“Homegrown UFO: Part Two”

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

Note to Readers: What follows here is the second installment about my investigation concerning our famous local extraterrestrial incident. Thanks go out to the staff at the Geauga County Archives, who provided invaluable help in locating the fifty-year-old, original newspaper story.

Anticipation made it difficult to sleep after corresponding with Catlain Katon at the Geauga County Archives. My dreams were restless, and full of wild images. Robots and alien visitors crowded my slumbering mind!
In the morning, my typical routine offered an uneasy calm. I drank coffee all the way to Chardon, and mused over clips from the Phil Hendrie radio show. Yet something felt amiss. The surreal events of an ‘X Files’ episode were unfolding before my eyes. I felt curious, but tingled with disbelief. How could such a story be true?
I arrived just after 9:00 AM. The front door wouldn’t budge, but I saw members of the crew sorting new document boxes in their receiving bay. When I introduced myself, everyone smiled. They were politely amused by the purpose of my visit.
We entered a long room full of shelved containers and bound volumes. Everything was tidy, and carefully organized. I sensed the presence of rare treasures, like those inside a pharaoh’s tomb. Then, the guide introduced herself. She was my contact from the Internet.
“Wait here, and I’ll get the book,” she promised.
I surveyed the rows of historical information. It was a trove of great wealth and importance. Births, marriages, deaths, publications, maps, and photographs… all relating to the area. In a sense, I stood before the shared consciousness of Geauga.
Catlain returned with a long, thick volume of news pages. The story had already been marked by another researcher on the team. She opened the book, dramatically. And my pulse quickened. I felt like a time-traveler as the words lifted from their yellowed parchment, toward my eyes:

GEAUGA TIMES LEADER NOVEMBER 14, 1957

Study Whatnik Report:

Huntsburg Man Gives UFO Data to OFFICIALS

CHARDON – Civil Defense officials invaded the sheriff’s office here Friday night to investigate the unidentified flying object reportedly seen Nov. 6 by Olden Moore of Rt. 528, Huntsburg.
Mr. Moore, heretofore unavailable for comment on the incident after his wife reported it to the Sheriff’s Dept. Thursday morning, was on hand for press and television interviews.
Here to question him were Col. Leroy John, head of the 5th Area of the Civil Defense, and Lt. Charles Reineck, his executive assistant.
Enroute to his home the night of Nov. 6, Mr. Moore said, he first spied the object directly in front of him.
“It was small, like a star, but very bright.”
“However,” Mr. Moore continued, “it kept getting brighter and brighter. That was when I pulled off the road and turned off the key.”
Mr. Moore was insistant (sic) on this last point. It was previously reported that the car stalled.
Mr. Moore said, “It was only a matter of seconds from the time I first saw it until it was looming, big like a house in front of me.
“It seemed to split apart then, and one section hovered in the air over a field next to the road. Then it slowly descended to the ground,” he said.
Mr. Moore described the object as “round with a dome in the middle.” It had, he added, “a bluish-green haze around it and seemed to glow like the dial of a luminous watch.”
Getting out of the car, Mr. Moore said he started to cross the field to examine the object. Halfway there, he said, he stopped and thought about getting witnesses and returned to the car.
“No one would believe me if I told them what I saw,” he said. “so I wanted to get someone else there.”
This fear of disbelievers was what made him reluctant to report the incident, Mr. Moore commented. He could find no one on the highway and went home to get his wife and return with her.
“It was gone when we got back,” he said.

(See HUNTSBURG, page 2.)

“The next day, Thursday, the report came in to the sheriff’s office. Lake County CD officials raced to the scene and Kenneth Locke Lake County CD Director, reported some unusual findings.
“There were prints in the field one and one half inches deep at the heel, and hole(s) in the ground like those made from spikes on a golf shoe,” Mr. Locke reported.
He said there were six prints in all “coming from nowhere and going nowhere.” He and Lt. Reineck returned to headquarters to get the Geiger counter.
“When we returned,” Mr. Locke continued, “we got a reading over an area about 50 feet in diameter. The Geiger counter showed a reading of approximately 150 roentgens in the center of the area, tapering of(f) to about 20 to 30 roentgens at the perimeter.”
Roentgens is the unit of measurement of radioactivity.
Waiting a few hours, Mr. Locke and Lt. Reineck then took another reading of the area. “This time the meter showed only 20 to 25 roentgens in the core and we had no reading at all at the perimeter,” Locke said. “We concluded that something must have been here since this indicated the reaction was not caused by minerals in the ground.”
Queried as to what he attributed the cause of the radioactivity, John replied “I can’t say. We investigate these incidents and it’s up to the Air Force to make a conclusion as to what caused them. However, the delay in reporting the incident has hindered us.”

I noted that the county auditor’s stamp said “No. 1810; 1-11-58.”
Catlain offered to copy the front-page section of this incredible story. But its second portion had been placed too close to the binding. So I recorded it by hand, on notebook paper. The entire report was just over six hundred words.
Before leaving, I explained the story of Denny the Corvette Guy. At long last, my colorful friend had been vindicated. His recollection from half-a-century before was accurate in nearly every detail.
While driving to work, I called my wife’s cell phone. She didn’t answer, so I left a hurried voice-mail message. “Liz, you’ve got to see this. It’s absolutely incredible. The Corvette Guy was right. The truth is out there!”
At the office, it was impossible to avoid describing my adventure. Jaws dropped open, and eyes went wide. Even after I settled in for the day, things felt different than before. Sci-fi magic filled the air. It was as if I’d slipped into another dimension.
My spouse finally called, in the afternoon. “So you actually saw it,” she cheered. “The UFO story was real!”
“Yes,” I replied. “Fifty years later, the voice of Olden Moore is still echoing around the county.”
“Did you find out anything about him?” Liz pondered.
I sighed. “Not a whisper. Catlain had already tried that angle before I asked. But there was no further information.”
My wife was in a mood to tease. “So, maybe the UFO came back and he hitched a ride to the stars?”
My face brightened. “Hey, that’s a good theory! I wonder…”
“Stop it, Rodney!” she snorted. “No more listening to Art Bell for you!”

FROM THE GEAUGA COUNTY MAPLE LEAF, CHARDON, OHIO