen the observation period be-gan. The sky was relativelydark under the clouds, as thesun had just set and there wasonly about a 10 or 15 degreeband of sunlight near the hor-izon. As the object came across

our projected flight path itentered into the lit portion ofthe sky and it was still bril-liant. Its intensity was verymuch brighter than Venus at itsbrightest, and the objectsteadily diminished in intensi-ty until it finally vanished inthe light and haze over thehorizon. There was no suddendisappearance.

Upon landing at Savannah, wewent for a weather briefing atthe Weather Service, reportedwhat we had seen, and theycalled Jacksonville Center.They related that there hadbeen several UFO sightings(three was the word) during thetime of our observation. Theydid not say whether this meanttheir own radar or simply vis-uals by other pilots.

Information was also volun-teered that Fort Jackson, SC,was testing weapons that night,too. A map will show that FortJackson was about 75 miles tothe north and west of our posi-tion at the time of our sight-ing. Furthermore, the objectwas always to the south of us.

We both regretted that wehad not had the presence ofmind to ask the ground control-ler to look for another craftnear us, during the sightingitself. Even UFO investigatorsdo not always touch all basesduring a sighting. I furtherregret not having taken even ablurry picture of a blob.

The estimated elevation fromthe sighting vantage point wassomewhere between 15 to 30 de-grees. A sketch is included toshow the range of distancesfrom us the object could havebeen. I feel that the limitswere somewhere between 5 to 8miles.

1975 trace report addition

The following case was inad-vertently omitted from thelisting of 1975 trace cases byTed Phillips printed in theDecember issue:

May 09 1975 Grafton, Aus-tralia. 15 ft circle with awidth of 1% ft found, grass atcenter normal. (DAILY NEWSMurwillumbah N.S.W. 05-14-75)

Page 1!)

t •

In Others' WordsThe NATIONAL ENQUIRER'S most

recent UFO articles have in-c luded a lengthy report onTravis Walton's UFO abductionclaim (December 16 issue) andsinger Mel Tonne's 1963 UFOsighting (December 23 issue).

NATIONAL TATTLER reportedRev. Billy Graham's thoughts onUFOs and angels in the November50 issue. In the December 14issue, TATTLER featured a re-port on a Michigan center forthe study of UFOs and psychicsubjects.

The January issue of MENcontains a UFO article whichcan only be described as "ques-tionable rehash." Save yourmoney.

A good article by RobertKlinn appears in the Januaryissue of' PROBE THE UNKNOWN,This deals with the underwaterobject seen near Pascagoula,Miss., shortly after the Hick-son/Parker abduction claim wasmade public. Klinn quotes froma Navy investigations report onthe incident.

Wendelle C. Stevens' articleon "angel hair" in the Januaryissue of SAGA is excellent andcertainly worth the attentionof all UFO researchers.

The Winter issue of UFO RE-PORT is available at this writ-ing. As always, it containsnumerous items of interest, in-cluding an excerpt from JacquesVallee's forthcoming book, THEINVISIBLE COLLEGE. UFO REPORTwill be published on a bi-

UFO photos in color & fact sheet:

Saucer set No 1. 2. 3. & 4 Each set$5.95; Adamski set No. 1 & Z. each$5.95; Brazil set, $5.95; African set.$5.95; UFO set No. 1, and 2 $5 95 each;Stock set, $5.95: Pentagon set $5.95:Villa set No. 1, $5.95; Villa No. 2.$6.95; Villa No. 3. $7.95: Fry set, $5.95.Also UFO books, slide sets, and taperecordings.

Bemis Distributors, P.O. Box 35,Versailles, IL. 62378.

By Lucius Parish

monthly schedule, beginningwith the next (March) issue.Also, a list of back issues ofthe magazine is available fromthe publshers (333 JohnsonAve. - N.Y., N.Y. 11206).

An interview with nuclearphysicist/lecturer StantonFriedman appears in the Januaryissue of IN THE KNOW. Mostlyfamiliar material, but still ofinterest.

The February issue of MALEcontains a rather questionableUFO article by Ronald Drucker.The March issue of this maga-zine is supposed to feature ailarticle on "UFO-active" areasof the U.S.

The first issue of a newmagazine, ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS,is now on sale. In addition tofeaturing material on thetheories of von Daniken andother writers, the publicationwill also carry articles onFortean phenomena, the BermudaTriangle, etc. The issue isbilled as an "OFFICIAL UFOSpecial Issue," but plans callfor it to be published as aseparate magazine on a quarter-ly basis. A good portion ofthe material is familiar, butlater issues might prove moreinteresting.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTERVEN-TION: THE EVIDENCE by JacquesBergier and the Editors of INFOJOURNAL is now available in apaperback edition from SignetBooks at $1.25.

In one sense, I am extremelygreatful to Lawrence DavidKusche for the vast amount ofresearch which he has obviouslydone in writing his book, THEBERMUDA TRIANGLE MYSTERY-SOLVED. Yet, in another sense,I feel he has gone a bit toofar by rejecting anything andeverything of an anomalousnature which has supposedlytaken place in the, "Tfiangle"area. Kusche does show 'thatmany of the ship and plane dis-appearances have actually not

occurred in the area which isusually designated as the "Ber-muda Triangle." He also makesit clear that there has been avast amount of nonsense writ-ten on this topic over theyears. Even so, he provides noreal solutions to several ofthe disappearances, rto matter;,where they occurred. Moreover, 'it is not merely the vanishingships and planes which serve Cogive the so-called "Triangle"an aura of mystery. The Kusche.book is well worth your time,but it is not the "wholestory." The hardcover editionof the book is available fromHarper § Row -10 East 53rd -St.- N.Y.', N.Y. 10022; the priceis $10.00. A paperback editionis now available from War-nerBooks for $1.95.

stronomyHotes

By Mark Herbstritt

February SkyMercury—It is in greatest

western elongation on the 16th,'so at about this time it mightbe seen low in the southeastjust before sunrise.VENUS—It rises about an hour

and a half before the Sun andis 12 degrees above the south-eastern horizon at sunrise..

MARS—In Taurus, it is nearthe meridian at sunset and setsabout three hours after mid--night .

JUPITER—In Pisces, it iswell past the meridian at sun--set and sets before midnight.SATURN—In Cancer, it is well

up in the east at sunset.The Alpha-Aurigld meteor

shower occurs from the 5th tothe 10th.

Page 20