NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: COUPLE REPORTS
SEEING UFO FLYING OVERGALLATIN
The Gallatin County News
7/23/97
Sandra Brown and John Gardner of GallatinCounty were driving through Sparta on Hwy 35 last Friday about noon whensomething they spotted in the sky grabbed their attention.
"You'd have to say it was a UFO," SaidBrown. "We pulled over on the side of the road and watched it for about5 minutes. Neither of us have ever seen anything like this before."
Brown said the object they saw in thesky was round, silver, had no wings and was a little bigger than a car.
It just kind of sat there," the startledmotorist said. "It hung in the sky in one place and then in the blink ofan eye disappeared."
She said it definetely wasn't an airplaneand was too big to be a weather balloon.
I know people will think we're crazy,but we really saw this. This is no joke," said Brown.
A check with the county dispatcher foundno other recent UFO reports in the area.
Note:
Special thanks to GALLATIN COUNTYNEWS for FAX copy of this article
Comment:
The above UFO sighting took place onFriday, July 18 around noon. At 12:30 p.m., the B-2 Stealth Bomber wassighted over the Cincinnati area by dozens of people, including T.A.S.K.Investigator Ron Schaffner. This location is 36.5 miles northeast of Sparta,Kentucky. The flight path of the Stealth Bomber was said to have been fromnorth to south.
A reporter on-board a traffic-helicopteroperated by one local news station was said to have also spotted the Stealth,and said, "I hope that thing's not armed!"
Although it was suspected that the Stealthfly-over was due to the Dayton International Airshow occurring during theweekend, it was determined that the B-2 appearance was actually a pre-arrangedflyover for the employees GE plant in Evendale, as per a memo that wascirculated to GE employees a day in advance.
Although there was some concern thatthe Stealth flyover would generate UFO reports, none was received. However,local news stations did receive numerous calls from the public that wantedto report the Stealth Bomber traveling overhead. This 'public recognitionfactor' enabled the witnesses to readily identify the strange looking plane.
The Sparta, Kentucky report, however,presents a challenge to those seeking to apply the same explanation. Thereported object was visible for 5-minutes as it 'hung' in the air, wasdescribed as round, silver and wingless, and said to be a 'little biggerthan a car.' Furthermore, the witnesses stated that the object disappearedin 'the blink of an eye.'
The physical descriptions reported bythe witnesses do not seem compatible with the physical and ballistic characteristicsexpected from the B2 Stealth Bomber.
The next evening, Saturday, July 19at 7:30 p.m., Chris Heiert reported that two missile-like objects flewin tandem over a section of Alexandria, Kentucky, in Campbell County (32.5miles north- east of Sparta). The wingless objects were observed for nearly1-minute, were 'white' in color, and traveled due north. Air demonstrationsfor the Dayton International Airshow (64.5 miles north of the location)were not active during this time. The objects were reported at a high altitude.
In our continuing investigations ofthe Alexandria and Sparta sightings, we will seek to explore aspects of'witness mis-perception' and 'false identifications' when dealing withthese reports. On the basis of the preliminary information available, thereseems to be no other prosaic explanation applicable.
July, 1997 Reports
WITNESS: KATHY XXXXXX and husband (Nameand phone # on file)
DATE OF EVENT : Sunday night, July6, 1997
DURATION OF EVENT: 25 minutes (if notmore)
LOCATION: Suncreek Court, Delhi, Ohio(Hamilton County)
DESCRIPTION OF EVENT : Looking to thewest from their residence, a husband and wife pair observe two �nocturnallights.� Their residence is up on a hill, with a good view of the horizonand neighborhood. No trees or powerlines are present to obstruct theirview.
Living in Delhi, the witness says theyare familiar with and can see �all of the planes� that take off and landat the airport, and are comfortable with this traffic and can readily identifythe airplanes. She said that common air traffic comes in frequently, andusually circles around and travels from north to south. She said that atthe time though, there was no airport traffic proceeding towards or awayfrom the Greater Cincinnati Airport.
When asked if there were other witnesses,she said, �I don�t think there will be too many. Who is going to be sittingout looking out the window at 9:45 p.m. at night?�
She characterized her husband and herselfas coherent and sane people. As she spoke, she sounded cognizant and reasonable.
There were reportedly two objects involvedin the sighting. The first object was �suddenly noticed� in the sky. Itlooked like a very bright light that was idle and not moving, and the witnessadded that it was �definetely not a star.�
The witness said that the object wasdisregarded at first, but then ten minutes later, it was again noticedstill in the same position. The witness fetched a pair of binoclars.
In the binoculars, it looked like oneround light with red flashing in the background, as if there were someother color behind it.
This was observed for a duration beforeanother identical object approached and hovered in a vertical line parallelto the existing object. This second object moved in from the northwestand moved at a speed comparable to common air traffic.
The two objects looked to be as bigas a pea held at arms length. Nothing was heard, and the witness said thatthey had listened for any indication of sound, but could hear only �silence.�
No electrical trouble or animal reactionwas noticed.
The two objects held stationary for�a couple of minutes.� The second one hovered as well, beside the first,before it then moved away to the south about 6-inches from the witnessesvantage point. Then, the first object suddenly headed northeast.
The witness was in touch with airportby this time after placing a call to the tower to report the objects, andthey had her on hold. She waited awhile and then hung up the phone as theobjects began to move away.
As the objects departed, they movedin unison to the northeast. They never came directly overhead, but wereestimated not to be too far from their vantage point.
The second object, which moved awaysix-inches, seemed to �double back� and follow the first object, whichdeparted at a rapid pace.
As the two objects drew closer to thewitness location while departing, it became more clear that it was notone light, but multiple lights. They were like off-white/yellowish coloredlights in a horizontal pattern. The witness supects the lights were circular�around� the objects. There was still no sound as they drew overhead.
Within minutes of the event, all kindsof planes were active in the area headed to the airport.
The witness again called the airportback immediately after the sighting and got right through to someone inthe tower. He told her he had a number for an organization she could contactin the morning. He also wanted to take her name & number, but she declined.The witness only asked the tower operator �if they received any calls,�not if there was anything on radar, reported by pilots or any sort of trafficdisruption. They didn�t volunteer any information to her.
She had also called WLWT Channel 5 Newsto see if anyone else called, and asked if SKYCAM could have picked upthe objects, and they said they hadn�t heard anything and SKYCAM probablywouldn�t pick up anything that far away and from that side of town. Theydid not refer anyplace else.
The following afternoon (Monday, July7), she contacted a reporter with the Cincinnati Enquirer, after the front-pagenews article on UFOs came out. She said she would like to get in touchwith TASK, the organization mentioned in the news article. They then gaveher the correct phone number to call.
The witness was made aware of my intentto document the data she was providing, and was also re-read this typedtranscript of our telephone discussion and agreed with its content.
Report filed
July 8, 1997
Hovering helicopters may be generatingthese reports, but it seems as if there should be some sound associatedwith the sightings, even if faintly. This gives us one possible explanationto keep on the shelf.
This is just one report of �many� involvingUFO sightings along air corridors to the Cincinnati Airport. Each caseseems to involve �unknown� objects sighted near or within the approachor departure corridors, always coinciding with the seeming disruption ofair-traffic to the airport.
Three days beforehand, on Thursday morning,July 3, 1997 a report of a UFO over Ft. Mitchell, KY was received by JerryBlack, who was furnished with details of the report from a caller to WLWTCh. 5 news. Black interviewed the witness and thought it strange. The witnesstold of travelling on I-275 near the Turkeyfoot Road exit, where severalsilent, triangular objects were spotted around 1:00 a.m. The objects werelined up in a path, and there were around 9 or 10 in the sky. The motoristreportedly drove �right under� one of the objects, which was not thoughtto be an airplane.
This locality is in the vicinity ofCrestview Hills, Kentucky. It is also an area heavily travelled by airtraffic to the Greater Cincinnati Airport.
Vince Sanders, a northern Kentucky residentinquiring into the July 3 event, contacted an employee of DHL air express.According to his contact, the air traffic on July 3 was about three timesthe usual intensity. There were about 50 aircraft from midnight til 5:30am.This traffic was just DHL's, not taking into consideration the increasedtraffic of the other companys operating out of the airport. Sanders wasalso able to confirm this detail with a second contact working for ComAir.
Although the witness assures that theobjects observed were not airplanes, the location indicated and time ofreported sighted causes us to consider this UFO report within the 'explained'category due to the high probability of a mundane answer to the claim,and the strength of the explanation.
A check with the FAA FLIGHT SERVICESand the Greater Cincinnati Control Tower revealed no additional UFO reportsor traffic disruption had been logged or recorded.
On Wednesday, June 18 at 9:00 p.m.,witnesses from two separate areas reported 'falling lights' to 700 WLWNews. A resident from Blue Ash, Ohio thought that a plane was falling,while at the exact same time, another caller from Erlanger, KY reporteda similar observation near the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport.This report could be explained as a meteorite breaking apart and fallinginto two different areas at the same time. -- ky
A strange report has been forwardedby a resident of ALEXANDRIA, KENTUCKY (Campbell County). This locationis 12 miles south of Cincinnati.
An e-mail was transmitted (full textbelow) by the Northern Kentucky resident to inform of the suspected UFOhappening on July 21, 1997.
A phone call was placed to the reportee,and he states to have observed this activity for around 1-minute from hisresidence. He was aware of the STEALTH BOMBER sighting over Cincinnatifrom the previous afternoon, and was also aware of the DAYTON INTERNATIONALAIR SHOW, and was not satisfied with the estimation that these were conventionalor military planes. He felt these were 'missile-like.'
Also, the reported time of his observationis 7:30 p.m. Most air demonstrations from the Dayton International Airportconclude around 5:00 p.m. In addition, the flight path was from south tonorth.
This is the context of the report inits entirety.
Mark wrote:
Kenny,
I saw something interesting over theweekend. Let me know if you have any information about this or if you heardanything similar:
Sometime around 7:30 last Saturday eveningI was outside and just happened to look up at the sky. I saw somethingmoving across the sky and I thought was a jet flying at a very high altitude.As I watched the object I realized that I couldn't see any wings. ThenI noticed a second object moving in the same direction, not too far behindthe first. I could not see any wings on the second object either. Bothof these objects were identical. They appeared to be flying very high whereyou would normally see a military jet flying. They resembled a missile,not very long and all white. I could see something orange in color at therear end of these objects. I couldn't tell if the orange piece was partof the object or flames coming from an engine. Both were traveling almostdue north and from my perspective they were about one foot apart (I supposethey could have been one mile apart in reality.) They were moving prettyfast. I first noticed them as they were directly overhead and it took aboutone minute to move out of my line of sight. There were no visible vaportrails or any other evidence that they were there.
If I had to guess I would say that theywere missiles, probably on a test run of some sort. They could have beenmilitary jets and due to the altitudes that they were flying I just couldn'tsee the wings. In either case I've never seen anything like that before.
I didn't give it another thought untilI read about the "rods" story on your "latest news" page. It didn't resembleany of the pictures I saw on the linking pages (which all look faked) butthe general shape was the same.
Is this something new or have you heardof these before? I'm not sure I can buy these "rod" stories but they maybe linked to whatever it is that I saw. Maybe the military has been playingaround with a new invention.
Later,
Mark
