The 260-year-old Man

The last house on Elm held a special place in the hearts of its Kalb neighbors. In 75 years four families occupied the seven bedroom, three-story frame Queen Anne, and each, in their own way, contributed to late evening and weekend gossip folks told to twiddle away idle hours.

Four families produced two divorces, one a brutal affair; a runaway, an unsolved disappearance of a house guest, two murders, three stabbings during a Christmas Eve party, a backyard drowning, and the last family left behind a bizarre account involving their garage, a chain saw and two missing hands.

Told individually, none of the stories provoked much controversy, unless the story teller knew about how the hands disappeared from the hospital after surgery failed to reattach them. An intern probably mislaid those hands or threw them away accidentally or some such other plausable explanation. Or maybe even a college student walked off with them as part of a horrible fraternity stunt. Who knows? But the truth is, in the minds of dozens of 12 and 13-year-olds in Kalb, telling stories after midnight by a summer bonfire, no one can actually prove those hands didn’t crawl off by themselves.

So with not much to tell about other households on the street, and so much activity on one single plot, a feeling emerged about a sort of smirch the house held – like the place had a wicked sense of humor. One account suggested there was maybe a curse on the property and that to live there was like signing your own death certificate, or at least, like planning in advance to screw up your life or those of your loved ones. Property values, in this case, meant nothing. Neighbors joked about the place and how it now sat empty since poor Mr. Patire, the pianist, lost his livelihood in that garage accident. Parents used the tales to threaten rowdy children at bedtime. Drive-by teenagers scared each other with the stories on Halloween and on other dark nights. But no taxpaying Kalb adult with respectable home equity dared invest in a move up to the finest picture of turn-of-the-century architecture in a dozen blocks.

Why move into a place that invited trouble? The family next door, to the east, for example, was considering that very month the house went empty, of expanding their little castle to provide space for twin girls born two months earlier and who were straining the environment of the home’s other six members.

The house next door to theirs, the fancy Queen Anne, was cheap compared to other homes on the street, all inferior by most standards. Yet the Dickersons would sweat and toil and borrow and strain their budget, adding two rooms on the north side of their brick bungalow, a rather common addition compared with what lay next door.

Real estate was a seller’s market as no fewer than 18 homes were ever on the multiple listings at any given time. That is based on thirty or forty buyers looking for property at the same given time, an agent’s dream or nightmare, depending on how you looked at it.

Mr. Dickerson would have only had to put his house on the same market and apply a small deposit on what had been the Patire estate. He could have picked up two acres, nine rooms, three of them bedrooms, and come out ahead on the deal. Mr. Patire must have known the plight of the home because he wasn’t asking much for the place, based on other home values, and his neighbor could even have cut a bargain on that asking price. But Mr. Patire left town for a psychiatric hospital three hundred miles west and set his family up in a Chicago condo while he recovered. The Dickersons weren’t interested in moving next door and the house sat empty for three seasons with no attention to household detail except for small favors the selling agent paid on four or five spring visits.

Aside from its major tales, other stories appeared on demand, especially when one neighbor or another wanted to stretch the official account or rearrange the published facts to include his family or his property or any way to somehow claim a stake to a piece of the old home’s notoriety.

“Claire and I were driving by the place late, on our way home from a movie, when Mrs. Patire ran screaming from the garage that rainy night.”

It probably wasn’t raining and it was more than likely daylight and poor Mrs. Patire wasn’t running and screaming at all. Instead the neighbor probably swerved to miss the woman as she took the garbage out. But prying reality loose from its historical setting is one way to get close to stardom, even if you really remember it that way.

Take the case of Ginny Fryer. A nice woman in the right setting. But Ginny was the talk of Kalb late in her high school senior year when she was the bunt of a cruel practical joke. A young humorist somehow got into the yearbook office, after hours, fumbling with page galleys so the type under Ginny’s senior picture, after her name, read “most boring person in the senior class.”

Now it was true that Ginny Fryer’s father was dead ten years and her mother worked third shift at Kalb’s only all-night laundromat. And with five siblings in the rented Fifth Street flat above Keyster’s Barber Shop, and not much money, Ginny, by the end of her senior year, had never traveled further than the Indiana state line.

One Saturday night, after Frank Gumble dumped her for an Illinois State freshman, Ginny stole a taxi idling at Main and Pearl streets, and on a dare, drove herself, four girlfriends, and Brenda Lee’s kid brother, Daryl, to the state line. They never even crossed over to Indiana, a subject debated and regretted for weeks by Ginny and half the senior class. They rode back to town the next morning in three of five vehicles heading that direction and occupied by the Church of Christ’s Evangelical Debate Team returning from a lost evolutionist vs. creationist match in Evanston.

Rev. George phoned Mrs. Fryer and reported her daughter’s indiscretion and subsequent conversion, but the stolen cab part of the story kind of died down with Ginny’s newfound occupation with a religious bent. For a girl known to have kept boundaries mainly in town and rarely out of the very county she lived in, and as close to the state line as she was and not crossing over it, small town talk was bound to label her a perfect nomination for the hall of boredom.

If history was recorded correctly, as it rarely is, someone would step forward and tell that it was Frank Gumble who switched type on that yearbook galley. And if all the pieces of a mean joke could be told, you’d see that Ginny changed after that publication and set out to prove she was not a perfectly boring Midwestern daughter of an overworked, underpaid laundry woman.

Ginny was not really boring. No creature who rises on Saturday mornings before the sun to be first in line at Cheney Library’s used book sale is not boring. We can question their long-term motives, but we cannot say they are boring. Ginny’s passion for reading carried her away to foreign ports and Third World alleyways, a trait she imitated watching her mother get lost in quarter novels she bought from a back table at Ann’s Antiques along Church Street. Fantasies were precise for Ginny. Things would go exactly this way or that way in her mind. Sometimes she tried very hard to believe that the lower Church Street Bridge over the Hoosick River was a meeting place for spies. In one play out of the story, three men and a dog drew plans in the dirt with sticks that told about how they would rob Kalb’s only bank, under the bell tower, at noon on a Thursday. That story fell apart when Mrs. Kiski called Mark junior home for lunch and the Welty twins went off for a game of foosball at Helen’s Pizza on Main. The dog ran off to sit in the shade under a bench in front of Keyster’s Barber Shop. The more books Ginny read, the more fantasies she could create in Kalb. And since reading was personal, so were her fantasies.

When the ad appeared, Ginny was the first reader to match the address in town with the Patire property. It was a classified under help wanted in the weekly tabloid that advertised itself as the official village newspaper. The official part was for legal notices from village government and because no other newspaper published in Kalb. The only other news gatherer and disseminator was the counter at Will’s Alley Cafe between seven and eight-fifteen any morning of the week. The breakfast clientele seemed to make up a piece of most village governing bodies that counted, at least during election time, and stories traded there, beat out the newspaper by three or four days. During a thunderstorm once, at dead-line on Tuesday morning, just for fun, the cafe sent a messenger over to the paper with news that the old Bradley Street hat factory burned to the ground over night and two horses were dead. The old factory grounds were downwind of the newspaper’s Main Street office in the old Friedman Bank building. And besides, two members of the village board, sitting at the counter that morning, wanted to see what the newspaper would print about a decision pending on turning the property into a municipal parking lot.

Frank Warner, a village trustee who backed the parking lot project, went down to the fire and stood for four-and-a-half hours just in case someone from the newspaper showed up and he could retell his side of the project. When no one showed, Frank’s wife telephoned the village reporter’s wife and found out that the reporter, Tom Wilder, went off to see a sick relative in Ohio. The trip from the cafe in the morning was a last ditch effort to offer the newspaper a scoop about some structural tragedy that could turn itself around in the village’s favor.

When Ginny saw the advertisement for a live-in house attendant, she sat down and wrote out a response. The ad read simply: Wanted, full time, live-in house attendant, for number 30 Elm Street. Write P.O. Box 1X, Boston.”

Ten days later a telegram, no less, arrived in Ginny’s name with the abbreviated message: Hired. Stop. Report number 30 Elm Street. Stop. Saturday, October 31, midnight. Stop.

Ginny’s reputation may have been boring, but she was the first creature in Kalb, Illnois, aside from the selling agent, to find out that number 30 Elm would be occupied again.

Information on small town matters, especially in a small town, made for a favorable position in just about every circle, considering the nature of number 30’s former tenants. The date and time of day mentioned in the message was savored by Ginny for ten or fifteen minutes before she let loose with the story during the third shift at Henriatta’s All Night Laundry. Ginny’s mother listened with the others; Carla Dalton, a 50-year-old seamstress, Maggie Stearns, a school teacher, and Betty White, a barmaid at Lou’s Third Base. Her mother spoke first, saying she objected to the meeting time, but that work was scarce in Kalb and that she probably ought to go. Betty offered to go along and help Ginny work out the details, but Carla advised Ginny to decline the offer unless Betty sobered up for the trip.

No one heard Ginny’s answer as she snatched up the telegram and threw open the side door, an October wind gutting the humid dryer area, and she disappeared into the unlit alleyway between the laundry and Third Street Hotel.

Further up Third Street Todd Barnes was puffing on a Winston and trying to blow smoke rings as he leaned against his new car, a ’68 Mercury Colony Park station wagon, parked along the street in front of Lou’s Third Base. Stuart Kline, one long year below the legal driving age, was sitting behind the wheel pretending he was driving. Actually Stuart was imagining he was driving something sportier and flashier, but the steering wheel and control knobs of a ’68 Mercury did the job this weekend night. And Stuart, doing a fine job of keeping his imaginary car on the road, and in good condition, caught Ginny in the rear view mirror, as she approached from behind. Todd was two years older than Stuart and both boys favored the company of any Midwest female on a Saturday night, to the lonesome hours they spent with each other. When Ginny seemed like she might slow down long enough to spend some time, Todd stamped out his smoke in the street and Stuart ended his foreign spy chase and climbed out through the passenger window.

The three teens sat along Third Street, on the curb behind the Mercury, and studied the Boston telegram for clues.

The job offer was officially a mystery, the newest pulp on Number 30 to hit Kalb’s population since 70-year-old Ida Mae Holloway claimed last month that her great grandfather, Col. Edward Stark, was the first person murdered in the house. The news of Ida Mae’s ancestry shot up into all but seven households in Kalb, and those seven were out of town. A job offer would bring a regular person off the street into the new families’ household and would most certainly provoke two murders this time and surely the town would suffer. That’s what everyone would say.

In the next ten hours, the same ten it would take for a story of this sort to get through Kalb, Ginny would become a celebrity, as absolutely everyone wanted a new piece of information on the event that no one else had so as to add to the rampant conversation with something new on the subject that everyone else didn’t already know.

Two business establishments on Church Street posted a copy of the telegram, keeping their patrons properly informed, and seven others on Main kept one behind the counter in case the subject came up. In other words, if Margaret Shaw, fondling a top of the line rake at Lou’s Mercantile, asked about the Ginny affair and said “I might buy one of these” in the same breath, Lou got the copy of the telegram out.

Ginny went home that night and slept on the living room couch and dreamed about the adventure the house would bring. Most of Kalb went to bed that evening thinking she’d get murdered or tortured or maybe scarred up pretty bad in some kitchen accident.

On Halloween Eve, five neighbors stood a quarter-block west of the Patire house while their combined eight children tricked or treated the street behind them. The subject of the Patire’s and the three previous homeowners came up and one of the group wondered out loud if the house would ever sell, considering its background.

In the distance, well beyond their Halloweener’s, a pinging sound grew louder and louder, until a grey shape appeared on the horizon, turning all their heads in that direction, and there appeared a 1956 Oldsmobile, a fine specimen of vintage automobiling, in need of a tune-up, trudging along the street, passing them in a slow pan, a single male figure behind the wheel, and turning the curb ahead of them, tooled up the short drive to the Patire home.

The engine went dead at the top of the drive, and heads cranked in that direction, a small man emerged and stood next to his aging General Motors product, and stared at the dark Queen Anne hulk 50 yards ahead.

Martain Crosby Van Buren saw the advertisement for number 10 Elm in the classified section of the Sunday New York Times, a hunch appeal the selling agent reserved to speed up a sale. Martain bought the house Monday at 11 a.m. on a whim shortly after Bob Stiles phoned to say the Cunningham deal went through.

Cunningham Fruits opted to buy Martain’s services in a move that would triple his output. The time had finally come where Martain could move out of New York and operate from a foreign port if he so chose.

The idea of a Queen Anne that occupied one corner of a shady Kalb cul-de-sac, maybe a library on the second floor, some stained glass and enough land to holler and scream late Sunday night in the back yard of and no one would hear, amused Martain. The town itself was a mystery to the salesman, but searching for its controls was a decision-making reason for moving there. Driving along Route 80 crossing Michigan in his 1953 Pontiac to take ownership, Martain thought about where he might fit in and who was mayor and what’s the zoning board of appeals like and where should he drink with the boys late at night and who were the boys?

He wanted to get there and put the house in order again so bad he ordered the entire staff, one housekeeper, to assemble shortly after his intended arrival at the end of a long road trip from the city that would put him home before midnight Halloween.

In the city he was out of place, collecting his idea of vintage anything from old books to a Brattleboro, Vermont pump organ. In the country, as he thought of Huntersville, the surroundings would give him room to control more of his environment and maybe give him a greater say so in control of those surroundings.

There was no socializing with New York’s Mayor Koch, but he imagined lunching with the Kalb mayor or having a beer with the Republican socialite during a political rally.

At an art gallery party once, the night before he left for Kalb, and on a bet with two patrons he’d met five minutes earlier, Martain made a fuss over a peculiar water color and offered to bid on it. That particular piece was purchased, coincidentally, 10 minutes later by Rev. George Archibald to fulfill the minister’s annual relic-collecting hunt, for a figure several dollars higher than Martain’s fraud bid attempt. The three, for a couple more dollars bet, moved on to a second work of art, two rooms over and at ransom, made a fuss and offered to bid on the piece within next hour. Fifty minutes later the painting, the next to sell since the reverend’s buy, sold 10 percent higher than Martain’s rumored bid.

By this time the three had consumed two more intoxicating drinks

Daffney Coleman concocted in a pinch, and offered to buy all five of the Stahlman artist’s ink drawings. Ten minutes later they were gone when the C.E.O. of a western hotel chain doubled Martain’s offer. If these three boys had only known Martain was wearing the wrong identification pin, one that should have been attached to art critic Jack Dalphin, they surely would not have tried their luck a fourth time. And on the fourth run of their drunken wager, no one bid against Martain’s $400,000 offer for a French artist’s Duck Soup.

Martain walked out the back door two minutes later to avoid actually paying out against the painting or the $225 he would have lost on a bet gone sour.

[MORE SOON]

The Vintage Lamp

a short story by Roger Marsh

Most folks in town described Anita Perkins with peculiar detail. A few could talk about Anita for up to three hours without repeating a story, many could hold an audience while three consecutive beers were consumed at Taylor’s Saloon, but just about everyone held onto one story or another that they could tell to a traveling relative or at a convention three states away.

Mary Stuart said Anita once asked her to change the date for an outdoor gathering because it would rain so hard that day it would be difficult to both attend and enjoy the event under such moist conditions. Anita had touched Mary’s back and said the years of pain would be a shame. Mary was suspicious and curious of Anita Perkins from then on because it rained that June after­noon, she slipped on a concrete patio while rushing the olive tray inside, and her back has never been quite the same.

Most of the other stories are not as prolonged as Mary’s back ailment, where she will feel some pain off and on for 10 years. Many were quite simple but made an impression on people the same way a man looks at a ripe apple in the bottom of a Coke bottle. Mystery has a way of carrying itself from mouth to mouth and yet no one would ever ask if the Coke bottle owner had tied his empty container to the branch of an apple tree and let the apple grow up inside. That would dispel the mystery, and no one would have anything to talk about on weekends.

The grade school principal said the Perkins woman tried to talk him out of purchasing a $150 dress for his wife. Anita said it would be embarrassing for his wife to open the gift in two months and, having gained 20 pounds on a family vacation, she would not be able to wear the garment. Mrs. Graham left Mr. Graham three weeks after her birthday once the weight gain touch­ed off a series of arguments that caused irreparable damage in their marriage. Mr. Graham was convinced Anita was both a tramp and a witch. He tells that story at every haircut on the corner of First and Lincoln. Those who listen repeat it now as the number two story about Anita Perkins, just after Mary Stuart and the rain.Anita was a tall, big boned woman, with long, light hair, frizzy, the kind that if caught in the right light made it look like she had a halo. The clothing she wore was always cartoony-colored. Sometimes she wore red knee socks, a bright yellow skirt, and a blue and green tapered blouse. She always wore a flower in her hair. The red roses looked best when she wore her blue dress. Harvey Stetson liked Anita’s blue dress so much he kept a fresh rose behind the counter every day in case she came in wearing it and had forgotten to put a flower in her hair. To date, Anita has been in Harvey’s Feed and Grain Store once. Anita spent seven minutes getting warm in Harvey’s store when the bus was late on the day she was having the oil changed on her car.

They never even spoke.

Anita Perkins had built herself a reputation for precogni­tion in town. The local newspaper even once reported that Anita had requested and had been turned down by the city for a stop sign to be placed at an insignificant intersection 17 blocks from her own home. The intersection was the scene of 7-year-old Lidia Ketchman’s death nine weeks later when Mr. Graham was driving too fast and didn’t see Lidia as he was traveling to an alimony hear­ing. A city councilwoman remembered Anita commenting after the month­ly meeting that Mr. Graham’s job loss would be a shame, and that the drinking would only make matters worse. Of course, Mr. Graham started drinking after the accident, what with the school superinten­dent’s daughter dead and everything, started missing too much work, was fired, and spent 16 months without work or character.

With all the stink about Anita Perkins, and the small size of the town to discuss matters properly, the thought of someone challenging the powers of so legendary a figure would seem un­real. But Bud Collins and Steve Jackson were curious.

Bud did not directly collect or inquire about the Perkins woman. He didn’t have to. Steve Jackson, his roommate on Roosevelt Street, did all of the collecting and inquiring. Steve claimed he saw Anita purchase a dozen candles and four gallons of kerosene three days before the two-day power outage in ’05’.  Most people had to stand in line for those items when the lights went out, but Anita sat comfortably at home.

Steve had it figured that Anita would slip up some day and expose herself in front of the townspeople with something like a text on witchcraft, a bottle of demonic potion, or maybe a voodoo doll. Someday, he said, she was going to actually be caught doing something in public that would lead him to the source. It was the source of her powers that intrigued Steve.

Steve and Bud spent the following Saturday parked a half-block east of Anita’s green three-story home on Pearl Street. It was the only home in Huntersville that had a lookout tower. The observatory was like a giant ice cream cone attached to the north side of the top floor.

A retired fisherman had the home built in 1889 with money he’d won gambling on a train from Philadelphia to Chicago. Garson Stiles said his grandfather once told him the home was the center of controversy in 1894 when it was rumored the old fisherman, Girty Langer, had built a kind of contraption that was going to change the way people lived. Girty was the kind of man in town that people respected because he had forged and completed a noble career in the East and had chosen Huntersville as a place to retire. New money was welcomed in Huntersville in 1889 and espec­ially so from a salty gray-haired gentleman who minded his own business and paid taxes on time.

It seems Girty was overheard talking to an out-of-towner in a city tavern one evening about this thing he was building in his cellar. The story was picked up in fragments from James Tuttle who was within eavesdropping distance but whose hearing had gone bad after a day-long battle in the war between the states. James didn’t know exactly what Girty was building, how long he’d been building it, or even what kind of changes it was going to make in people’s lives. Casey Randall was a clerk with the electric company then and said Girty’s monthly bills were three times higher than most folks with a house the size of his. Sitting around the fireplace at Will’s Tavern, Brady Fisher matched Casey’s story with a list of packages that arrived at the post office for Girty over a two-year period.

Even the Presbyterian minister joined ’round the fireplace when Brady pulled the crumpled paper from his pocket and held it out to read.

“January thirty-first, postmarked, London, England. February twelfth, New York City. April first, Paris, France.”  Brady read on for two minutes, pausing only to get help on a pronunciation, or to describe the size and weight of some of the packages. Casey was the kind of man who did regular things at regular intervals and did not favor anything as impractical as a puzzle.

“Now what would a man do with trappings from all those places?” he asked. “What’s he building down there anyway?”

Casey, James, Brady, the Reverend Fox, and the others, scratched the sides of their heads, made firm and straight stares up at the ceiling, and as a group drank over 40 noggins of beer that evening and everyone of them went home without even a reasonable guess at what Girty had in mind.

The subject came up four consecutive Saturday nights and still no one could answer the favored question in the minds of Huntersville’s leading citizens. Between the fourth and fifth Saturday, Girty was buried just outside the city limits after his heart gave out. The home was willed to and taken possession six months later by Girty’s niece, who neither mentioned nor alluded to a cellar contraption that would change man’s destiny. Clara Reese willed the home to her daughter in 1936, and Anita purchased it in 1983, four days before Stella Reese was placed in a home for the aging, where she died the following year.

Garson heard these stories when he was 20 years old, in 1944, and repeated them some 60 years later, after his grandson, Steve, began inquiring about the previous owners of Anita’s home.

From the driver’s seat of his beige sedan, Steve wondered if there truly was some crazy machine in the house and that maybe Anita had happened upon it after her purchase 11 years ago.

After daylight passed Steve and Bud got out of the car and sat in the grass in front of the Dawson’s house. The Ford rolled an entire car length before either man took notice. Steve swore later that he hadn’t left the car in gear. However it happened, the car rolled, and with it, Steve and Bud ran behind, both hoping that years of watching daredevil car chases on television had paid off.

Neither of them caught up with the car until seven feet of Carol Bronson’s new split rail fence lay wasted, three shrubs the Coleman’s wanted taken out anyway were run over, and the bottom two wooden steps of Anita Perkins’ front porch lay in splinters. About the same time the two arrived on the scene and were only beginning to wonder how to explain the car, Anita Perkins opened her front door.

No human being should be treated to more than three or four moments of real terror in their lives, and one of them should be explained away as easily as saying the boogey man does not live under your bed. He lives under someone else’s bed in a town you never heard of, can’t be in two places at one time, and is not fond of travel.

Learning to explain away terror can’t be done in some cases, like war, and during earthquakes and things. And like some quick and subtle disaster dished out by Mother Nature, having Anita Perkins open her front door and see you standing on her lawn, in the dark, next to your car where no parking space had been intended, and having no way to come closer than eight feet to each other because there were some missing steps, is a terror no human being should even watch from a distance.

But what happened was as gentle and understanding and casual as saying thank you after receiving a pleasurable gift from a close friend. Anita Perkins looked straight across the splinters on the hood of Steve’s car and spoke two simple senten­ces.

“My telephone is in the entry here. I hope no one was hurt.”

As Steve was about to explain that they probably wouldn’t have to phone anyone, and that they could just back the car out onto the street again and return in the morning with a check for the damages, the front right tire on the car hissed and went flat, steam began pouring from the radiator, and the sound of the engine died. Since there was no need to say what he was thinking now, Steve and Bud climbed up onto Anita’s front porch and step­ped inside.

From the entry hall there was a warm feeling standing on solid mahogany floors. The golden glow of turn-of-the-century lamps lit up dark corners and brass door knobs. Two sitting rooms opened left and right of the entry, a staircase made one long appeal to the second floor, and an orien­tal runner marked a path back into the kitchen area. There were fresh flowers all around and from the sitting room facing west, came the sounds of a harpsichordist playing Bach. The smell of freshly baked pumpkin bread hung in the air.

Anita remained still, until Steve and Bud had their fill of looks around. She pointed toward the black telephone on a wooden stand at the bottom of the stairs.  After the phone call, Steve and Bud moved toward the door and were stopped when Anita spoke.

“Don’t you want what you came for?” she asked.

Bud could not reason an eye level higher than the entry floor, and Steve imagined what range of damage a woman her size could do between where they were standing and the time it would take to reach the street.

“It’s important that it be moved tonight,” she said.

Anita walked into the sitting room where the music played and stopped by a lamp on an end table in front of the window facing the street. The lamp had an ornately-carved rosewood base and the shade was made from cut glass of probably 80 different colors, all mixed into a swirling form, that, when studied for very long, intimidated those who gazed.

Steve and Bud moved into the room and stared at the lamp.

“Girty had it all figured wrong,” Anita said. “He thought it could just stand here in front of this window forever. But I know better.  It must go tonight, or it probably won’t ever work again.”

Steve moved closer to the lamp, then fixed his eyes on Anita, who had taken a seat on a couch on the opposite side of the room.

“Do you have a problem with your lamp?” Steve asked. “Do you want me to fix it for you?”

Anita sat up straighter and closed her eyes.

“You have to trust my understanding of the lamp,” she said. “I’ve had it for 11 years. I’ve worked with it. I’ve followed Girty’s instructions. You must take it tonight and place it in your front room, in front of the window facing west. There were some things that Girty didn’t take into account, and I’ve corrected it all. Now it has to be moved.”

Bud was restless.

“What exactly does your lamp do?” he asked.

“It changes things,” Anita said. “It makes things better. But you have to follow the book. I’ve made all of the corrections.”

“What book?” Bud asked.

Anita moved her right hand slowly and laid it on top of the table next to the couch, on an enormous book with a leather cover and gold lettering.

Two hours later, sitting on the floor of their front room, Bud inspected the lamp carefully and Steve studied a page in the book that showed the town plan for Huntersville. The hand-drawn illustration had an “X” marking the spot where Anita now lived with a lot of scribbling next to it, and a grouping of numbers that Steve thought were the longitude and latitude of the spot where the lamp had sat all of those years.

In more recent ink, there was an arrow drawn from that spot to the location of Steve and Bud’s apartment on Roosevelt Street.  Beside that was more math, and a note: “the window in front, facing west.” On a later entry in the book was a year, a day, and a time.  Steve recognized two of the three and then looked at his watch.

“We have three minutes,” he said.

Bud put the lamp down and gazed across the room at Steve.

“What happens in three minutes?” he asked.

“The instructions say to follow the log,” Steve said. “The log, according to the markings here, has been completed, without error or inter­ruption, since 1894. There’s only one entry that has not been completed. It’s the last one. In less than three minutes, we’re supposed to simply turn on the lamp.”

Bud got up from the floor and went to the window facing west. In the darkness everything seemed to be quiet. The homes across the street had sprinklings of lights on here and there.  Just below the window of their apartment, Barry Steiner was sitting in his car, smoking a cigarette as usual, while he killed time waiting on his wife who was babysitting the Tucker’s two and-a-half-year-old girl, Gilda Marie. A small dog slept in the grass between Steiner’s car and the sidewalk.

Bud stepped aside while Steve placed the lamp gently on the table and plugged it in. No more words were spoken in the room.

At the appointed time, Steve and Bud both watched from the window and Steve reached down and threw the switch.

Barry was getting impatient. His wife had been due to finish 30 minutes ago, and he had not seen the Tucker’s blue station wagon pull into the drive yet. He had sat at this inter­section every Tuesday and Saturday night for almost a year now, and Hilda hadn’t ever been more than 25 minutes late. From where he sat, he had the environment around him memorized. He knew every home, every car, and every tree. He could almost predict who would pass on foot and who would drive by.

When he crocked his head back in the seat and looked at the window, the color startled him. His right arm moved quickly forward to catch the balance he really hadn’t lost but had imagined. His hand hit the horn by mistake.

When the Tucker’s dog, Pepper, heard the horn, he jumped up from his nap, and ran out into the intersection.

Mary Stuart did not see the dog until the last second, but swerved sharply to the right on instinct, ran off of the roadway, and came to a stop halfway up Clara Colverson’s front lawn.

Gilda Marie Tucker, who was sitting in the middle of the intersection picking up a doll that she dropped, smiled.

“Pepper. You come home,” she called out.

Hilda Steiner screamed from the Tucker’s front door and did not stop running until she had Gilda Marie safely in her arms again.

Gilda Marie Tucker did not thank Steve or Bud for turning on the light that summer evening, and neither Steve nor Bud remembered the name of the little girl in the street 51 years later when Gilda Marie Tucker Coakley made her inaugural address to the nation.

The Presence

Tom Provost’ stunning film – ‘The Presence’

The paranormal – with all its weirdness and curiosities – finally took a boost with writer-director Tom Provost’ stunning film – “The Presence” – making its way October 4, 2011, to a DVD box near you.

Provost simply invented something new in the paranormal movie genre and made 87 minutes of pure fun and adventure in this darkly romantic feature film.

All the basics are there – and more – as we cross a foggy lake to our remote cabin destination complete with no electricity or indoor plumbing. Translation: The characters use hastily-lit lanterns after dark and must walk to a creepy outhouse in a wooded patch behind the cabin for late-night bathroom breaks.

Now I don’t want to shock you before you’ve inserted the disc into your flat screen, but there’s no dialogue in the first 25 minutes. And surprisingly, it’s not missed while we’re introduced to a young woman apparently on retreat and to a very quiet, wide-eyed, handsome male spirit inside the cabin who’s politely curious about the new tenant from “the other side.”

What surprised and trapped me in that first half-hour was the methodical badgering of intense quality in every corner of the screen. It’s kind of like what Provost kept out of the film that enlarged the story and made it remarkable.

While the trip across a foggy lake set spooky in motion, even the opening credits were incredibly interesting to watch. And without all that talking – we’re guessing Hollywood was not paying by the word on this one – your mind is saturated with the visual and the sound of haunting. The cabin itself is a portrait of lost time. The lighting incredibly natural. And the sounds and music we hear tell a story in itself in a way other storytellers failed while they “blablablaed” you to death with sick details and corny scare tactics.

Provost decided instead to leave no stone unturned and to simply treat the audience as innocently sophisticated – but once you step inside the Provost world – he tears you apart with cinematic tools Hitchcock-style. 

The cast is an ensemble-style unit that fits perfectly inside this paranormal landscape.

Mira Sorvino is “the woman” we meet right up front – a Harvard grad who majored in Chinese – who first appeared as Laura in the 1993 independent gangster film, “Amongst Friends,” appearing alongside Dad, Michael Sorvino; then in an Oscar-winning award as Best Supporting Actress in the 1995 Wood Allen film, “Mighty Aphrodite.” Sorvino brings unrelenting character strength to the film while blending well with all the cinematic tools Provost tosses out. It’s a performance you may well recall in movement rather than dialogue in a film where tense might be better defined by a stare.

Shane West shares those early moments with Sorvino as the “ghost” whose routine seems to be pure curiosity like he’s a teenage boy peaking through window blinds at some late-night female attraction. The Louisiana-born actor was first seen in ABC’s successful “Once and Again” series in 54 episodes between 1999 and 2002; but you may also catch this guy writing and playing guitar in his band, Average Jo. 

Enter Oregon-born Justin Kirk – the actual setting for the film – just as Provost is introducing dialogue – a gifted stage actor who brings his own personal intensity to this remote place. Kirk may prove to be your choice for the film’s stand-out performer as his character is allowed to ask all those questions the audience is screaming for. But Kirk never runs off with this important tool; instead seamlessly blending that emotion with the other cast and allowing the story to roll along in Provost’s devilish way.

Tony Curran is the “man in black” – born in Glasgow, Scottland, UK – whose character swings the mood and intensity of this film in almost a mildly comical way – well, evil comical – allowing new emotions to spew from the spiritual side. Just when you thought you had the film figured out – Curran is the curve ball leading you to play ball Provost’s way where the paranormal is suddenly alive and dead all at the same time.

Additional performances are brought to you by Muse Watson, another stage actor who moved to film and has appeared in 51 feature movies – and plays Mr. Browman, the kindly older gentleman who operates a boating service on the lake; and DeobiaOparei, “the Woodsman,” whose role may surprise you as the story winds down.

The story of “The Presence” is a simple blending of the past meeting the future – a seamless bond between cinematic tools – where sound and lighting, crew and cast, titles and props, all got it right and shared the experience instead of any one element out-shining the other. Provost created a film that is both timeless and enduring.

So slide that DVD in. Turn off the lights. And sit back for a thrill. Highly recommended. We only hope Provost has no time to read this review and is instead out making another film. Watch the trailer.

Editor’s Note: Pennsylvania UFO encounter

Roger Marsh was the editor for Silent Invasion.

Our Looking Back column this month recalls an incredible wave from 40 years ago where various parts of the country experienced an unusual amount of UFO traffic during 1973. I have personally mentioned this particular time in this space before as I had firsthand encounters with these strange objects.

John Ventre describes the many pockets across the U.S. where UFOs were out in great numbers and flying low to the ground. In Pennsylvania that year, especially in the southwestern portion of the state, hundreds of UFO reports were being received by investigator Stan Gordon as well as a large number of Bigfoot reports in the same areas.

While the ridicule factor was in high gear in that era for anyone claiming to have seen a UFO, reporting a large, tall, hairy beast in your backyard was beyond comprehension and many believed the stories were being invented. I always like to point out that especially in this time, those who studied the UFO phenomena were not speaking to those who studied Bigfoot, and those who studied Bigfoot most likely did not speak with those who studied UFOs. The two worlds just did not intersect.

But yet the reports continued to pour in about the first of January 1973 and continued to get stronger over the summer and falls months. Gordon made the decision then to accept all reports of anomalous behavior and later began to draw conclusions between the UFOs and the creatures.

Just after dark one evening I was standing along a suburban street in Greensburg, PA, with a group of friends, along Seminary Drive in the Mt. View neighborhood. Someone pointed down the street of nicely built homes and manicured lawns and shouted, “What’s that?”

Like everyone else, I looked in that direction and saw something rather unusual. In the sky barely a few feet above the telephone pole lines was an object about the width of the two-lane road, disc-shaped, perhaps just 8 or 10 feet tall, that was completely lit up on its underside, and was silently moving directly toward us.

Pennsylvania telephone poles stand 40 feet tall, so I estimate that this object was no more than 45 feet off of the ground. The disc was moving toward us at a fairly slow rate, about 10 to 15 mph. All eyes were on the object as it reached us and moved directly overhead.

I recall nearly gasping as I took in the object in the seconds before it was overhead as I tried to make sense of what it could be. The size and shape were unusual, its lighting rather odd, and then the silence officially pronounced it as a mystery. As it moved overhead, standing just beneath it on the ground 45 feet below, you can only hear what appeared to be the displacement of the air, like a light rustling of the wind.

The object was following the lay of the land with Pennsylvania’s gently rolling hills. It moved past us and followed the long hill that moved toward Route 30 below us and quickly disappeared.
The moment’s following were a bit panicky – everyone was moving around and shouting and asking what it was we just saw. In a neighborhood of 300 homes and just a few blocks from home, I quickly jumped into my family sedan and drove home, rushing inside to tell my parents what I had just seen.

Moments later, we were outside again looking at the sky, wondering if the object was going to return. A Ford station wagon loaded with neighbors from the opposite end of the area pulled up in front of our home and we rushed over to talk to them. This group had just seen the same object and they were alarmed. We all quickly agreed to assemble witnesses on their property as soon as we could.

Then about 15 minutes later, I found myself standing on the neighbor’s front lawn with more than a dozen other witnesses all telling our personal story of the encounter we had just had.

None of us really understood that evening what the larger picture was. My own father, though, was a volunteer photographer for Stan Gordon and my parents attended meetings on the UFO phenomena with him. I had a bit more information that night than the average person, but even Gordon was most likely in the dark as to how much longer the wave was going to continue.
Then suddenly, someone in the group shouted – “Look, there it is again. It’s back.”

I looked up into the dark sky and again saw what appeared to be the same disc, lit the same way as the original object, but this time it was higher on the horizon and a short distance away from us. We watched as the object moved toward us and then it suddenly stopped and began to hover.
After a few seconds of hovering in place, the object began to quickly move directly down and toward the ground, but stopped and hovered again possibly at about 200 feet. Then a few seconds later it simply remained at that altitude, but moved about 100 feet and stopped to hover again. Then it quickly shot straight up into the air back to the level where we had first seen it hover.
Then hovering in place at this higher altitude, it moved about 100 feet away at that same level and stopped again. Then again rushed to the ground area, again to about 200 feet off of the ground.
We all waited in anticipation to see what was going to happen next. But now we heard the distinct sound of jets moving into our airspace.

The unusual object, hovering at this rather low altitude, suddenly shot off at an angle at tremendous speed until we could no longer see it.

Then we all saw what appeared to be two military jets moving into the sky in formation. As they entered the same area where the object had just been making its odd maneuvers, they circled that area, and then quickly moved away in the same direction that the object moved.

Just a minute later, two light planes, possibly single engine aircraft, moved into the area in the same formation as the military jets did, flying alongside each other. They also circled the local airspace and then like the military aircraft, moved off into the direction of the UFO.

We all began talking again about what we had just seen. Someone wondered if we were in the middle of an alien invasion. Others told their own, personal UFO stories from the past.

And all of us wondered out loud if we would ever see this strange object again.

We did not have to wait long. About 30 minutes later, what appeared to be the same object moved into our air space from the original direction it had approached from. And then the object performed the same maneuvers it had done earlier in exactly the same fashion – stopping and
hovering, moving toward the ground, sliding over, shooting up, sliding over again, shooting to the ground, and then moving out of our area at tremendous speed.

And then again the military jets moved in, completed their circling, and again moved off in the same direction as the UFO. And again, the light planes moved in and completed the same actions.
We all stood outside another couple of hours that night, but the strange object and the known aircraft did not return.

Once 1973 had finished I learned the larger story from Stan Gordon and the odd reports of the Bigfoot creature in the same area at the same time.

Many years later, Gordon and I would reunite on the subject and work on the book, Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook. Gordon chose a methodical case-by-case look at what occurred that year and relates the cases with great detail from an investigator’s point of view.

If you study ufology and have not yet read Gordon’s book, I would suggest this particular volume be read and studied as one more important piece of the larger puzzle as we resolve the UFO enigma.

Hearing my parent’s story of watching a UFO hover over a gas station near their home in the early 1950s was chilling, but seeing an actual UFO at 45 feet propelled me into a lifetime of UFO interest culminating in a recent four and-a-half year project covering the latest news on incoming cases.

Riveting evidence pushes boundaries of reality: Marden-Stoner book blends personal testimony and theories

Kathleen Marden is the Dr. Ruth Westheimer of alien abduction. Packed neatly into this manuscript, Marden and co-author Denise Stoner take us up close with the latest on abduction data wonderfully weaved into the story of two American women plagued with unusual interruptions in their daily routine from sources unknown. The authors professionally question themselves along the journey as they poke and prod beyond the main witnesses revealing compelling physical and testimonial evidence that a non-human intelligence might be visiting, borrowing, probing and returning multiple humans worldwide on a regular basis. They admit that more questions than answers are raised, but then allow the reader this unusual glimpse into how the two women discovered and are dealing with a very real problem of unusual proportions.

Marden was immersed into the alien abduction arena by birth – aunt and uncle Betty and Barney Hill are icons in the subject area based on their widely told 1961encounter along a lonely stretch of New Hampshire highway. Books and films have described their incredible story. Marden followed with the 2007 release of Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience: The True Story of the World’s First Documented Alien Abduction (New Page Books) with co-author Stanton T. Friedman.
Stoner has gone on to investigate UFOs with MUFON first as a Florida State Section Director and Chief Investigator and currently as Florida Assistant Director of Abduction Studies.

The idea of alien abduction is taken to a new level in this latest work where the boundaries of reality are pushed along with riveting evidence suggesting multiple perspectives are required for a complete analysis. The authors bring both hard and soft evidence to the table and wonder how we relate it all together. The evidence is there, they suggest, but we move cautiously forward in the analysis while we question every step.

The witness realty that investigators continue to battle suggests we are dealing with a non-human intelligence. The rest of the story is conjecture until more of the puzzle is brought to the table. The most frightening reality is that we ignore the evidence that something must be studied at all.
The two main characters in this new work – including co-author Denise Stoner – are individuals who have experienced alien abduction over many years and both have rich testimony to reveal.
The work includes a visual tone where the reader is allowed even the smallest details along the way that paint an elaborate living set. We get the feeling from the beginning that these are good people from hard working families who did not choose their circumstances.

They in fact were plucked from their reality and seemingly moved about in space and time in ways no one can quite understand. As readers, we stand with the authors in awe of this awkward moment in human history where multiple witnesses seem to tell similar stories of capture and removal and probing and then a return to the human setting.

Marden is humble despite her extensive professional background, merely stating the known facts and seamlessly matching circumstances with a larger group from the Marden-Stoner “Commonalities Among Abduction Experiencers” study. For the reader new to both alien abduction and UFOs, the authors offer an easily digestible review of how UFOs have been studied by the U.S. that is widely seen to have moved from a public gallery to a secret, underground phase without public comment.

The authors are clear that multiple theories abound inside and outside the scientific community. To even admit these experiences are real just to begin to study them is equivalent to opening up a Pandora’s Box of problems. While Americans were wide-eyed on UFOs early on in the 20th Century, the subject quickly moved to a mockery where good witnesses feared both ridicule and losing their professional stature.

While the authors advise readers on the positive and negative merits of hypnosis, the use of hypnotic session dialogue brings us up close and personal with the witness. The case descriptions and backgrounds included are clear and well presented, but hearing the witness speak specifically about the encounter is chilling.

The Alien Abduction Files: The Most Startling Cases of Human-Alien Contact Ever Reported by Kathleen Marden and Denise Stoner is a well blended story of intensive investigation and well gathered evidence – including multiple alternate non-alien theories. The story closes with several more witnesses’ stories told more succinctly to reinforce the simple idea that mankind is somehow being personally invaded in ways and for reasons not yet understood.

Under investigation: New witness testimony

The following is selected edited witness testimony from Assigned Cases for February 2013. All of these cases are currently under investigation by MUFON field investigators.

February 11, 2013, 8:30 p.m., Longwood, Seminole County, FL, Case 45682.
“My teenage daughter was driving home from the store at about 8:30 p.m. last night,” the witness stated. “As we were coming down the block I noticed a green, small light cross the road at about 20 feet overhead that left a trail as it moved. My first thought was a lightning bug, but I then realized it was too big to be and I never see lightning bugs here. We pulled into the driveway and I jumped out of the car looking up. It was then about 10 to 15 feet overhead and moved diagonally but was now red and also leaving a trail. As it moved all you could see was a color trail and no object. I was never able to actually see an object which blew my mind because it was not that far! I looked toward the tree tops across the street and saw a white light blink once and never saw it again. I just stood there dumbfounded trying to understand what it was that I just saw. I started to feel faint or woozy and decided to go inside. As soon as I went inside my husband asked me what I was looking at and I said I saw something. He then began to describe the same thing with the same colors that he had seen earlier in the evening before I could describe to him what I saw. It seemed as if it was crisscrossing the street going over homes for some reason and felt as if it was alive in some way? I am having a hard time explaining the experience.”

February 17, 2013, 6 p.m., Papaaloa, HI, Case 45764.
“I was sitting on my front porch, having a cigarette when I looked up and saw a black spot a little ways off in the distance,” the witness stated. “I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed that it wasn’t moving. There was a bit of wind so if it had been a bird, kite or something similar it wouldn’t be that still. I watched it carefully to see if I could identify it, but it appeared to be morphing shape from having a boomerang type shape to being a saucer, to being a perfect orb. It moved a few times from the southwest to the southeast direction, each time stopping and hovering perfectly still for a few moments before moving a little more. Suddenly, it dropped straight down a bit and then headed off to the east. I ran inside and grabbed binoculars as well as getting my dad to come outside with me. We both observed it hovering again, perfectly still just above the tree tops (Although it must’ve been behind them, depth is hard to discern against the sky). I looked through the binoculars to see that the color of the object was cobalt blue and shiny. Like car paint. There were no lights and no sound. Right after observing it through the binoculars, it disappeared completely. This all took around half an hour-ish and I stayed outside about another hour longer, hoping to witness something further but to no avail.”

February 9, 2013, 7:30 p.m., Charlottesville County, VA, Case 45663.
“I was watching Matlock around 7:30 p.m.,” the witness stated. “Father yelled as I ran out with video cam in hand. The UFO was hovering above the house as the lights turned red to green and white to blue and Yellow-Orange moving north to south. Five minutes later a black helicopter with a searchlight came from west to north. Then 30 seconds later two jets past from east moving to the north.”

February 2, 2013, 5:50 p.m., Dutchess County, NY, Case 45570.
“I was driving on Route 9 north near Academy Street in Poughkeepsie, NY,” the witness stated. “ I first noticed the object as what looked like a plane crashing or falling out if the sky. It had red and white lights. As I got closer it swooped down near the tree tops at a 45-degree angle. It was metal and comparable to the size of a small plane, diamond or triangular in shape with some type of tail with lights. It had a strange depth to it. Many other cars were on the road that night who may have witnessed this. When I realized it was not a plane I screamed. I continued to drive due to traffic and high speed. It was off to right top side as I drove off. I considered turning around to take pictures, but I was too afraid since I was by myself. I went home and told my husband and called in the sighting. No one has yet to come forward as I am hoping they will. I have contacted the local paper. I have been trying to deny to myself what I saw. It was disturbing and difficult to make sense of. Anyone who saw this, please report it. You will not be ostracized. You can call the local police or newspaper. I have also reported to the national reporting center.”

January 12, 2013, Ciscero, Hamilton County, IN, Case 45704.
“Coming south on Interstate 31, I made a right turn on Interstate 47 heading west,” the witness stated. “Place is Bakers Corner just west of 47. Saw a light coming down and I thought it was a plane coming in for landing. I leaned forward to get an idea what direction it was to the right side of my car. I was looking through my windshield. Looking up I saw a red light about 40 feet up and it changed to a bright light and then to a bluish light. This light had about a three to four foot diameter and I could see it was recessed. That’s when I noticed the red light was above and to the rear of the car. At that time the lights blinked off. I was trying to locate them when I looked in the mirror and saw a vehicle with one light coming up behind me. I proceeded driving that vehicle followed me. When I got to Interstate 421 the vehicle was no longer there. I thought it may have been a tower at that location. I went back a few days later and there was no tower. There are a few towers in the area but none had the shape of lights that I saw. Whatever it was seemed to have stopped right above us and the trees. It bothered me that I couldn’t get a better look. That’s why I went back to the area.”

UFO model building inspired after Missouri triangle encounter in 2000

Tom Jensen in his workshop.

Artists seek inspiration from many sources, but if seeing is believing – Tom Jensen creates UFO models after an incredible southern Missouri triangle sighting in January 2,000.

Most ufologists are now familiar with the January 5, 2000, case of a slow moving triangle that crossed southern Illinois with multiple police agencies following the silent object. Bill Birnes and the History Channel show, UFO Hunters, featured the case. Our Illinois State Director Sam Maranto investigated.

Jensen was an assistant fire chief with two police officers who saw the same craft in nearby southern Missouri about an hour and-a-half before reports began in Illinois.

“It was a life changing event,” he said. “I will never forget the details of that night.”

But Jensen did not immediately begin building UFO models nor did he discuss the case much as he worked for state government, and like other professional positions in corporate America, talking about a UFO sighting was not considered acceptable behavior.

Model UFO by Tom Jensen.

Now in semi-retirement he and his wife are living in Minnesota, where he built his first UFO model as a prank during the Halloween season.

“I built a semi-full size model as a Halloween display,” he said. “Then the guys from MUFON in Minnesota and North Dakota were fighting over it – and I was thinking who was going to get here first with the check to buy it? Well, the guys from Minnesota got here first. And then we set it up in a banquet room at a Minnesota MUFON meeting and one of the members commissioned me to build a second one just for him. The cost for that second one was about $3,500 to build it. It even had a chrome dome on it.”

Jensen said he has only built two of the larger models, but has completed a dozen or more of the smaller, desktop models. Some of them include LED lights that are battery operated. He mainly builds the saucer-shaped UFO, but has also completed other shapes including the triangle.

Tom Jensen

But after seeing a large, triangle-shaped object close up, does Jensen believe we’re dealing with extraterrestrials?

“I’m not a firm believer that these crafts are from outer space,” he said. “Somehow I think that our government has something to do with it.”

Long before he created UFO models, Jensen completed a lot of water color paintings, but arthritic joint pain over the years caused him to instead take up woodworking.

He has created many kinds of children’s toys, including a fire engine and a San Francisco trolley car.

Jensen currently only builds with cherry wood and he does take orders – for toys and UFO models. If you have an interest in having something built, contact him at tandbjensen@bvillemn.net.

Kentucky witness comes forward with 1959 UFO encounter along country road

The UFO witnesses now in their 50s and older who had an experience during a long period of 20th Century American mockery are slowly coming forward to tell their stories. A 75-year-old from Edmonton, Metcalfe County, KY, filed his report with MUFON on January 7, 2013, as Case 45069.
Aside from some light editing and punctuation updates – the story that follows is in his own words.

“Well guys, I’m going to tell you about this one, but don’t tell me I was crazy or I’m just lying after all the years I’ve kept it to myself, okay?

“Me and my family were on our way to church one Sunday evening about 7 p.m. back in 1959 or 1960. Not sure what year it was, okay, and we were on what is called Old Randolph and Edmonton Road, which is probably 10 miles south of the main highway, just an old blacktop country road.
“Okay, this little country church set on this country road and we had to go over what is called the Roger Glass Hill. It’s a blacktop about halfway between Edmonton and Randolph Road, okay. He was the judge at that time in Edmonton, KY, but the road just before you get to this steep hill is a sharp curve and just as you clear out of the curve you’re on your way over this pretty steep hill. And if you’re going too fast with all of those little pea-sized gravels that works out of the blacktop on country roads, and you’ll skid on them.

“If you hit your brakes too hard, as you are ending and out of the curve, it sort of startles you because then you’re headed over this steep hill then and you have a tendency to hit your brakes and skid on those little gravels and you’ll slide off the sides of the road if you’re not careful.
“But I knew this old country road very well. Been down it several times and as we approached the hill back a distance before we got to the hill, you could see a bright glow glaring upwards.
“But from what? We don’t have any idea.

“My mother-in-law told me, you better slow up, there’s something wrong up ahead there.
“See the glow of lights looks like at about the old Roger Glass Hill, so I slowed up to about 35 mph, which is okay there if you know the road. As we got closer, the light I could tell it was glaring up from that steep hill.

“Well guys, you’re not going that fast at 35 mph, but when you are startled by something it’s not slow either. If you just hit that brake pedal, when we went over this hill, I could see it was emitting an ungodly amount of light from it. In fact, it was glowing a very, very bright, odd looking, white light. And when I slammed on my brakes, of course my 1951 Mercury Monterey just slid on all of those little pea-sized gravels, and I thought we were going to skid into this thing and I just threw my arms up in front of my face and eyes to protect my face from flying glass, but I got stopped just in time.

“And they were all screaming – stop, stop, stop.

“And I had the brakes on, but it just skidded on the gravel and my car slid I guess within 30 feet of this thing, setting right smack dab in the middle of the road. No way could I have ever gotten around this thing. It was hanging over the side of the road on both sides and it had bright lights flashing off and on in different colors, but it was sort of glowing underneath too.

“So they were crying and yelling at me to get back away from this thing. But when you’re startled so badly you just can’t get anything right. But I kept telling them, quit screaming and yelling. I’m going to back up the hill hoping all the time another car wouldn’t come flying over the thing and hit me from the back and kill everyone in my car. So I finally got the damn car started and went to backing up to the top of this hill and when we got there I stopped and was trying to get my senses and figure out just what the hell this damn thing was.

“And as we were staring at it, the damn thing started glowing really bright and sort of raised off the roadway where it was setting at and then guys, that’s when I knew this thing wasn’t from this earth.
“The thing just started gradually lifting off the ground. And then it got probably 15 or 20 feet up. I’m telling you guys this damn thing looked like a damn bullet streaking away from there.
“And like I say, it literally just vanished before our eyes. People, I have never in my lifetime ever seen anything equal to it, not before then and never since then either. It was probably in the dark and scared to death too of this thing.

“Looked like it was 30 or 40 or maybe even 50 feet in diameter. It could have been bigger than that, but it nearly scared everyone to death and it just vanished and us setting there looking at it as it disappeared into the night sky.

“And that’s the last time I went that road after dark too.

“Never again did I go that way. I’m 75 years old now guys and I’ve never told no one about it because if you had told anyone about something like that back when, they would have put you in jail or had a warrant taken out for lunacy saying you were crazy as hell.

“But guys, you can believe me or you cannot believe me. I can care less, but I know what I saw. It wasn’t just some kind of gas or mistaking a flashlight for this light. I know what I saw with my own two eyes.

“What it was I have no idea. But take my word for it. Since then I’ve worked on huge aircrafts in Venice, CA. I’ve worked at Transco Electronics in California.

“I’ve worked on all kinds of jets and choppers and take my damn word for it. It wasn’t any type of airplane and man on this planet doesn’t have enough brains to build an airplane that could go one-third the speed, or to make it plain, a fraction of that speed it took off at.

“If someone says, or tells you there’s no such thing – you tell them – I’ll tell them – they are a damn liar. I saw one. I know they are real people. Don’t you ever let anyone make you believe different either.

“They live out there somewhere, and hey, the strangest thing – this damn thing didn’t make any sounds or noise or anything you could hear. Nothing from its motor at all – no sounds.

“Thanks guys. I wish they weren’t all dead now. I would have all seven of them to tell you just what I tell you here in this email. But sadly, me and my wife at that time have since divorced and she passed away. And the other six have all since passed too. But you can take my word for it, none the less, this did happen people.

“I would gain nothing by lying to you. I want nothing from you. But just make people here know they are real. Where they come from is beyond me.”

Early 2013 reports show steady flow

New Year 2013 kicked off with an uninterrupted flow of domestic UFO reports. Good testimony describing low level objects where the witness was in close proximity seemed to be increasing during December with a steady stream of triangle shapes.

The low level cases continued immediately into 2013 with multiple states reporting good witness testimony. Images and video continue sporadically and, as usual, most are modest in quality.

Population is an interesting report criterion to watch as the frequency of close proximity cases includes a steady stream from small town America.

At least two known hoaxes were submitted since January 1, 2013, both quickly acknowledged by investigators. One inventive submitter copied a clearly-visible street lamp head and simply pasted it in the sky overhead. Clever, but investigators aren’t laughing. In France, it’s a crime, but you’ll have to read the other, bigger, story on this page to find that out.

The following are selected interesting cases that include edited witness testimony. Unless otherwise noted, these reports remain under investigation.

Two Florida witnesses reported watching a silent, cylinder-shaped object that moved under 500 feet over their Miami rooftop about 9:20 p.m. on January 1, 2013, in Case 44934.

The two witnesses had just returned from dinner and were on their driveway at the time the object was first seen. They began to videotape the object that made no sound.

“The object was a tall, cylinder shape. It had no visible protrusions, appendages or identifying marks. I would estimate the size as roughly 10 feet tall with a diameter of approximately 6 feet. The object glowed with a white light. The bottom glowed with a white and orange, pulsating light that emanated in a lens flare pattern about two feet out sideways from the bottom of the object. No light seemed to emanate downwards, even as it flew over our rooftop and driveway.”

The witness provided one piece of video and four illustrations with the MUFON report. Miami has a population of 408,568.

A Westport, CT, witness reported watching a “glowing, blimp-like craft flying under the cloud cover” just after midnight on January 1, 2013, in Case 44892.

The witness was outside walking a dog when the object was first seen.

“Looked up to see a large, orange-yellow glowing blimp-like craft flying under the cloud cover,” the witness stated. “I thought it was a commercial jet at first, but it was about 10 times brighter than a jet’s navigation lights and did not flash strobes like jets do at night.”

The object did not appear to be anything that the witness was familiar with.

“It was not appearing like any normal craft, jets, helicopters, etc. and when I realized it was totally silent, I was perplexed. It traveled a little faster than corporate jets that fly by the house for Bridgeport, CT, airport. It was fairly low in the sky passing behind trees and eventually lost sight of it in the northeast sky.”

The witness summed up the experience.

“It looked about the size of a blimp, but made no noise, and traveled straight, but with a dancing type trajectory. I never saw anything that closely resembled this object in 60 years of seeing aircraft, etc. at night.”

Silver Spring is in Montgomery County, MD, population 71,452.

Two Montana witnesses at Ronan reported watching a “line of lights that turned into a triangle and then began spinning” and moving away at great speed in different directions about 1:11 a.m. on January 1, 2013, in Case 44887.

Watch the witness video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1_17ZKVGzE&feature=youtu.be

The witnesses were driving north through Ronan when the lights were first noticed.

“They were too bright to be planets and too high to be power line reflectors,” the reporting witness stated. “That’s what I thought they were at first. I wasn’t sure what the lights were and pointed them out to my passenger.”

Ronan is a city in Lake County, MT, population 1,871.

An Illinois witness at Johnston City reported watching a “large, pyramid-shape bigger than a two-story house” just 500 feet away that was moving northeast and making a static-type noise about 6:02 p.m. on December 29, 2012, in Case 44937.

The witness in Florida Case 44934 from January 1, 2013, provided this illustration to show where the object was originally seen and the point when they began to video tape.

The witness was working when someone yelled out.

“I have no idea what it was,” the witness stated. “It was like nothing I ever saw before. It was 500 feet away overhead and moving northeast. It was making a static-type noise and you could smell ozone like after a lighting strike.”

The witness described the object.

“The object was pyramid-shaped around the size of two-story house. It had green, amber, red, and blue lights flashing faintly lit around the trim of it and a soft, white light pulsing across the surface from the center. It was flying around 50 mph.”

Johnston City is in Williamson County, population 3,557.

A group of witnesses just outside of Aberdeen, NC, reported watching a “black, diamond-shaped UFO” just above the tree line that turned upside down and disappeared into the night sky about 7:40 p.m. on January 2, 2013, in Case 44972.

The group was returning from a trip to the beach and were about 30 minutes outside of Aberdeen when the object was first observed.

“We all looked out the side window and observed what looked to be a diamond-shaped craft, descending at an odd angle,” the reporting witness stated. “It was just above the tree line and it had five lights, four white ones on each corner and a red blinking one in the middle. It was very large in size”

The witness described the object’s size.

“I’m not sure exactly – maybe 40-50 feet – maybe more. It’s hard to gauge size when you’re looking at something you can’t explain. Anyway we watched and listened as it made no sound.”

The object moved quickly away.

“It flipped upside down and disappeared into the night sky. When it flipped you could see one of the lights as stationary so the whole thing must have completely rotated upside down. Then it took off and it was gone.”

Aberdeen is a town in Moore County, population 3,400.

An Indiana witness driving along State Road 64 in Harrison County and approaching Crandall reported watching “a white orb with a red glow” hovering about 100 feet off of the ground before moving south about 10:20 p.m. on December 31, 2012, in Case 44973.

Photo from Indiana Case 44973 that occurred on December 31, 2012, in Harrison City. The witness was driving along State Road 64 in Harrison County and approaching Crandall reported watching ‘a white orb with a red glow’ hovering about 100 feet off of the ground. The witness said the object ‘looked perfectly round and had a white center with a red glow surrounding it.’ The case is under investigation.

The witness was heading home from work when the object was first noticed.

“It was about 100 feet off the ground and looked perfectly round and had a white center with a red glow surrounding it,” the witness stated.

The witness began taking photos of the object.

“I managed to get two pictures with my cell phone. The first one was really blurry from the sleet and rain hitting the windshield of my car. I rolled down the window of my car and started to lean out the window for a third picture.”

The witness described the object’s movements.

“The red glow literally in matter of seconds peeled away starting at the bottom going around the white center to the top and formed sort of a candle shape, dropped a couple feet and took off to my left heading towards Crandall, Indiana.”

The witness submitted one image with the MUFON report. Crandall is a town in Harrison County, IN, population 152.

An Ohio witness at Lisbon reported an object hovering over a nearby cornfield about 6:37 a.m. on January 3, 2013, in Case 44986.

“It was hovering over the corn field west of my house,” the witness stated.

The object moved in a spiral motion.

“As it would move it would spiral and move east.”

No other details were immediately available on the case. Lisbon is a village in Columbiana County, northeastern, OH, population 2,821.

A Granby, CO, witness reported watching a silent, cigar-shaped object projecting a beam of light about 8:02 p.m. on January 2, 2013, in Case 44999.

The witness had just gone outside to look at the stars when the object was first seen.

“As I watched it come closer I could see it had two lights on the body with a flashing light in between,” the witness stated. “The color of the lights were kind of amber. It did not have red and white flashing lights, FAA regulations.”

The witness described the object’s movement.

“It was flying in a straight line.I could see a jet flying in the background and I could faintly hear the jet sound, but this object that was closer made no sound that I could hear. I live in the mountains and it was a quiet night. I can’t tell you how high or how far it was but I can say it was definitely over my valley. I should have heard something.”

The witness watched the object until it flew out of sight.

Granby is in Grand County, CO, population 1,663.

A Texas witness driving west along El Dorado after exiting I-45 at Webster reported a black, triangle-shaped object the size of a football field with four bright lights was moving just above the trees about 7:45 p.m. on January 3, 2013, in Case 45002.

The witness was driving home from work when the object was first noticed.

“I noticed it out the corner of my left eye,” the witness stated. “I thought it might have been a new light pole since I had never noticed it before, but the lights were becoming much larger. I was driving about 30 mph and started to slow down as the lights were starting to move over the trees. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.”

The witness said there were other vehicles on the roadway at the same time and that they were slowing down.

“It was very large, maybe a football field long. It moved directly over my car and the others heading northeast.”

The witness described the object.

“From underneath it was a solid black triangle with the top being at the back of the craft. At this point, I had rolled down my windows and heard no sound other than that of the other cars, typical rolling tire noise.”

The witness became frightened, but decided to pursue the object a second time.

“I could feel my pulse beating in my face. I went to my apartment about three minutes away, grabbed my video camera and ran out the door back into the car. I headed back toward I-45 hoping to get a good camera shot and it was gone. I drove around for a good 20 minutes trying to find the lights. I know what I saw and I know I’m not going to get any sleep tonight.”

This case was closed as an Unknown UAV. Webster is a city in Harris County, TX, population 10,400.

A Georgia witness at Rome reported watching a “very large, rectangular” object that was slow moving at the tree top level about 9:30 p.m. on January 3, 2013, in Case 45009.

The witness was driving to work when the object was first noticed and thought to be either a meteor or a cell tower.

“It was rectangular in shape, maybe 40 to 50 feet across and 15 to 20 feet high. It was the pretty blue color, like the police emergency lights, but steady, not strobing. It was maybe 20 to 30 feet above the trees. It was slowly turning to have the blue lighted side face Potts Road.”

The witness continued to watch the object.

“It just slowly crept into the night over the trees. Never did I ever hear a sound, or wind from and propulsion. At the junction of Ward Mountain Road and Potts Road it was directly over the road in front of my car. The moon was not up as of yet, and except for the bright lights, I had no idea of its shape.”

Rome is the largest city in, and the county seat of Floyd County, GA, population 96,250.

A Richmond, TX, witness got out of his car for a better look at a “weird amber-colored light” and realized it was attached to a silent, black, triangle-shaped object about 9:15 p.m. on December 31, 2012, in Case 45006.

“I noticed a black triangle-shaped object behind the weird light. Since it was cloudy I could not see anything above the strange object. What’s even weirder was that the flying object did not make a single sound. I know it was flying very close by, but there was no sound.”

The object moved away.

“I lost sight of the light and the object as it flew directly above me because it was very cloudy at that time.”

Richmond is a city and the county seat of Fort Bend County, TX, population 11,679.

An Alabama couple driving north along I-65 in Calera reported watching “a silver disc 20 feet off of the ground and about 50 feet” away about 5 p.m. on December 18, 2012, in Case 45011.

The witnesses first noticed “two bright, white flood lights and a blinking red light in the middle.”

“The lights were brighter than any I have ever seen,” the reporting witness stated. “We thought it was a tower. I was supposed to turn left after getting off at the Shelby Co. Airport exit, but just had to go right and check it out.”

The couple disagreed over whether the lights were on a tower or not.

“We saw from very close up, a silver disc with white lights on either side and a red flashing light on the middle front. I felt as if it was watching us because it was tilted towards us. She said ‘lookout!’ as I was going into the other lane and a car was coming.”

A two-story building then blocked their view momentarily from the object.

“I whipped the car around and went right back. Less than 60 seconds had passed. It was Gone!”

The couple reports that four other witnesses saw the object, but did not follow it.

Calera is a city in Chilton and Shelby counties, AL, population 3,158.

A Colorado witness at Loveland reported a “strange craft” crossing the sky about 11:35 a.m. on January 6, 2013, that seemed to change shape between a cigar and a saucer in Case 45054.

“Witnessed a strange craft traveling north by northwest in a semi linear path changing its elevation, up then down, in a seemingly unnatural way, maintaining a medium speed rate with no lights or any markings indicating its terrestrial origins,” the witness stated.

The object seemed to change shape.

“Its shape was at times a cigar and at moments a saucer shape. It looked smooth and either silver or white.”

After the object moved away, the witness stated that a military vehicle moved in the same direction.

“Moments after, a black, military-style helicopter was seen going in the same direction as the unidentified craft, being around a half mile out.”

Loveland is in Larimer County, population 66,859.

A South Dakota witness at Yankton reported watching a light in the sky that looked like a police light where smaller lights are ejected from it – a pattern that has been observed over a period of four days about 10:30 p.m. on January 3, 2013, in Case 45060.

The sightings began on January 3, 2013, at about 10:15 p.m.

“I couldn’t help but notice what looked like police lights (‘cherries’ or whatever they’re called) in the sky to the south,” the witness stated. “I was pretty sure there weren’t any cop cars flying around that night, and the part of the sky I was looking at is a pretty busy flight path. On any day at any time of the day I see planes and especially helicopters flying by, usually flying northeast. This was definitely not a plane or helicopter.”

Then the witness noticed a smaller object being ejected from the larger object.

“A smaller thing like it appeared to fly out of and away from the first object. Its flight trajectory was a sort on parabolic curve toward the ground.”

The second object seemed to affect cows on the ground nearby.

“And as soon as object number two disappeared behind background trees and houses I heard a herd of cows about a mile away freak out briefly. Nothing really happened; no cows were harmed and the diving craft didn’t crash. But seeing that made me realize that there may be more of them. I looked around at the sky and spotted about four more of them but all were either smaller or at higher altitude than the first one.”

These light patterns have been spotted now for four consecutive days.

“But every night there seems to be more of them. Thursday there were maybe about three or four of them. Friday, January 4, 2013, there were about six of them. Saturday night at about 1 a.m. there were at least 11. While I write this it’s about 6:30 p.m. and they seem to have started early because instead of being on the eastern horizon, right now they are almost directly overhead, and other new developments are that they must be lower because they are much easier to see.”

As the witness was writing the report, one object appeared to be at or near ground level.

“And about 15 minutes ago I saw something with all of those same flashing lights, but was much closer to the ground and I can see the shape of it – maybe triangle or stealth fighter shape. There are no military bases around here or anything else that should bring so much aircraft other than the usual traffic of private planes, crop duster planes and medical helicopters. Tonight is as interesting as all the other nights so, I guess the story continues to unfold.”

Yankton is a city in and the county seat of Yankton County, SD, population 14,454.

A Mississippi witness in Tate County reported and photographed “a bright, hovering craft” that seemed to vanish after turning off its lights on November 11, 2012, in Case 45059.

The witness was driving along a country road and heading into town when a “very bright, blinding light” was seen.

“I thought it was a jet about to fall out of the sky,” the witness stated.

But then the object shut off its lights.

“The craft just switched off its lights when I came to a stop in the road. I had my i5 phone so I jumped out and snapped a picture. At that moment the very large craft just vanished from sight. No sound at all. It was pointed southwest.”

The witness speculated.

“The craft just vanished. It could have some sort of way of becoming invisible.”

Tate County is located in northwest Mississippi, population 28, 886. The witness stated that the nearest large city from the sighting area was Memphis, TN.

A report of a football field long, triangle-shaped UFO moving low over Webster, TX, last week prompted a nearby resident to come forward with new testimony on what may be a similar low flying craft over Harris County, according to January 8, 2013, testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

The original report in Webster was covered as Football field length triangle UFO reported moving over Texas town.

A Texas witness driving west along El Dorado after exiting I-45 at Webster reported a black, triangle-shaped object the size of a football field with four bright lights was moving just above the trees about 7:45 p.m. on January 3, 2013. Case 45002 was completed by Texas MUFON and determined to be an Unknown.

A new witness in Friendswood – about six miles directly west of Webster – reported watching “four bright lights not moving” that then moved over a nearby tree line about 8 p.m. on December 19, 2012, in Case 45093.

The witness read the Webster story, and seeing similarities in the two reports, decided to come forward and filed with MUFON on January 8, 2013.

“I was going south on I-45 and turned on El Dorado going west,” the witness stated. “I live at the intersection of Black Hawk and Barcelona Drive, almost directly west 2.5 miles – just like the Webster report almost exactly.”

The witness expressed regret at not stopping.

“I did not see the object move over me. I kick myself as I did not stop. I did slow down right before the school on the right on El Dorado Drive. I slowed to almost a stop, but kept moving with the window down. I did not hear any sound. I too was wondering – is this a new light tower? Or what could it be?”

The object seemed to stop and hover in place.

“It moved slow to almost a hover, and then seemed to keep moving northeastward. I was not the only one slowing down. I saw two others just slowing as I did. I did not see an object – just a grouping of lights that seemed to be connected some way as part of an object.”

The witness stated that he should have stopped and observed the object longer.

“I am glad I saw this article about Webster because every day since I have kept thinking – what did I see or I wish I would have stopped to observe longer. It was almost the same as the Webster, TX, sighting – same area, different date.”

Friendswood is a city in both Harris and Galveston counties, population 35,805.

Triangle shape continues as strong 2012 reporting: CMS logs in another 90 triangle cases for November 2012

The triangle UFO continued throughout 2012 as a “top three” reporting shape, according to MUFON monthly statistics. MUFON recorded 90 U.S. triangle UFO reports during November 2012 where the event occurred during November. The number of reports made for this shape is typical for 2012 monthly reporting. Please keep in mind that the number may increase over time as additional witnesses report events that occurred during that month in the future.

The following is a sampling of edited witness testimony from 14 November 2012 cases that have already been closed out as an Unknown.

November triangle reports began at 8 p.m. on November 1, in Merlin, Josephine County, OR, with Case 43656.

“I live on two acres in the country with a good view of the sky,” the reporting witness stated. “I walked out to look at the stars and noticed lights coming low and slow from out of the west. I called my wife to come out and look because the lights were coming from an unusual direction. I didn’t know what it was. I just knew it wasn’t an airplane because airplanes are my hobby.
“It was a triangle-shaped object with a cluster of lights in the front followed by a red blinking light in the center and another light close to that. At first it looked like two separate crafts, but as it got closer we could see that it was one big one. It headed towards the north and then banked towards the east and then disappeared. There was no noise at all.”

November 2, 2012
6:35 p.m., Phoenix, Maricopa County, AZ, Case 43729. “When I saw and recorded it was at 7th street just south of Bell Road around 6:35 p.m.,” the witness stated. “Three bright, white lights heading due west being trailed by a helicopter. My video is on Youtube, along with another (much better) video that catches the object from a block away. As it moved further west you can clearly see the lights are in a triangle pattern. When we first saw it, it appeared to be three large, non-blinking, slow moving white lights in a row (as shown on the other YouTube video) but clearly a triangle pattern as seen in my video. Watch ‘bright lights over Phoenix 11/2/12’ first, then mine ‘UFO Phoenix 11/2/12.’ Watching both videos gives a great perception of exactly what my mom and I saw.”

November 3, 2012
5:30 p.m., Katy, Waller County, TX, Case 43835. “We noticed the green sphere-like object in the sky and both observed that it was moving back and forth and up and down,” the witness stated. “We both knew this was not a plane. There also was another, smaller object. The pictures were taken between two and four seconds apart, so it was moving at a great speed. There is a small airport nearby, and we are very familiar with the landing and flight patterns, also colors of airplanes. There is a green outline in the clouds, and it looks like a green beam going downward. The object changed shape or possible turned over, and went to the south where it seemed to join with a cloaked, large object, which can be seen in the last photos. It looks like a cloud, but there is a clear outline of a huge disk, and cloud/vapor trail coming from the south/southwest.”
11:45 p.m., Des Moines, Polk County, IA. Case 43716. “The lights were aligned like the three points of a triangle,” the witness stated. “I could not see a solid object between the lights, but the way they moved together made me believe they were part of a solid object. The lights were above the tree line and appeared to be very close to me. I was worried that while I was sitting there the object/lights were going to fly over my house. They appeared to be much lower than an airplane would fly. I would estimate that they were approximately 100-200 feet in the air, maybe higher but definitely below the light cloud cover. I remember thinking that when the object flew over, it was so low that I would be able to see all the detail and that frightened me. The lights were gliding very slowly, not wavering from their position in the triangle and moving in a westerly direction. The lights were circular in shape and were about five times brighter and larger than the brightest/largest star in the sky. I watched the lights for about 10 minutes as they moved west, toward me, then they began to slowly fade until they appeared no brighter or larger than the average star.”

November 4, 2012
9:10 p.m., Herculaneum, Jefferson County, MO, Case 43707. “Observed three lights forming a triangle in the sky,” the witness stated. “The lights stayed on and did not blink. I was able to determine that the object that the lights were attached to was dark and triangular-shaped. The object seemed fairly large. When I first observed the object it was hovering. I watched it for
what seemed to be 30 seconds. All of a sudden the lights flashed very brightly and the object took off at a very high rate of speed. I also heard a ‘whooshing’ sound that did not sound like a helicopter or airplane.” Field Investigator: “The area of the sighting is VERY interesting. Herculaneum is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, Scott AFB is just across the Mississippi River in Illinois, and Herculaneum is the location of the largest integrated lead producer in the Western Hemisphere and the 3rd largest producer in the world. If something ‘unknown’ was to be seen hovering, this would be a likely area considering information obtained from previous sighting reports referencing water, mining areas and military bases as active areas.”

8:27 p.m., Fayetteville, Cumberland County, NC, Case 43730.
“I was driving west down Cliffdale Road coming back from the store,” the witness stated. “It looked like a cop helicopter looking for someone, low over houses to my left while driving south. Looked like this triangle within three white lights sitting over houses near the intersection of Cliffdale and Prestige. Turned around to get another look as quick as I could and it was gone.”

November 6, 2012
4:50 a.m., Hazelwood, St. Louis County, MO, Case 43755. “Noticed what I thought was an airplane fly across the highway,” the witness stated. “It got above the field to the side of the highway I was on. I pulled over and watched it descend down while flying back over to the highway right over my car. The first time I saw it the only reason I noticed it was because it was hovering over the bridge like just above it making it maybe 100 feet above my car.”

5:30 p.m., Jackson County, MO, Case 43750.
“We noticed a bright ball of light hovering over a central monument, Liberty Memorial,” the witness stated. “We were curious and drove toward this part of town, only a five minute drive to reach this monument. We got there and the object began to move northwest at a slow stall and unusually low altitude. It became a jet. It flew low enough for us to see in detail the underbelly with no markings, all white non-commercial jet making no sound. Our car did not vibrate as expected to be directly under a jet. I watched as the jet slowly passed over our windshield and then looked at it through the moon roof briefly. We were driving 25 mph. The scale was 2/3 the space of our moon roof. It took approximately three seconds to cross the moon roof view. It kept up its northwest flight path with a constant speed and altitude.”

November 8, 2012
8:15 p.m., Calabash, Brunswick County, NC, Case 43813. “A triangularly-shaped red light formation appeared, however, this was much, much, much different,” the witness stated. “This object was approximately 40 feet tall and I would estimate at its widest point at least a quarter-mile wide.Truly amazing and scary at the same time. Each point of the triangle had its own red light and the ship flew with no sound and only 100-200 feet off the ground over houses and out towards the beach.The flashing white lights and orange orbs are very common in my area and no one knows anything. Hundreds of videos uploaded on Youtube and nothing.”

November 9, 2012
7:40 p.m., Jacksonville, Duval County, FL, Case 43834. “I glanced upward and saw a very unusual ‘airplane’ at about 80 degrees,” the witness stated. “It was triangle-shaped (equilateral) and had softly glowing white light along its two forward edges. It appeared to be sub-divided by softly glowing light into six smaller equilateral triangles. It was moving at a high rate of speed in a straight-line flight path and I estimate that it was at an altitude of 5,000 feet. The object passed directly overhead and was silent. The object seemed to disappear when it was at about 70 degrees from my position. I estimate the duration of the event at between five and seven seconds.”
10:05 p.m., Parkville, Platte County, MO, Case 43807. “The object was about 200 or so feet above the tree line, but there were no sounds or wind gusts,” the witness stated. “A helicopter flying that low would definitely give off some sound. I thought this was really strange, so I slowed down to about 15 mph because there were no other cars on the road at the time. I noticed the lights were in a triangle shape but I couldn’t make out what was connecting the lights. The object was either transparent or blended very well with the night sky. The bright white light was on top. This light was the biggest and brightest. The smaller red and blue lights were underneath this main white light, forming the outline of the triangle shape. All the lights were flashing and becoming brighter at random times. When I was closest to the UFO I noticed it was not moving at all and was just hovering very low to the ground, maybe 200 or so feet above the tree line. I had to make a quick turn and I lost sight of it.”

November 10, 2012
6:28 p.m., Castle Rock, Cowlitz, WA, Case 43828. “Three totally silent, solid, reddish orange glowing spheres forming an equilateral triangle,” the witness stated. “Size: Each sphere approximately the size of a dime held out at arm’s length. The three objects were close enough to my car that I almost stopped my car as I actually feared that they might block the road, but they stayed hovering where they had been the whole time so I continued southbound on Si Town Road. They were totally silent. They did not blink, rotate or change color. They maintained a constant luminosity until the end of this event. They were each very bright and each sphere was about as big around as a dime held at arm’s length.”

November 17, 2012
6 p.m., Richmond Heights, St. Louis County, MO, Case 44062. “I thought it was a fast moving lone cloud, but then it was clearly a black triangle when overhead and made no noise,” the witness stated. “It only had some faint lighting around the edges, which may have been reflection from the city below. It disappeared over some high cirrus clouds, so I assume it was very large.”

November 29, 2012
12 a.m., Waterloo, Laurens County, SC, Case 44239. “I saw the rectangular shape and heard no sound,” the witness stated. “It has three or four white lights down each side and two red or blue blinking lights. It seems to disappear behind clouds when it starts back southwest.”
The triangle UFO continued throughout 2012 as a “top three” reporting shape, according to MUFON monthly statistics. MUFON recorded 90 U.S. triangle UFO reports during November 2012 where the event occurred during November. The number of reports made for this shape is typical for 2012 monthly reporting. Please keep in mind that the number may increase over time as additional witnesses report events that occurred during that month in the future.

The following is a sampling of edited witness testimony from 14 November 2012 cases that have already been closed out as an Unknown.

November triangle reports began at 8 p.m. on November 1, in Merlin, Josephine County, OR, with Case 43656.

“I live on two acres in the country with a good view of the sky,” the reporting witness stated. “I walked out to look at the stars and noticed lights coming low and slow from out of the west. I called my wife to come out and look because the lights were coming from an unusual direction. I didn’t know what it was. I just knew it wasn’t an airplane because airplanes are my hobby.
“It was a triangle-shaped object with a cluster of lights in the front followed by a red blinking light in the center and another light close to that. At first it looked like two separate crafts, but as it got closer we could see that it was one big one. It headed towards the north and then banked towards the east and then disappeared. There was no noise at all.”

November 2, 2012
6:35 p.m., Phoenix, Maricopa County, AZ, Case 43729. “When I saw and recorded it was at 7th street just south of Bell Road around 6:35 p.m.,” the witness stated. “Three bright, white lights heading due west being trailed by a helicopter. My video is on Youtube, along with another (much better) video that catches the object from a block away. As it moved further west you can clearly see the lights are in a triangle pattern. When we first saw it, it appeared to be three large, non-blinking, slow moving white lights in a row (as shown on the other YouTube video) but clearly a triangle pattern as seen in my video. Watch ‘bright lights over Phoenix 11/2/12’ first, then mine ‘UFO Phoenix 11/2/12.’ Watching both videos gives a great perception of exactly what my mom and I saw.”

November 3, 2012
5:30 p.m., Katy, Waller County, TX, Case 43835. “We noticed the green sphere-like object in the sky and both observed that it was moving back and forth and up and down,” the witness stated. “We both knew this was not a plane. There also was another, smaller object. The pictures were taken between two and four seconds apart, so it was moving at a great speed. There is a small airport nearby, and we are very familiar with the landing and flight patterns, also colors of airplanes. There is a green outline in the clouds, and it looks like a green beam going downward. The object changed shape or possible turned over, and went to the south where it seemed to join with a cloaked, large object, which can be seen in the last photos. It looks like a cloud, but there is a clear outline of a huge disk, and cloud/vapor trail coming from the south/southwest.”
11:45 p.m., Des Moines, Polk County, IA. Case 43716. “The lights were aligned like the three points of a triangle,” the witness stated. “I could not see a solid object between the lights, but the way they moved together made me believe they were part of a solid object. The lights were above the tree line and appeared to be very close to me. I was worried that while I was sitting there the object/lights were going to fly over my house. They appeared to be much lower than an airplane would fly. I would estimate that they were approximately 100-200 feet in the air, maybe higher but definitely below the light cloud cover. I remember thinking that when the object flew over, it was so low that I would be able to see all the detail and that frightened me. The lights were gliding very slowly, not wavering from their position in the triangle and moving in a westerly direction. The lights were circular in shape and were about five times brighter and larger than the brightest/largest star in the sky. I watched the lights for about 10 minutes as they moved west, toward me, then they began to slowly fade until they appeared no brighter or larger than the average star.”

November 4, 2012
9:10 p.m., Herculaneum, Jefferson County, MO, Case 43707. “Observed three lights forming a triangle in the sky,” the witness stated. “The lights stayed on and did not blink. I was able to determine that the object that the lights were attached to was dark and triangular-shaped. The object seemed fairly large. When I first observed the object it was hovering. I watched it for
what seemed to be 30 seconds. All of a sudden the lights flashed very brightly and the object took off at a very high rate of speed. I also heard a ‘whooshing’ sound that did not sound like a helicopter or airplane.” Field Investigator: “The area of the sighting is VERY interesting. Herculaneum is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, Scott AFB is just across the Mississippi River in Illinois, and Herculaneum is the location of the largest integrated lead producer in the Western Hemisphere and the 3rd largest producer in the world. If something ‘unknown’ was to be seen hovering, this would be a likely area considering information obtained from previous sighting reports referencing water, mining areas and military bases as active areas.”
8:27 p.m., Fayetteville, Cumberland County, NC, Case 43730. “I was driving west down Cliffdale Road coming back from the store,” the witness stated. “It looked like a cop helicopter looking for someone, low over houses to my left while driving south. Looked like this triangle within three white lights sitting over houses near the intersection of Cliffdale and Prestige. Turned around to get another look as quick as I could and it was gone.”

November 6, 2012
4:50 a.m., Hazelwood, St. Louis County, MO, Case 43755. “Noticed what I thought was an airplane fly across the highway,” the witness stated. “It got above the field to the side of the highway I was on. I pulled over and watched it descend down while flying back over to the highway right over my car. The first time I saw it the only reason I noticed it was because it was hovering over the bridge like just above it making it maybe 100 feet above my car.”

5:30 p.m., Jackson County, MO, Case 43750.
“We noticed a bright ball of light hovering over a central monument, Liberty Memorial,” the witness stated. “We were curious and drove toward this part of town, only a five minute drive to reach this monument. We got there and the object began to move northwest at a slow stall and unusually low altitude. It became a jet. It flew low enough for us to see in detail the underbelly with no markings, all white non-commercial jet making no sound. Our car did not vibrate as expected to be directly under a jet. I watched as the jet slowly passed over our windshield and then looked at it through the moon roof briefly. We were driving 25 mph. The scale was 2/3 the space of our moon roof. It took approximately three seconds to cross the moon roof view. It kept up its northwest flight path with a constant speed and altitude.”

November 8, 2012
8:15 p.m., Calabash, Brunswick County, NC, Case 43813. “A triangularly-shaped red light formation appeared, however, this was much, much, much different,” the witness stated. “This object was approximately 40 feet tall and I would estimate at its widest point at least a quarter-mile wide.Truly amazing and scary at the same time. Each point of the triangle had its own red light and the ship flew with no sound and only 100-200 feet off the ground over houses and out towards the beach.The flashing white lights and orange orbs are very common in my area and no one knows anything. Hundreds of videos uploaded on Youtube and nothing.”

November 9, 2012
7:40 p.m., Jacksonville, Duval County, FL, Case 43834. “I glanced upward and saw a very unusual ‘airplane’ at about 80 degrees,” the witness stated. “It was triangle-shaped (equilateral) and had softly glowing white light along its two forward edges. It appeared to be sub-divided by softly glowing light into six smaller equilateral triangles. It was moving at a high rate of speed in a straight-line flight path and I estimate that it was at an altitude of 5,000 feet. The object passed directly overhead and was silent. The object seemed to disappear when it was at about 70 degrees from my position. I estimate the duration of the event at between five and seven seconds.”
10:05 p.m., Parkville, Platte County, MO, Case 43807. “The object was about 200 or so feet above the tree line, but there were no sounds or wind gusts,” the witness stated. “A helicopter flying that low would definitely give off some sound. I thought this was really strange, so I slowed down to about 15 mph because there were no other cars on the road at the time. I noticed the lights were in a triangle shape but I couldn’t make out what was connecting the lights. The object was either transparent or blended very well with the night sky. The bright white light was on top. This light was the biggest and brightest. The smaller red and blue lights were underneath this main white light, forming the outline of the triangle shape. All the lights were flashing and becoming brighter at random times. When I was closest to the UFO I noticed it was not moving at all and was just hovering very low to the ground, maybe 200 or so feet above the tree line. I had to make a quick turn and I lost sight of it.”

November 10, 2012
6:28 p.m., Castle Rock, Cowlitz, WA, Case 43828. “Three totally silent, solid, reddish orange glowing spheres forming an equilateral triangle,” the witness stated. “Size: Each sphere approximately the size of a dime held out at arm’s length. The three objects were close enough to my car that I almost stopped my car as I actually feared that they might block the road, but they stayed hovering where they had been the whole time so I continued southbound on Si Town Road. They were totally silent. They did not blink, rotate or change color. They maintained a constant luminosity until the end of this event. They were each very bright and each sphere was about as big around as a dime held at arm’s length.”

November 17, 2012
6 p.m., Richmond Heights, St. Louis County, MO, Case 44062. “I thought it was a fast moving lone cloud, but then it was clearly a black triangle when overhead and made no noise,” the witness stated. “It only had some faint lighting around the edges, which may have been reflection from the city below. It disappeared over some high cirrus clouds, so I assume it was very large.”

November 29, 2012
12 a.m., Waterloo, Laurens County, SC, Case 44239. “I saw the rectangular shape and heard no sound,” the witness stated. “It has three or four white lights down each side and two red or blue blinking lights. It seems to disappear behind clouds when it starts back southwest.”