by Mike Jamieson
The earliest cases described here are based in a few incidences on newspaper accounts and otherwise came to light when witnesses decades after shared with civilian ufo investigators who first surfaced in the early 1950s (with the group Aerial Phenomena Research Organization or APRO headed by Jim and Coral Lorenzen receptive to hearing these cases, and with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena or NICAP under Donald Keyhoe reluctant to address). In some cases, stories would be shared by surviving children or grandchildren of witnesses who had passed on.
The first commonly recognized first known case (in the 20th century) of a person sighting an unidentified’ landed craft with clearly non human occupants was shared by an elderly man in 1978 to two British ufologists (Jenny Randles and Phil Baarnet). But, I will first relate a story sourced to a page (requiring log in) at a Finnish ufo website (Suomen Ufotutkijat, fufora.fi/ufodb/ufodata.php?). The story details were added to the massive Albert S Rosales compilation of cases.
The date for this reported incident of high strangeness is imprecisely given as 1900. The location was Kuhmo, Lentira, Finland.
This incident involved 4 children who had gone into a swampy wooded area to collect cloudberry. An adult was nearby keeping an eye on the group, 2 kids around 10 to 12 and the other 2 younger. The adult watching them suddenly becomes aware that the children are no longer visible and in a panic runs into the village. A search begins and lasts for days without success.
Weeks later the children reappeared and are questioned by the village elders. The children remember very little, aside from recalling they “were approached by some friendly ‘persons’ and invited to fly onboard a ‘device’ in the air. According to some of the children, they were able to look down
and see the earth below”. (Quote from Rosales case entry--see paper on databases for resources identifying cases.)
The more classic close encounters case reported to 2 British researchers in 1978 by the witness happened in the summer of 1901 in Bournebrook, West Midlands, England. The witness was 10 years old at the time.
The interviewers found him “with still active faculties”. Historian Jerome Clarke summarizes the details given:. “…He was returning home through a path behind his family’s garden when he came upon a box-shaped device with a small centrally placed turret. The only opening was a door, through which two small men in uniforms, each wearing an odd-looking cap, stepped out. While one stayed by the door, the other walked towards the witness and waved him away. Except for their height (less than four feet) they looked completely human and Caucasian.
They were dressed in what resembled military uniforms but without insignia. The two beings then reentered their ship. A bright flash lit it up around it, and then it shot off into the air with a loud whooshing sound. Similiar entities would be reported in later decades.” (Clark, pg 261, vol 1, UFO Encyclopedia).
Three people from Glendeane, Kentucky on the evening of April 16 1907 were so distressed by a sighting incident that they wrote to their local paper. On May 8 1907 the following item appeared in The Breckenridge News from Cloverport, Kentucky:
“Will you allow space in The News to tell readers of a mysterious light and describe it, as some people are so apt to magnify or minimize such things. On April 16, a dark, misty night, this light appeared one and a half miles off, a vacant cabin. It moved like a skiff riding waves till it came to Mrs. T.A. Keenan’s and remained close to her home for fifteen minutes, then came two-thirds the distance towards us. We could discern something dark in it resembling a person, then it moved back beyond her house almost out of sight, then back. Flashes of light could be seen to leave. It settled down into the hollow. It was in the shape of a cone as large as a corn stalk. It was first seen at 8pm and watched until 11pm. It grew smaller. Will someone five us more information on this subject? The light was seen by Emily E. Keenan, P.H. P.H. Keenan and J.B. Bates.”
In Vippula, Finland during the summer of 1907 another strange puzzle was brought to the attention of that community. The source for this story is identified as Ilkka Serra and HUMCAT. (See database paper for background on HUMCAT.)
When some boys were playing on the shore of a lake, they saw a bright light over the lake on an approach. It landed near them. When a door opened and some humanoids emerged, the boys panicked and ran to the rectory. It took some time for them to settle down enough to relate what happened. When adults checked the site, they found footprints and landing traces.
This next case was reported decades after the incident to two ufologists (seperately), Ted Bloecher and Thomas Deuley. The witness, Lawrence J. Crone, was five years old that spring morning in 1910, playing basketball on a Baltimore-area (Vidotville, Maryland) baseball field.
He spotted a 100 foot long metallic and brown blimp-like object hovering with oscillating movements next to a pine tree 200 feet away. The viewable side of this object was lined with variously colored rectangular-shaped windows, except for one that was clear.
Through the clear window Crone could see 2 or 3 beings at a time taking
turns observing him. (Up to 20 of them doing so.) He could see the upper portions of their body. The entry in the Rosales compilation offers this description: “They had heads and necks ‘like pigeons’, with pointed heads, no nose or ears, and ‘2 spots for eyes’. Their faces were flat with no chin, and covered with a soft looking gray gown, like fur.”. And Jerome Clark in The UFO Encyclopedia:. “….they were conical in shape, with pointed heads; possibly the effect was caused by headgear since the points varied in color from being to being. They were dressed in light colored garments with a fur-like texture. Each of the had small dots for eyes and a straight line for a (presumed) mouth but no other features.”. Crone noted two other boys saw this also but had run away in a panic.
Another case apparently related to modern-day ufologists came from near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and reportedly occurred to a then 6 year old boy named Abram Penner in 1912. The source for the publishing of it is J. Allen Hynek, according to the entries in the HUMCAT and later Rosales compilation of cases.
Abram reported that he saw a round-shaped craft with a glass cab land on his father’s farm. He then describes meeting the occupants: “One man felt my body, they admired my hands. They have different hands than we do; they have round feet, short legs, no knees, and no elbows. They operate on mind power. I understood what they said.”. Abram’s father advised him at the time not to tell anyone.
For a 1913 case, I will repost the entry from the Humanoid Catalogue (HUMCAT) done for the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies to show the format used. That format is used also by the Albert S Rosales in his compilations going beyond the HUMCAT recording of cases through 1977. See part one paper in this series for descriptions of these 2 bodies of work:
Historian Jerome Clarke in his encyclopedic article on ce3 cases noted that from the large number of available sample of cases for 1914, that it must have been a peak year for ce3s, something we’d really only know “if there was someone around to record them”. (At this point, it is 38 years later that the first major UFO civilian investigatory group would be formed.).
At twilight on an early evening in March 1914, a farmer from Lajoumard, Haute Vienne, France was returning to his farmhouse when he saw a round and luminous object at the top of a nearby hill. He got within a 100 yards or so and saw several small-sized beings emerge from this object. They briefly walked around the scene and then re-enter the craft. The craft leaves with a zig zagging or spiraling trajectory. The man told his family who would later reveal to researchers after his death.
The next case comes out of Bilda, Algeria on the eve of World War 1. This is an evening event from the summer of 1914 and is sourced from the La Forum De L ‘Ufologie, France.
A man was returning home after he had turned on the irrigation valves in the fields when he saw a large luminous sphere move across the field and land near his location, only yards away. The man became frightened and moved fast to hide behind a hedge. He saw several small beings exit the craft. They wore helmets and “light-colored combination suits”. He saw them spread out and in a rapid fashion collecting samples from the ground. They did this for a few minutes before re-entering the sphere and taking off rapidly. Neighbors the next day reported seeing a glowing sphere moving over the fields the night before.
This next case was published in a German UFO magazine (UFO–Nachrichten) in 1962 based on a submitted report from the children of the witness who died in 1933.
Gustav Herwagen was working at a bakery on the outskirts of Hamburg, Germany in June 1914 when at 4 in the morning he took a break and went outside his door. He saw in a nearby field a cigar shaped object hovering just above the ground. It was illuminated from within, evident from glowing windows lined along the side. A halo of light surrounded it. He saw 4 or 5 beings dressed alike in suits. They were about 3 and a half feet tall. When he started walking towards them, they saw him and quickly returned to their craft. Which then ascended vertically without sound and quickly.
Another case seems to have been passed on to modern ufologists, perhaps by the identified witness who was 18 in the summer (August) of 1914. Jerry Clark in The UFO Encyclopedia cites a 1976 publishing of this by Coral and Jim Lorenzen and the Rosales compilation references J. Allen Hynek as also a publishing source.
The identified person in this story, who was 18 at the time, is William J. Kiehl. He was reportedly camping with 7 others on the shores of Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada. They witnessed “a gray, spherical object with a flattened top and bottom and a metallic band
around the center. It was floating 450 feet off-shore. [The Albert Rosales entry notes it was emitting multi-colored lights.] On a substructure near it’s base stood 2 four-foot beings wearing one-piece suit, greenish purple garments and square headpieces which obscured their features. They were extending a hose-like device into the water. Three similiar beings, these dressed in khaki color, emerged from the top of the vehicle. They were working on pipe-like extensions which after a few minutes were drawn back inside through the open hatch. They re-entered, and the 2 beings on the substructure reloaded the ‘hose’ through the same hatch.” (Clark, p262, vol 1, The UFO Encyclopedia).
That’s not the end of this story. One of the 2 beings working at the lower level was still outside when the craft first rose 12 feet, paused, tilted and angle, and shot off rapidly. This case of water harvesting is something that would be commonly reported over the years.
And, as far as the “oops” described above, there will be other reports noted showing similiar mishaps.
A farm at Alastaro, Finland at noon one day near the end of August 1914 was the scene of a boy and his grandmother experiencing a close ençounter together. The case is described in the Rosales compilation for cases from 1909 to 1919 (quotes in my summary from his entry) and Heikki Virtanen of Finland identified as the source publicizing it.
A 10-year old boy, named Arvo Kuoppala, and his grandmother (Maria Felt) were sitting together in the living room of their farmhouse when they noticed it became suddenly dark with an accompanying sound of a “loud blowing noise”.
Then they noticed a bright wall of light coming from the east, soon becoming apparent as a large and bright globe. It approaches the house and stops outside the window. They witness an oval-shaped window opening up and see 2 beings, one large and the other a midget. The midget is described as uglier and both are noted as having large heads in relation to their bodies. Their heads were “broad and angular” and the “eyes appeared friendly”.
They see the larger being smile and then his lips moving, apparently talking. When Avro mentions this excitadely, the being stops talking and the oval window closes abruptly. A moment later they hear a loud thump and see a bright flash. The globe rises and departs to the west rapidly.
Avro immediately feels fatigued at this noon hour and goes to sleep for a long nap lasting into the evening. The grandmother then shares with Avro her thoughts that “the strangers were not from heaven, but from a distant place”.
This next case dated to September 1914 was reported by one of the experiencers who “when interviewed in 1975, …….was still so disturbed by the experience that he refused to discuss it in detail”. (J. Clark, pg 262, vol 1, UFO Encyclopedia). Albert Rosales identifies the publishing source as Rupert Drew. (Witnesses identified as “Mr. Uden and Mr. Hopkins”.)
Two boys were wandering on a mountainside on their way home from school. They encounter a widespread mist with 2 small and very white humanoid figures visible. The boys noticed them wearing tall hats similar to those worn by chefs and that the beings had piercing eyes. When the beings began to approach them, the boys ran away.
There is one more 1914 case on record in the Rosales compilation, the
publishing source attributed to Lucy Guzman from ovni.net. The experience related reportedly happened to an elderly man named David Mendiola Vilchez, residing in an isolated area close by a cemetery near Cochabamba, Bolivia. The details of this incident were relayed by his grandchildren.
Albert Rosales notes that “if true” this story may be an early example of a classic type abduction.
The detail for date and time of the alleged incident is unusually precise:. December 6, 1914 at 3:47 AM. Mr. Vilchez was awakened to a sound of “an airplane turbine engine” and went outside where he saw “a large gray metallic cigar-shaped craft that appeared to be encircled in ‘electricity’ descending on a nearby field”. As Mr. Vilchez approached, he found himself engulfed in a bright white light and then in an instant inside the craft, surrounded by several tall and thin beings with large eyes. His description
(as relayed by his grandchildren) is even more graphic with the skin described as covered in a mucous or cartilage type material and with legs similiar to octopi. He remembered being examined and not much more.
A case from the summer of 1915 brings us another example of short humanoids. (Published by Ole Jonny Braene in “Pre-1947 UFO Type Incidents in Norway.). The unnamed witness in Sunlitjelma, Norway saw a dark and bell-shaped craft descend behind a hill and then shortly 2 short beings coming out from behind the hills. The beings briefly approached and smiled at him, then returned to their craft which was soon seen ascending and departing. These beings were said by the witness to have large heads in proportion to the body and long and wavy dark hair. Their skin was gray and they wore dark brown overalls.
In October 1917, shortly after noon, a 17 year old boy named John Boback saw a disc-shaped craft about the size of a car in a field near the railroad tracks between Youngstown and Mt. Braddock, PA. He was able to observe it briefly before it began departing “with a high pitched sound, rising gradually like a slow plane” (quote from HUMCAT entry). The craft had a dome with long windows and he saw figures. (This case is mentioned by Jacques Vallee in Magnolia and he quoted Cyril Hortle from “A Carbon Experiment”)
This next odd case, dated 1920 and from near Montyron France, came to light when two of the witnesses were interviewed in 1975 (as children, Louise and Marie Grasser, married names Talbot and Roussarue). “A group of young people [on a weekend night between and 11 and midnight] were returning from a dance when they saw in the sky a strange spectacle: a group of beings of small stature moving about in the air, and giving off ‘musical sounds’ “. They saw also a number of luminous balls. They felt no fear. Source is unpublished manuscript by Mesnard and Bigorne, “Les Humanoids of France”.
In 1954 a “Mr. G.B.” had his letter, describing a close encounter from the summer of 1921, published in Paris-Match (No 291, October 23-30 1954). The letter writer was 8 years old when the incident he describes happened one summer afternoon in Marseilles, France:
“In 1921–a very hot year–I was playing one day among the hills of the North Canal. I was right years old and I loved to lose myself in the moon-like landscape made by excavations, and from the First World War.
“Suddenly, two beings, wearing a sort of pliable helmet, literally leaped out from between some acacia trees. Without preliminaries, they dragged me toward what I thought was an oddly shaped tank. They took me up into the machine, without my being able to resist, I should say ‘without my being able to want to resist’. I suddenly began to cry; and I don’t know whether that moved them, but after awhile an opening appeared in the ceiling of the cabin, and in a few seconds found myself on the ground.
“However, I had to walk most of the afternoon until I found myself near the road I had left five minutes before.
“When I got home that night, my parents treated me like a little liar, and no one believed me. I can now hardly add much detail to the machine, or it’s cabin. Doubtless, I was too astounded. I only remember two details: there were square, or at least rectangular portholes. The cabin had a kind of soft couch that I sat on.
“I seem to recall that their helmets appeared metallic. I don’t recall any anatomical details, except that the two beings were very tall and slender.”
Ted Bloecher, the compiler here, notes that without more info on the witness it would be difficult to assess his credibility, but because it fits a subsequent pattern in reports “this case deserves serious consideration”.
This next case, set in a summer night of 1922 in Detroit, was related to ufologist Dr. Ron Westrum in a letter from an elderly witness, Mrs Irma Hinz in March 1978, who also filed a MUFON sighting report sent to ufologist Ted Bloecher in August 1978. Mrs. Hinz’s daughter, Carol Hinz, wrote a letter to Dr. Westrum in April 1978 confirming that her mother shared the story many years before.
Mrs. Hinz back in the summer of 1922 was an unmarried teenager out on a date with a young man (whose name she remembered over 55 years later). They were returning home from a movie when they saw the sky above a vacant lot lit up suddenly by a large disc-shaped craft descending to the height of a large tree. The lot was several blocks from the Detroit River, on Dragoon Ave. They watched for several minutes as the craft hovered and slowly revolved around the perimeter.
Entities could be seen from the shoulders up and we’re starting intently at the couple. They were bald with eyes set closely together. After several minutes, the couple felt fright and left rapidly.
The young woman’s mother felt her daughter experienced a vision. Decades later, the witness did tell the investigators the name of her date.
In a pre dawn hour during the winter of 1924 in Saskatchewan, Canada a woman farmer was doing her chores when she saw “little green men” walking in the snow around a landed object. They get in the object and depart.
This sparsely described case is notable for the phrase ‘little green men”, a commonly used bit of shorthand to reference close encounter incidents with a dash of ridiculing. The published source is the 1979-published “UFO Occupants and Critters: The Patterns in Canada” by John Brent Musgrave. The HUMCAT entry is a sparse one liner with the source for that identified as as a personal message from Musgrave to Ted Bloecher, one of 2 Ufologists in the late 70s compiling the Humanoid Catalogue for the UFO Center.
An incident reported that occured around the year 1925 from LA Mancha, Spain was noted in a 1976 UFO Center publication of “A Catalogue of 200 Type-1 UFO Events in Spain and Portugal” by Vincente-Juan Ballester Olmos”. What we have are sparse details of a small four foot figure, attired in a greenish uniform and exhibiting rigid limbs as they stood on a moving disc. The witness described seeing this being holding a “blow pipe”.
An alleged incident from Bolton, Lancashire, England during November 1926 was shared in a 1995 Barnes and Noble book called “UFO: The Complete Sightings” by Peter Brooke Smith. This story involves young friends playing hide and seek when the reporting witness (named Henry Thomas) states that he went into a neighbor’s backyard. There he saw three figures dressed in suits that appeared to be made up of silvery grey tubes. Henry also saw that they were wearing transparent helmets with a tube extending to a tank on the back of each. They turned and looked at him. Their appearance was described as having pale heads shaped like a light bulb, a small nose, eyes dark and slit-shaped, and no visible mouth. Henry Thomas became afraid and fled when they started to approach. He heard one of them make a gurgling sound.
In the late 1960s a woman (Mrs. Pauline Berger) was shown a sketch in a 1968 issue of the Flying Saucer Review which apparently looked similar to what she had described witnessing during the summer of 1928 in Antsy Lane, England. Her story details were shared with the FSR in a letter which FSR published in it’s first issue of 1969, “Mail Bag: The Disappearing Scarecrow”.
The reference to a scarecrow is based on the witness’s first impression on seeing a five foot black entity with a large head, which the witness perceives as faceless. Because of this entity’s long, dangling arms, the witness had the impression of a scarecrow figure. She was a child then, in the midst of resting in a field with her father on a break from hiking. She noticed this figure, standing next to a large globe-shaped object on legs, when looking up from the book she was reading. She turned to wake up her father and when looking back saw that the being and craft had silently departed.
The next reported incident has a date, June 12, 1929, with the witness (Levis Brosseau) from Fermeneue, Quebec at 20 years old at that time. Brosseau was returning home when he saw resting on a hillside what looked at first like a dark cloud with an internal yellowish light. He stopped and walked over to take a closer look and was able to discern an object 50 feet in diameter with four or five small humanoid yellow-colored figures quickly moving about. Next, he sees the craft rising slowly, hearing also the sound of rushing air. He hears what sounds like two beings arguing as the craft departs. The HUMCAT entry source was noted as from pg 168 of Jacques Vallee’s “Magonia”, who cited a 1968 source.
In 1975 two women-sisters shared with UFO investigator George Fawcett and on radio a May 1930 sighting from Greensboro, North Carolina. This event also involved the parents of the sisters (one sister a retired school teacher in 1975). During the daytime that day in May 1930, the two parents and their daughters saw a dark, top-shaped object, 40 feet wide quietly land in a garden. Through some sort of window, they saw the top (above shoulders) of a being, appearing to wear tight-fitting clothes and a helmet. The object ascended and departed quietly after five to ten minutes.
There was an attempt by the witnesses in this next case to get their experience published in several Canadian papers and magazines but in the summer of 1933, when their experience occurred, their story was considered too out there. The scene was the far northwestern section of the prairie province Saskatchewan at Tobin Lake during the summer of 1933. The witnesses were two young men and a woman from the village of Nipawan. A Canadian ufologist (John Brent Musgrave) interviewed the two men in 1976 and published their account that year in the Flying Saucer Review.
The three young people went to this area because they were curious about reports over recent weeks of strange lights in the sky and near the ground there. As they were driving on approach to this area, they saw a glow and stopped to walk into the woods to check it out. After going a quarter mile, historian Jerome Clarke describes that “from their vantage point they could see a large oval-shaped craft resting on legs. From an open central doorway a bright orange glow emanated and a ladder like stairway extended, and a dozen figures moved up and down the steps. Dressed in silver suits or uniforms, wearing helmets or ski caps, and slightly shorter than normal men, they appeared to be repairing the craft”. (UFO Encyclopedia, vol one, pg 264). They watched for an hour and a half and went back to their truck to drive closer but the craft was gone. Two days later they returned and took photos of the landing traces. The photos were lost decades later when Musgrave interviewed the two male witnesses.
On April 5 1935 near Seville, Spain a farmer reported seeing a near landing of a round and brightly lit-up craft. It hovered just above the ground with several small entities appearing and moving around the object. The witness was noted in the 1976 published catalogue of Spanish cases by Vincente-Juan Ballester Olmos to have regarded this as some divine type vision. (This catalogue was published by the J Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies.)
Also reportedly happening the spring of 1935 was something similar up north in Antwerp, Belgium. A Mr. Alerts is identified as the witness in the HUMCAT entry which was sourced from a 1975 UFO Register listing of early Belgian reports.
A very large bright circular object, described as shaped like an aluminum pan, was first seen above the roofs of houses and then on the ground. Two small humanoid beings wearing squarish helmets were seen in stilted, mechanical movements examining the exterior of the craft.
Another Spanish incident was catalogued by Mr. Ballester Olmos in 1976 for the Center for UFO Studies, sharing a report by a lieutenant and his aide. (The 4th issue of the Flying Saucer Review also published an account.) Their sighting and encounter took place late at night on July 25 1938. Given the developments of the time period, the witnesses assumed they had witnessed either a German or Soviet secret craft. They saw “a hovering, lens-shaped object more than 35 feet in diameter and 15 feet high. From underneath it a platform was lowered; on it were two moving figures. A blue beam from the parent object shined on the witnesses, who felt a sudden chill. The platform rose up into the UFO, which took on an intense white glow and flew away”. (Jerome Clark, pg 265 UFO Encyclopedia, Vol 1)
An incident from the summer of 1938 in Somerville, Massachusetts was shared by the witness, Malcolm Perry, to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena in April 1964. Mr. Perry at first thought he was seeing a blimp but upon closer observation he saw no features associated with blimps. He did see squarish portholes along the side and figures taking turns looking out at him. The craft disappeared behind some clouds.
In a letter to Dr. J. Allen Hynek dated in February 1974, Frank Sever shared an encounter experience taking place along a country road near St. Clair, Pennsylvania during the summer of 1940 or 1941. He says as he was walking on the country road he heard a loud noise in nearby woods and upon checking, he saw what looked like an aluminum building partially obscured by trees. He knew this area and that no building was there, confirmed in subsequent visits also. He fled the scene when when he saw 6 small figures, possibly (he thought) looking for something on the ground. He thought they were spooks.
The October 1976 MUFON Journal detailed a case (“New Time Lapse Case”) coming to surface after the encounter experiencer (Albert Lancashire) had some UFO sightings and bedroom visions in 1967 that vividly brought back an experience he had during the late summer of 1942 in England near Newbiggen-on-Sea, Northumberland. Albert contacted British Ufologists who found him sane and credible.
He was guarding a radar station when he saw a light (shrouded in a cloud) coming in from the sea and then descending. He then reports he was drawn up into a beam where small beings took hold of him and brought him into a craft. There he also saw figures the size of humans wearing thick goggles and leaning over a table. Albert had only vague onboard memories altogether but thought he underwent a medical exam. His next clear memory was of being back at his guard station.
There is no craft mentioned in this next case from 1942 and referenced in the HUMCAT catalogue. (HUMCAT compilers found in unpublished manuscript called The Humanoids in France by Jean Luc Rivera.) In 1942 around 1 am (month not identified) a woman in Prouvy, France stepped out into her garden, with a nearby bomb shelter, and encountered three small beings. They were described as wearing tight one piece silvery suits that extended over their heads and leaving only their faces exposed. Their heads were large and round with large and luminous yellowish eyes. The beings rigidly stared at her as she ran inside to get her husband. They were gone when she and husband went outside.
The Flying Saucer Review issue #12 from December 1972 relates an incident witnessed during a summer day in 1944 at Verger, France. The witness (Madeleine Arnoux) at the time was 13. She was berry-picking alongside a diet road when she encountered a few hundred yards away the sight of several small beings (a little over 3 feet tall) dressed in brown overalls. The beings were gathered around a gray object the size of a van. The girl felt paralyzed initially. The beings departed in a craft, stirring up a big gust of wind in doing so.
Two investigators for MUFON published 2 special reports at the end of 1973 and start of 1974 relating the story of Mrs. E. M. Church during an incident in late August 1944 at Christchurch, New Zealand. Australian researcher Bill Chalker also published an account in 1996.
The witness of this reported sighting was a nurse walking to a team station late in the afternoon. She described seeing an “upturned saucer” (20 feet diameter, 9 feet high) the ground near the road. There were two four foot tall beings visible inside thru a window and one standing motionless by an open door. The beings appeared fixated on the lights of a nearby fairgrounds. Their heads were very large and took up half the size of their bodies which altogether seemed encased in a transparent rectangular-shaped substance. The nurse moved closer and the being at the door noticed her after she made a noise. The being’s helmut spontaneously “flipped over” and he drifted into the craft through the opening. The craft lifted vertically and disappeared into the clouds.
This next case involved a whole family in October 1944 outside Rochester, NY in an isolated area. The main witness (Otto Ruhe, the father/husband) shared this story with J. Allen Hynek in two letters sent in 1980.
The family was awakened by a loud noise and a flash of light which the
father got up to check. At the door he saw a being adorned in a brown robe and about 4 and 1/2 feet tall and near that being five others of a similar height but adorned luminous brown suits. All the beings had a glow around them. They had large heads, arms long with long thin fingers, mouth a mere slit. The robes being and two others stepped inside and escorted him to craft that had landed near his house. That’s the last thing he remembered until the next morning.
Not sure if had been dreaming, he checked the landing site, which was evidenced by a burnt circle 25 feet in diameter 20 feet from the house. The witness noted it would be some time before the family talked with each other about the incident.
A case in the files of the Center for UFO Studies involved a couple driving a rural road near Bryan, Ohio in October 1945. They saw an oval-shaped craft, 35 feet estimated diameter, hovering 50 feet above the ground near a power pole. The craft was surrounded by amber colored lights and was internally illuminated. One of the witnesses reported seeing moving shadows within. The craft departed rapidly towards a nearby wooded area, then shot up vertically.
In 1976 the Irish UFO Research Center received an anonymous letter which they would quote in an edition of the Irish UFO News. This alleged wild incident was said to have occured on Christmas day in 1945 on an island off the west coast of Ireland. A man was on the shore in the midst of a blizzard waiting for a ferry boat. He saw a craft (described in HUMCAT entry as a “silver dome with a square base”) descend, briefly landing on the water and then moving on shore in a field, crushing two cows in the process.
The top of the craft opened and two humanoids “with squarish legs, wearing gray-black rubber suits” came out. One walked onto the sea (floating?) and place a large vial there. The other being “fired a ray at a cow, burning a hole through it”. When a dog owned by a farmer came up barking, the being pointed a box with lights and antenna at it, seemingly hypnotizing the dog who was escorted into the craft. As a mist enveloped the craft, the beings floated in. The witness is noticed then and when a being waves at him he flees, frightened. The farmer residing there later urges him to remain silent.
An investigator who knew the then deceased witness published early 1976 in the Northern UFO News an account where a craft 25 to 35 feet in diameter approached the witness slowly at a height of 50 feet, coming within 75 yards. The witness provided the investigator a sketch, revealing that through a transparent blue green window he could see 2 sitting beings with short hair and appearing over six feet tall and wearing one piece suits.
In 1971 a prominent Swedish industrialist named Gosta Carlsson reported an experience from May 1946 that was published in the Flying Saucer Review in 1972. He reported being out walking one night when he enountered a disc-shaped craft, 50 feet or more in diameter, with a cupola on top and oval windows. Jerome Clark provides the details, pg 266 in volume one of the 2018 UFO Encyclopedia: “A man dressed in a white, one piece outfit gestured to Carlsson to stop. Ten other occupants, three of them women, all wearing suits and transparent helmets, were nearby. One of the male occupants pointed a box like device at the witness. Carlsson left the scene but returned via a different route half an hour later, just in time to see the UFO depart.”
A witness named Margaret Sprankle from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma shared her experience with MUFON in 1974. Ted Bloecher wrote a special report for MUFON in May 1974. Ms. Sprankle, at the time a young civilian employee working at Tinker Air Force Base related that upon returning home she saw that at about 100 yards in the distance she could see a very large (75 feet diameter) lens-shaped metallic object with a dozen or so square windows evident in the lower right of this object. She could make out figures from the shoulders up, who she felt may have been looking at her. She described to MUFON investigators what she could discern at the 100 yard distance: beings with either very round heads or wearing helmets and apparently bald. Finally, she witnessed the craft rotate 90 degrees on it’s axis and then move on, disappearing in seconds.
In Antwerp, Belgium also in August 1946 there was a sighting by a young man of a pan-shaped craft seen hovering just above the road and with a small being, holding an acacia branch entering the craft through an opening on the underside. He shared this experience in 1975, when it was shared publically in the UFO Register (chronicling Belgium cases).
A case arising from Johannesburg, South Africa during the summer of 1946 would be detailed in the March 1979 issue of Flying Saucer Review 24, no5. The alleged incident was shared by two women who had their experience while on an evening walk. They saw a saucer shaped craft hovering just a few feet above the top of the hotel. In the middle of the saucer was a golden ball. After hearing clicks, they saw the ball descend and become level with the top of the hotel. Then, with clicking sounds heard again, the ball ascended, going through the saucer (despite no opening being seen) and rising above a short distance. Between the ball and the saucer, they could now see two tall (7 feet) human-looking beings who looked like each other: broad shoulders, short wavy hair, wearing white uniforms and broad belts at the midriff. The beings were motionless, appearing to stare at the women who lost sight of the craft as it drifted to the other side of the hotel.
Finally, there is on record (initially published in Vimana in October 1954) a case from suburban Detroit experienced by Mary Ackerman 3:30 in the morning on an unidentified date in 1946. She had been awakened by bright light shining in her bedroom. She saw a large, luminous oval with a band across the middle hovering in her neighbor’s back yard. She could see a single humanoid being inside. The craft quickly left.