Sightings of UFOs Continue

Sightings Of UFOs Continue

Washtenaw County’s “flying saucers”—which the U. S. Air Force writes off as swamp gas or stars—were back in force over the weekend.

Sheriff’s deputies and city police reported they processed 11 reports of unidentified flying objects over the area Saturday night, yesterday morning, last night and early today.

In addition, a new rash of flying object reports appeared from Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, North Carolina and Georgia.

The weekend “sightings” began about 8:30 p.m. Saturday with Judith Alpha of 7870 Willow, Augusta Township, told sheriff’s men she saw five objects in the sky over the Milan area. The objects hovered about 3 feet up and later Mrs. Alpha said one of the objects hovered 500 feet over her house.

Milan police confirmed the sightings and said they were over the north edge of the village, sheriff’s men said. The location was near where Sheriff’s Deputy David Fitzpatrick early on the morning of March 17 took two pictures of strange objects in the sky. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astrophysicist from Northwestern University, discounted the objects in Fitzpatrick’s pictures as simply being the moon and Venus.

William Morgan of 653 Armstrong Dr., Ypsilanti, told sheriff’s men he saw three objects in the sky about 2,000 feet up at 2 a.m. today. He said they had white and red lights and hovered in the air.

Don Hoff, an Ann Arbor News printer living at 611 Ross, was called by a neighbor at 5:45 a.m. today to view an object with a blue-white light moving in the southeast. Hoff said he watched the object with binoculars and it did not appear to be a star or an airplane.

Fred Steinheiser of 917 Church said he saw a high-flying object m the northwest moving at a high rate of speed at 2:15 a.m. today while Fred Parks of 900 Pomona sighted an object over his area Saturday night.

Other reports came from an area over US-23 in Ann Arbor Township, Fosdick Rd. in Pittsfield Township and Huron River Dr. near N. Territorial Rd. the later sighting is not far from the Frank Mannor farm on McGuiness Rd. where an object reportedly landed briefly a week ago.

A belated report of a sighting came from Mrs. Joseph Gittelman of 3409 Norwood and Mrs. Kathy Brest of 3411 Norwood. The women said last Thursday night and early Friday morning they and neighbors saw an elliptically-shaped object with five blueish-green lights on it over their neighborhood.

At Newton, N. C., police officers from six towns in three counties reported seeing a glowing blue object streak across the sky at 2 a.m. today and "explode" without a sound. The "explosion" lit up the sky around the town of Valdese.

Arthur W. Fiedler of Warren, Mich., told State Police today he took a picture early today of an object in the sky with red and white lights on it which had no wings and made no noise.

Three police officers in the Bad Axe, Mich., area reported seeing an unidentified flying object moving over that city early yesterday.

Two policemen in Shelby Township, Macomb County, saw strange, moving white lights early today. They fell swiftly into a swampy area and disappeared.

Air Force officials at Selfridge Air Force Base near Mt. Clemens denied a report they had “scrambled” fighter pilots when the objects were reported over Milan Saturday night. Radar observers both at Willow Run Airport and at the military screen at Ft. Custer near Battle Creek said they picked nothing up on their equipment at the time.

One of the weekend sightings ironically enough was made near the Air Force’s Wright-Patterson Base near Dayton, Ohio. It is at that base that “Project Blue Book,” the study of UFOs by the Air Force, is headquartered.

Ohio Highway Patrolman R. D. Landversicht said he saw a strange light approaching the base and photographed the light. He turned the film over to Air Force officials who said they will process the pictures.

Major Hector Quintanilla, “Blue Book” project officer, said it was not uncommon for numerous "sightings" of UFO's to be made after the original ones in Michigan.

In Toledo, a member of the Sylvania Fire Department furnished a radio station with a detailed account of an object seen through binoculars. He said the four objects changed from red to green to white.

Dr. Hynek said at his Evanston, Ill. home Sunday that he did not “manufacture” his explanation of the Washtenaw and Hillsdale County sightings.

“I was under no orders from the Air Force to produce something or else,” Dr. Hynek said.