1. Oi.TE 'r I..&E GROUP 2. LOCATION 8 February 65 09/0555'~ Rl k Grove, Vill~ge, Illinois l . SOURCE 4. HUMBER OF OBJECTS CONCLUSION Astrono1ri.cal ( .. ~OO!I) One Regraction of setting moon .5. LENGTH Ofl OIS!IIIYATION 11. lltll,. SUMMARY ANO ANALYSIS !Tot Reported (Ninutes) Case used in IJBC Documantary. Investigated by Dr Hynek . TYPE OF OBSERVATION Ground -Visual Stationary 9. PHYSICAL EYIDEMCII! Major Quintanilla El k Grove Village, Ill. z Feb,ruary 8 , 1965 orange-ish tinge than reported by Mrs. Cro,'lley. Howev er, in the absence of her reporting the moon, an d c ou pled \'lith the fact that the moon was c ertainly in any event within a few degrees of the reported sighting, considerable doubt must be thrmm on there having been a separate globe from that produced by the setting moon. NBC wishes me to come in a t the end of this documentary to d iscuss these siahtings. It ought to be easy, since the Barring t on Hills case is almost certainly a meteor, this case is probably the moon, but the only puzzling case remaining is that of the Elmwood Park police and this is a real puzzler. It is a ''Levelland" case right in our own back yard! It is unfortunate tha t O'Hare did no t report it officially so that it could have been investigated much sooner than it h a s been! Sincerely, j. Allen Hynek DEARBORN OBSERVATORY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY EVANSTON, ILLINOIS 60201 ~.tajor Hector Quintanilla , Jr. FTD /!right-Patterson Air Force Base Day t on, Ohio Dea r Major: Elk Grove Village, February 8 , 1965 This is a-11 account of the NBC "Documentary on UFO'S" treatment of the E llc Gr ove Village case. I \ras present throughout the entire interview and filming, although I did not take par t in it. The \"li tness \'las a vrho is a photogenic g i r l of about 26 a.tid reasonably '"ell sel -possessed. Her story f ollm11s and then I ' 11 give a f evr detail s of l1ow the filming was done. She "''as comin g home b y herself a t about nidnight, February 8 , 1965 ( Feb. 9 ). (NICAP report says 11:55 p . m.) She '"as coning from a doc t o r ' s appointment, a doctor who malces l a t e appointments f o r people who Ccu"l' t come earlier. She 'lives on a curved street c alled Ha.onony Lane and as s h e was curving around towarrl her house, some four doors approximately n orth o f it, she Sa\1 a g l owing oval of light o v e r her neighbor's house, more o r less directly \'lest of her. I determined the bea r i n g t o be 27 5 -280 degrees, magnetic. She stopped h e r ca r and put out the li~ht::; and gazed at the "object". Althou g h she said object, she pointe d out that it \'las n othing more th~'1 two inter-c onnecting ova l s o f lig :1t o f J!:lifcrm int~nsi t y that seemed to sway bac k a-nd forth. She c on- ..,a r d the house i~ the car w: thout turning the lights on a n d dro v e i o her driveway which i s in the f ront o f the house, as it i s in manv suburban tvne h ones. This t empor a rily blocked her vie1.r o f the g lobe of 1: :;ht but she hurried over the icy sidewarlk to the left of her house. he house over which she said t h e light \Jas, is jus t fifty to s e venty- five yar d s f rom her house a..Tld s h e \ITas positive that the l~ght NaS directly over that house. She did not s een to get the point when I asked her ho\1 st1e knew tha t i t was directly over the h ouse. It \1as ov e r the h ouse and that s all there wa s t o it. The house is fifty fee t l on g and she sai d t h e object was about forty feet l o n g and \'las about twenty o r thirtJ quite close to the house, al11ost directly over the roof. She said she stood a t the back of her house transfixed u.t this si~ht, b'!t n~t a~ all fright ened--there was no sound--u.nd t~en, instead of going d~rectly J..nto the house, which she could have from ''ihere she vras standing , ~1_1e ru.n around to the front of the house ao;:tin. fumbled with h e r keys, ~iajor Quinta."lilla El!c Grove Villag e , February 8, 1 9 6 5 das~ed to the bedroom to get her husba n d and hauled They both '.'lent to the wind ow to look . At that t i me definitely gone. out to loo k . t h e o b i e I questioned her closel y on the edges of t h e object and s h e maintained that the ovals of light had a definite periphery and were not fuzzy. r She drew them for the cameras many times and the best description I can give here is that they were s inpl y t\'/O ellipses at right angles to each other, t\110 ellipses of rather l ow eccentricity. The filming of t his whol e e pisode t ook from about 7 : 0 0 p . m. until 1:0() a . m. It is ridiculous the lengths to which these documentary p eople will g o . They \Till do a scene over and over a gain, aiming for perfec- tio n . They first had her tell her story to the car.teras and the mike . The story is much as I have given it above. She s poke also of not being afraid of the ridic~le o f neighbors. Sh e saw wh<:!.t she saw and there was no point in hiding it. She said she was conscious of the fact t hat her husband' s pos3. tion, and that of her children in school, might be jeopardized by unsavory t alk, but that s h e f c l t t~u:tt she must report it. The girl hersel f is a highschool eraduate and then had a year or t~:o , I believe, of i nterior decorating. I would judg e her a positiv e reporter but not a terribly good reporter. She decides on the t hing s she is sure of an d t i1cn sticks with t hem. After the f ilming at the dining room table , with all the lights g oing full bla;:,t for full y half an hour or more, they had her draw the pictures for the silent cameras. Then t hey had her cha n g e clothes and re-enact the wi 11te.cy scene of !t e r coming in, running to the windO\~, looking , runnin.~ t o ~et h e r h usband and pulling h im out of bed. (They did not sro . .., t r.;:t. t portion; t hey s~1owed merely h i s running o u t of the bedroom t o ~'le ._..,~;~do\-; in his p a j a;:a.s and robe. l n h e r desire to be extremely c>.ccura1:e, -cn e young lady r enarked that her husband doesn t wear ;)aj ar:tas, bu~ ~he NBC people said they had to take some liberties in the name of decency c.:1d he \:ore paj amasl) As you can see, it was a rather jolly evening a..."'ld I forgot to mention that two NICAP members "'er e present, Larsen, who is President of the Chicago chapter and c.nother man vThose name temporaril y escapes me, thoug h I can get it. I maintained amicable relations '.Ti th t hem, but in no sense c orning to grip s with then. In ::tn j' ~v~nt, t hey s e e med a c:rt r.bove tl:e nverag e U TCAP members, o r ::tt l e~st did seen so unti l I ov e r heard -rhem tal ling in the k i tche n \/hen they thou Ght I was asleep. I might as hrell tell tha t no'.J. Al o n 3 0.b o u t micn i gh t , I was getting rather tired and s i nce I had a nine cloc~': class the ne:::-:t 11ornin~, I excus e d nyself anc1 lay clO'.'ln on a c o u c h t h e li vin,; roon while t!~e l':BC caL;teranen \lent o utsi d e to f i l:n t h e Major r~uintanilla E l k Grove Village February 8 to hear the NJCAP people regaling one of the NTIC crew merabers and with sone real cock-and-bull stories. They didn't n m 'l tha t I was listening . Along 1.ri th the usual vilif i c ution of the Ai r Force and t heir secrecy, they wer e tossing a round some real oddball stories about friends of theirs having gone to the base~ent of the Museum o f Science and Industry in Chicago, and wandering into a forbidden region Nhere they found "little green men", o r at least models of t hem. They '.rere shooed out of this "restricted" area. Then the NICAP man \'lent on t o say that "Did you know that during the war, the basement o f the ~Iuseum of Science and Industry wasthe c enter of the security operations of the U. s.?" If those \rere not his exact words, that \\Ta.S certainly the sense of it, samely, that the basenent of the museum was a super-secret "hideout". The NICAP members showed out in their u sual uncritical form! Both t hese men, however, a r e basically likeable chaps and c er- t ainly fair and h onest, according to their lights. tve finally eot away from ther e at 1:30 a . m. and t"!"le :lext day, in thi n!cin g t his over, I came t~pon what is probably the solution. I asked the girl 1.11here the moon was and she stated that she did not see the 1.1oon , but that t!1e sky was very clear. She said she kne\'1 it Nasn' t the moon because i t .was too bright and too big an d tha t it wasn' t Venus for t!:e same r eason. It wasn't the g re>.. t whi t e owl, l:rhich some neighbors said it mi ght have been, because O\fl s move, a n d this d i dn't. She said t l1er e ~ere no clouds, but we should check meteorological c o n ditions o n tha t day~ Bo-::11 this c~se and the Elnwood Parle case will c ause a g reat deal of c omment since they will be aired before appr o~imately a million J;e:O;Jle. :\~d the doc;tment:-.ry is quite good, have no question on that . Refe re~ce t o 1:he nautica l almanac for Petiruary 8 ( s h e firs t said Feb r t:lry 1 5 \hich \TOul d h a v e thrown t h i s \'!hole case out of court) , but i t ;i ow has been established that she went to the doctor on Febru a r y 8 . The ;noo n was exactly a t fir s t q u arte r (and thus a very fine h::tlf oval) and it set i n the Chicago reg i o n a t 12:24 a.m. It' s declination \1aS plus 1 3 d e grees, t'lhich would h ave placed the half moon with the rounded ide largely pointing down . .,ar d at about five or six deg rees above the western h orizon and slightly to the north of '"est. Refraction and esp e cially the prese:1ce of a t hin cirrus cl o u d bank could h a v e r;iven t!":~ {-:pression o f 2.il. .i::1te r - l o c i;:in.,4 o v a l sitting o v e r i:he :.1ei~hboz' s !!c..1:..:; ~. l.'h~ c~irectio::1s checlc o u t c.:~ac tl y . The sigi1 tin.g b eo..cing was 275 - 2'i0 and elev::..tion :1as 10 3 . This \!as almost exactl y the pos i tion of the moon at thrtt t ine. T h e f a c t t h a t she shol!ld hav e re~orted the moo n ~n~ t h i s Gl o b e r1 es it likely tl1at she s a\1 tl1e setting moon. There i s n o qu e s t i o n fron h e r genera l de:-1eanor tha t she is exci~able, a n d n e s t peop l e are !l o t aware o f hmT t}!e noon loo (S at exactly firs t Ma ior Ouintanilla Ellc Grove Village, 1 11., February 8 , 1965 o range-ish tinge than reported by Ho,~ever, in the absence of her reporting the r:1oon, and c oupled \~i th the fact that the moon was certain l y in a.TJ.y event within a f ev., degrees of the reported sighting, considerable doubt must be thro\l'm on t here having been a separate globe from that produced by the setting moon. NBC wishes me to come in at the end of t his documentary to discuss these s i ghtings. It ought to be easy, since the Barring ton Hills ase is almost certainly a meteor, this case is probably the moon, but the only puzzling case renaining is that of the El:-mrood Park police and this is a real puzzler. 1 t is a ''Levelland" case rig~1t in our 0\m back yard! It is unfortunate that O'Hare did not report it officially so that i t could have been investigated much sooner than it has been! Sincerely, J. Allen Hynek 1.' Di.TE :-1,""E GROUP , ... LOCATION . " 8 Fe uarv 65 09/0555~'1' Elk Grov e , Village, Illinois 4 . NUMBER OF OBJECTS CONCLUSION AstronoJtri.col (1100U) One Regraction of set~in~ moon. S. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 11. 81111!, SUMMARY AND ANALYIII Not Reported (Hi.nutes) 6. TYPE OF OBSERVATION Ground-Visual Stat.i.ona~ 9. PHYSICAL EVIDENCE Case used in NBC Documantary. SEE CASE FILE. Investigated b,y Dr Hynek. DEARBORN OBSERVATORY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY BVANSTON, ILLINOIS 60101 Major Hector QUintanilla, Jr. FTD Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Dayton, Ohio Dear Major: Sighting, Elk Grove Village, Ill. February 8, 1965 This is an account of the NBC "Documentary on UFO'S" treatment of the Ellc Grove Village case. I was present throughout the entire interview and filming, a1 though I did not take part in it. The \'li tness was a Mrs. Patrick Crowley, who is a photogenic girl of about 26 and reasonably well self-possessed. Her story follows and then I'll give a few details of how the filming was done. She was coming home by herself at about midnight, February 8, 1965 (Feb. 9 ). (NICAP report says 11:55 p.m.) She was coming from a doctor's appointment, a doctor who malces late appointments for people who C~"'l' t come earlier. She lives on a curved street called Harmony Lane and as she was curving around toward her houset some four doors approximately north of it, she Sa\\' a glowing oval ot light over her neighbor's house, more or less directly west of her. I determined the bearing to be 275-280 degrees, magnetic. She stopped her car and put out the lights and gazed at the "object". Although she said object, she pointed out that it Nas nothing more than two inter-connecting ovals of light of uniform intensity that seemed to sway back and forth. She con- tinued toward the house in the car wjthout turning tlte lights on and drove into her driveway which is in the front of the house, as it is in many suburban type homes. This temporarily blocked her view of the globe of light but she hurried over the icy sidewarlk to the left of her house~ The house over which she said the light '~as, is just fifty to seventy- five yards from her house and she was positive that the light Nas directly over that house. She did not seem to get the point when I asked her how site knew tha t it was directly over the house. It was over the house and that's all there was to it. The house is fifty feet long and she said the object was about forty feet long and was about twenty or thirty feet above the house, although whenever she drew it, she drew the light quite close to the housei almost directly over the roof She said she stood at the back of her house transfixed. at this sight, but not at all frightened--there was no sound--and then, instead of going directly into the house, which she could have from where she was standing, she ran around to the front of the house again, fumbled with her keys, finally got in, ran to the window, but the object was gone Major Quintanilla Elk Grove Village, February 8, 1965 dashed to the bedroom to get her husband and hauled him out to l ook. They both went to the window to look. At that t ime the object wa s definitely gone. J questioned her closely on the edges of the object and she maintained that the ovals of light had a definite periphery and were not fuzzy. Sh e drew them for the cameras many times and the best description I can give here is tha t they were simply two ellipses at right angles to each other, two ellipses of rather low eccentricity. The filming of t his whole episode t ook from about 7:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. It is ridiculous the lengths to which these documentary people will go. They will do a scene over and over a gain, aiming for perfec- tion. They first had her tell her story to the cameras and the mike. The story is much as I have given it above. She s poke also of not being afraid of the ridicule of neighbors. She saw what she Sa\.; and there was no point in hiding it. She sai d she was conscious of the fact .that her husband's position, a nd that of her children in school, might be jeopardized by unsavory talk, but that she felt that she must report it. The girl herself is a highschool graduate and then had a year or two, I believe, of interior decorating. I would judge her a positive reporter but not a terribly good reporter. She decide s on the thing s she is sure of and then sticks with them. After the filming at the dining room t able , vd th all the lights going full blast for fully half an hour or more, they had her draw the pictures for the silent cameras. Then t hey had her change clothes and re-enact the l'lintery scene of her coming in, running to the window, looking , running to get her husband and pulling him out of bed. ( They did not sho~ .. ., t hat portion; they showed merely his running o u t of the bedroom to the window in his pajamas and robe. In h e r desire to be extremely accurate, the young lady remarked tha t her husband doesn't \'lear pajamas, but the NBC people said they had to take some liberties in the name of decency and he \'lore p ajamas!) As you can see, it was a rather jolly evening and I forgot to mention that t\4/0 NICAP members were present, Larsen, \'lho is President of the Chj cago chapter and another man whose name temporarily escapes me, though I can get it. I maintained amicable relations with them, but in no sense coming to grips with them. In any event, they seemed a cut above the averag e NICAP members, or at least did seem so until I. overheard them talking in the kitchen \'lhen they thought I was asleep. I might as well tell that now. Along about midnight, I \'las getting rather tired and since I had a nine o'clock class the next morning, I excused myself and lay down on a couch in the living room while the NBC cameramen went outside to film the progress of her car down the street, etc. I did sleep some, but awoke Ma j o r Quintanilla Elk Grove Vill_age, February 8, 1 9 65 to hea r the NJCAP people regaling one of the NBC crew memb ers and ~lr. Patrick Crowley \'lith s ome r eal c ock-and-bull stories. They d i dn't know that I was listening . Alon g with the usual vilificatio n of the Air Force and their secrecy, they were tossing aroun d s ome rea l oddball stories about f