HOIMEGROWN UFO (PART ONE)

c. 2007 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(7-07)

Note to Readers: As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction. After reading about Ezekiel Byler-Gregg, ghosts of late presidents, and Agent X in this column, one might expect the following story to be a fantastic creation. But this tale is undeniably authentic.

Writing for a newspaper inevitably inspires lots of local conversation. It is a pursuit that dependably attracts stories from across the region. Cheerfully, friends offer suggestions for future articles. Their ideas are often creative and diverse. Some develop into useful wordsmithing projects, while others slip into creative oblivion. Yet each provides a reference point that might some day receive illumination.
Recently, I though of such ideas while doing Internet research. One particular tidbit of wild encouragement came from my friend Denny the Corvette Guy. Though I have always thought of him as a lifelong hot rod enthusiast and local character, he has also displayed a reserve of odd anecdotes in his recollections. This familiarity with unusual tales impressed me on every occasion. Especially when he talked about the UFO on Route 528.
Denny professed that a strange object landed near Thompson when he was a youngster. His recollection was that it happened in the late 1950’s. An investigation ensued, checking for radiation and evidence. He read a story about the weird occurrence in the Geauga Times-Leader. It was an incredible story. But my own dedication to the search lapsed. I forgot about the homegrown UFO amid other, more plausible ideas.
Then, my wife and I ran into the Corvette Guy, again. He and Mrs.Vette were at a car show in Mentor when we visited, by chance. After exchanging greetings, my friend revived the story of extraterrestrial visitation. This time, something connected in my cerebrum. It was a fantastic tale… surreal, yet tempting. Something I needed to examine. A bit of Roswell, New Mexico here in Ohio.
Preliminary investigating brought up tantalizing leads. The National UFO Reporting Center offered an event that sounded close to what I was seeking:

Nov. 27, 1956; Painesville/Willoughby/Lake Erie (Ohio)

When I was around 10 years old traveling in my dad's car going west along Lake Erie near Ashtabula/Cleveland, at the Painesville/Willoughby border, probably around 1956, hovering above Lake Erie, there was a huge rectangle about 5 miles long and 3 miles wide. As I raise my right arm now it would be about 2-3 o’clock from the Lake Erie horizon N-It was around 9/10 PM either in November/December. NE from the Painesville/Willoughby line. As I look at it through the L of my thumb and index finger now as an adult, the rectangle void was 5” High, the length of my Index finger and was 9” Long or Wide the projection from my thumb angled out including the length of my thumb from the bottom of my index finger. It was almost like the size of a business envelope resting on the L angle. This triangle was empty looking as though it was a void. The odd thing was that the stars that were surrounding the object were shining as usual in the sky, there were no lights flashing or edging the object but blackness of the void was blacker as though it was a black mirror which was different than the sky with the stars. It looked like a door into another dimension. My parents told me it was just a lack of stars because there was no moonlight and insisted I close the car window… I will never forget seeing this void, this emptiness. Even at that age I felt as though it was Big Brother watching.

The report was interesting, but mentioned no crash or ground investigation. More study uncovered sightings listed in an out-of-print volume by Jacques Vallee called ‘Passport to Magonia - On Ufos, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds.’ They were similar in nature, but from the following year:

Nov. 06, 1957; Lake County (Ohio)
A civilian source reported an object so bright that his eyes could not sustain it. It
appeared to land on a ridge, then took off again. It was round and much larger than a plane, had an "odd color," left no trail and made no noise.

Nov. 10, 1957 Madison (Ohio)
Mrs. Leita Kuhn observed a very large, lighted object 20 m above ground. It was so brilliant that she had to close her eyes. It was over 10 m wide, 3 to 4 m thick, with a dome on top. The witness had to consult a physician several days later because of serious eye and skin irritation.

Then, I struck on something eerily correct in nature. My breath vanished while reading the account of heavenly lights and a fully developed incident on the ground. The story was undoubtedly what my friend remembered:

Nov. 06, 1957; Montville (Ohio)
Olden Moore, 28, a plasterer was driving home when he suddenly saw an object looking like a bright meteor split into two pieces, one of which went straight up. The other got larger while its color changed from bright white to blue-green. It hovered 60 m above a field and came to the ground with a soft whirring sound, 150 m away. After observing it for 15 min, Moore then walked to the object, which he found to be shaped like “a covered dish” 15 m in diameter, 5 m high, with a cone on top about 3 m high, surrounded by haze or fog, pulsating slowly. Holes, footprints and radioactivity were found at the site by Civil Defense Director Kenneth Locke.

Author Jan Aldrich provided more information about the case, with some altered details, through Project 1957:

“(At) about 11:20 p. m. EST, Olden J. Moore… was returning home when he saw a flattened spherical object with a conical projection on top descend toward a field [here there are reports of EME on the car which are wrong]. He watched the object for some time. Then, got out of the car and walked toward it. He heard a humming or ticking sound. He decided to leave the scene and get another witness. When he returned with his wife the object was gone. Above normal radiation levels at the site were found by the local Civil Defense shortly after the sighting. Other people reported sightings that night. Mrs. Moore contacted the sheriff. Moore was later interviewed by the sheriff, the press, Kenneth Locke, the local Civil Defense Director, and LTC (later COL) Friend of Project Blue Book. Plaster casts of the landing marks were made by a NICAP adviser. (NICAP is the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.) It later leaked out that Moore had been taken to Washington, D. C. for questioning. Moore would not immediately confirm this story. In 1961 Don Berliner, later a NICAP official, interviewed Moore. Moore said about two weeks after the sighting he had been taken to Youngstown AFB, Ohio, then, to Wright-Patterson AFB and flown to an airbase near Washington, D. C. At Washington D. C., he was interviewed in the basement of what might have been the U. S. Court House. He was given a brief tour of the historic and other sights while in Washington, D. C. His interview was more like asking for corroboration of what was already known. On the third day he was required to sign a statement that he would not tell anyone where he had been. Then, he was returned home. The later released interview of LTC Friend’s questioning sounds much like Moore’s description of his Washington, D. C. experience. Friend goes into a long description of (a) bolide or other common object and asks Moore if that is what he saw.”

Something stranger yet developed when I read a page called ‘On This Day.’ There were sightings around the world in 1954, 1957, 1958, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1982, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2002. All on that same day of the year, November 6th.
Trembling with anticipation, I contacted the Geauga County Archives. Their collection boasted many vintage issues of the erstwhile G T-L. Trying to sound earnest, I asked about the existence of UFO coverage from that distant year. My stomach twisted into a knot while making the request. I imagined that the archive director might think my question was a joke. Or, that I required the help of a psychologist.
Only a day later, their formal reply appeared. It was stunning – the article I sought did indeed exist. It was published on Nov. 14, 1957.
My odyssey in the world of strange facts had only begun…

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