Continuing with our occasional investigation of some of the project blue book UFO cases which can’t be explained, I would like to look into some of those from the 1960s. One odd case took place on March 23, 1960. It happened in the sky over Indianapolis Indiana at 3:35 a.m. Aman and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. E. I. Larson were looking up in the sky when they saw what looked like a series of balls arranged into an ”X”. One of the things that makes this case even stranger is the fact there is nothing else mentioned about it such as looking into flights in the area at the time of the sighting, although probably nothing could explain seeing such an arrangement.

On April 12, 1960 something very strange was witnessed at Lacamp, Louisiana. At about 9 p.m. a physical scientist named Arnold Monroe saw something which was far more unusual than even a normal UFO sighting, if there is such a thing. A fiery red disc crashed into the ground about a thousand feet away from him and made a loud explosion which many people heard then burst into flames. If this sighting would’ve ended here one might think the witnesses were mistaken and this was a meteor which hit the earth, but the sighting didn’t end here. After hitting the ground the object bounced and traveled another thousand feet or so and then rose into the sky, traveled in a westerly direction and disappeared. The ground where it hit was scarred and what look like metallic paint was found. Analysis of the paint was inconclusive. There are not many times when witnesses have seen a UFO crash into the ground and then take off again. Clearly this was not an earthly vehicle.

Sometimes military craft spot UFOs. This is not a secret and it happens far more times than we will ever know since people in the military don’t like to talk about what they’ve seen, because they have been warned and are fearful for their jobs. On July 14, 1960 a military aircraft was in the sky above Miho Air Force Base in Japan when the pilot stated that at 1:03 a.m. he saw a brilliant pale yellow oblong object with a short tail. The incredible part of this was he estimated its speed at 10,000 miles per hour.

On May 20, 1961 at 2:50 a.m. US Air Force fighter pilots and helicopter pilots along with personnel from an air police squad saw a white- orange round object disappearing when a fighter plane approached it. Air policeman sighted a white or orange object in the East. Ground radar sightings were negative for the object. What had these trained military personnel seen? Investigators at Project Blue Book came up with the ridiculous solution they had seen the planet Venus. We are talking about highly trained individuals here who are used to navigating and very familiar with the skies above them. The explanation just doesn’t hold water. When you have this many trained individuals all see something strange in the sky you can be sure something was there, even if it doesn’t show up on radar.

One of the most famous sightings and abductions was investigated by Project Blue Book. It was the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill from Indian Head New Hampshire on September 19, 1961 at 11 p.m. The case has become a classic and many books have been written about it. The Hills described a lenticular object with double rows of portholes and half a dozen dark figures working at control panels inside. They had stopped their car to investigate a light which was following it. A strange sound enveloped the car and they lost consciousness. When they woke up they were near Ashland. After the abduction they experienced many nightmares and under hypnosis their memory of the event was returned to them. While Project Blue Book gave no credibility to this case, radar at Pierce Air Force Base made a radar contact at approximately 2:14 a.m. about the time the Hills would have been released. There is also further evidence. Mrs. Hill said she met with aliens on the craft and asked them a question about a map of the heavens which was in view and they told her that was where they came from. She later remembered the map and drew a picture of it. An exact match of the stars in the map was found by an amateur astronomer named Fish. The map pointed to Zeta Reticuli.

Sometimes so many people see an object it cannot be denied and this is precisely what happened on February 19, 1962 on Dolphin Island, Alabama where three witnesses had been driving south on the Dolphin Island toll bridge when they saw a reddish orange object which appeared in the sky about one third the size of the sun. As they watched it changed shape from round to football and then cigar shaped and after that became covered in fog. The driver stopped his car and he called the Dolphin Island Air Force radar site and it just so happened 2 US Air Force airman from the site were also on the road and were driving in the opposite direction and they saw the object in the sky. Radar did not detect the object. When you think about it, we are now able to make radar signatures on some of our planes almost disappear so if there are advanced extraterrestrials piloting UFOs I am sure they are far beyond where we are today, and even further beyond where we were in 1962 as far as stealth is concerned.

On February 15, 1963 a UFO was seen at Willow Grove, Victoria, Australia at 7:10 a.m. Mr. Charles Brew saw a twenty-five foot blue and battleship gray metallic object in the sky about 50 feet overhead. He described the object as being between 9 to 10 feet in height. He said it hovered over his farmhouse and was making a swishing sound and he could see the underside of the object spinning counterclockwise very slowly. He estimated that it made about one revolution per second. It had what looked like a bright chrome antenna which was about six feet long and scoops on the outer rim which were spaced between one and one half feet apart. There was a pale blue light coming from the underside, but light could not be seen anywhere else. After the object had hovered for about five seconds it took off and its exit was described as much faster than any jet was capable of. Other witnesses on the farm had also seen the object and it had caused them to have strong headaches all day.

I will discuss some more cases from Project Blue Book in the future.