:L. LOC~ liON ' N,I,:JER OF OBJECTS ;, LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 11. BRiEF SUMMARY A:-l~ A:-:ALYS15 I . 1 'f?l: ur OF\SERVATION ?. PrlYSICAL EVIDENCE tn.;. s ooc::td. Prevtou ealuo n.a. o { thla f o rm m.&y b e ued. FTD (TDETR) Dli !\HBORN ORSWV.\TORY NORTHWESTER:--; ll 'JVF.!~SlTY I:V,\'ISTO:-:, ILI.I-.;015 t.OlOI Research and Aerial Phenomena Division Wright Patterson Air Force Base Attn: Major Hector Quintanilla Dear Major Quintanilla: Enclosed i s my report of the investigation made on April 9: Nrs . Hazelcrest, Illinois . William T. Powers IX'.t:S~'IGATION OF APP,IL 9, 1967 Hazelcrest, Illinois 60429 Willian1 T. Powers This investigation was requested by Lt. Marley after several telephone calls from Mrs. to Naj. Quintanilla ; Mrs . had been observing UFO's in great numbers for several months, and felt that it was tl1e duty of the Air Force to investigate them. An attempt to1as made to deal with the investigation by telephone and l etter, but Mrs . said that the only tvay to appreciate Hhat was going on was to pay a personal visit , so she could demonstrate the phenomenon directly. Finally a trip to1as made to Hazelcres t , and an evening toJas spent toJith the family, during Hhich a number of"UFO s " t.;ere observed by the investigator in the presence of the witnesses. The ones Hhich were not airplanes Here Venus, Jupiter, l-Iars, pella, Castor, Pollux, and an undetermined star (possibly Vega) rising in the northeast. Present were Mr. and Mrs. Mr. and Mrs. sister-in-law and her husband . prepared a considerable amount of written material, which is enclosed. Taking the entries in the section labelled rrApril 3 , 1967" in order, discussion o f the sightings follot-~s: October 1966. The oval metallic object with the holes on the bottom appears to be the only observed object that could be classed as unconventional. Since this is the first object noted, this first sighting may explain the en- suing interest shor.m by the toJitness in the sky. The object and its behavior r esembles descripti..,ns that have been received from other tvitnesses. Nov. -Dec. 1966. The "beeping" sound, '"hile unexplained, seems to have had an inordinate effect on the ,.,itness .:md her family. Perhaps the explanation lies in the accumulation of an Cuija Board by the witness, as a Christmas present for the daughter, Hith toJhich the t11oman and daughter be came fascinated: the board was received five days before the beeps were heard . Jan. 31, 1967. The Hitnesses \ver e apparently told by the board to "look ut the Hindotl1 ; Hhen they did they satv a bright red object, lotv, approaching the house, and then afteruard ttvo brillj ant flashing tvhite lights departing up :vhl Lo the eo;:;t. Trr::T.e:-li.?tcl foll mvi.16 ll~is ep .. tlr-1c.:: the h'J.:t.:t! o,>p.n .. nt.!.v pelling out com:nunications from orlhem" . At this time the \.Jitness soys she still did not take the board seriously, bul clearly the seeds had been Feb. 1. The Hitness began tvatching Lhe sky every night, and started seeing objects "escorting " her to and from shopping. In the investigatiJn, it came out tltat none of the people involved understood how a star or planet could seem to travel along \vith a car; the y expected, apparently, to b e able to drive pas t the object if it were a star, and so concluded it vJas follo'tving , or 'cl:>corting n , them. The lights which Here seen in the sky, iL was established during the interviet\1, \-Jere like the lights the intervietver satv t-Jhile there, which \vere deCinitely aircraft, stars, and planets. There can be no doubt of this , because the \olitnesses pointed out the objects to the investigator, t\fho examined them all carefully by naked eye and with binocul.1rs, and recognized them immediately. The object t-lhich crossed over in front of the car and then Hent back \vas Venus. Mrs. asized that the y t-Jere going straight up to Chicago, not realizing that the Calumet Expresst-1ay turns , at one point, from due north to due east and then after a mile or two back to due north. The turns in the high\-1ay completely account for the of Venus, and the time of day and direction to the object are correct for Venus . Feb. 15. Venus again: the unusual aspect t-1as its follm-1ing the car, t-lhich the t-litnesses did not understand. Feb. 17. Venus, airplanes, or stars: the description is the same as before. Feb. 20. The large glot\fing t-Jhite light coming from the northt-1es t t.Jas also coming from the direction of O'Hare International Airport, 45 miles away, and Glenview Naval Air Station, and }lidway Airport. A definite V-shape was seen, \lith lights in the usua l positions for running lights on an airplane. The 'l.lit- nesses were not aware that airplanes can turn on their landing lights in the air, nor of the appearance of such landing lights. Feb. 22. The blue streak of light, from all descriptions, was a meteor. One oC the group, recalled having seen similar objects in the past, but t.;asn: t sure what a meteor looked 1 ike. Feb. 2L~. The escort to the Loop, despite the Hitnesses' comments, \vere probahly s tars or planets. The d arti.ng anJ f-n.,rooping is a comwon dcscriplio n and te~t..lts from :nuLions o.:. Lhc line of si.~hl, not from mo~ions o ... the o~">jecL. ' "itnesses uere not acquainted \vilh any s t ars except the Big Dipper. Th e "baby dipper" mentioned else\vhere i s the P l ,.,j .,de~ ; the "Little Dipper" v1as Sagittarius . }larch 2 . The odd p art about the he h avior of the Hhite light seemed to b e ils apparent stop, follm..red by molion in the opposite direction. The uitncss asked whether our airplanes could fly that way, and was assured that an airplane in the landing pattern for Hammond-La nsin g Airport, which is in that direction and has rum.Jay lights , \vould indeed give exactly that appearance. The \vitness had called the local NIKE base, and had been told, i n her \-lords, "That I needed some - one to testify to my sanity," \vhich by nmv \vas beginning to d\-1indle. " Of course during this period the conversations via Ouija Board had continued, and t h e sens e of mystery \vas very strong . The \-litness \vas attempting to remain level-headed, but the strain was upsetting . Mar. 3 . The series of red light s , \vhich \vere described as being similar to \.Jhat the investigator sa,., during t h e intervie\v, follmved at fairly regular intervals along the southeast approach (from over Gary, Indiana) to O'Hare The series of lights i n a ro\v Hhich later changed formation \vere n o t lights on radio-tmver guy \-7ires; this \vas checked. There were reports k.nmvn t o the Hitnesses, however, o f plastic- bag balloons of the type currentl y popular being aunched from an adjacent forest preserve. While no definite information about the number tvas obtained, it Has pointed out to the witnesse s tha t a series o f balloons rising into uppe r winds c ould easily be d isplaced from a straight line in the transition zone, after tlhich the n ew arrangement \vould tend to remain constant. The light s going out in o rder, of course, \vould correspond \vith the burning out of the birthday candles in approximatel y the order in Hhich the y Here lit . The red and Hhite lights \Jere probably t h e usual airpla n e s . (Near the end o f the intervie,.,, the \vitnesses pointed out the '"hite starlike object that \vas seen for 45 minutes; i t \vas , indeed, a starlike object . Hr. NarlO\le asked a t one point '"hether it '"ere possible for a star to appear and disappear if clouds came in front of it) . It \-las about at this date that dr. .rlm.,e called Naj"r Quintanilla, and the investi.gator uas notified and called Nrs. Narlowe . Nrs. has sent a slide to the investig~tor, a photograph taken \vilh an Ins tamatic (tvith flash) of a white light seen in the northeast. This cannot be a planet or star; there are no bright plane t s in that direction, and no stars would~ow in such a short exposure (about 1/50 second) . It may be a landing light. The picture is now being analyzed, and tJill be fonvarded Hith comments the analysis is finished. The objcc t appears as a slightly elongated tvhitc All the witnesses appeared perfectly hones t and sincere; moreover, they were not suffering from hallucinations or s uggestions \vith respect to any o the objects seen by the investig.4tor, since real objects were in fact there. Hmvever the tvitnesses tvere not highly educated, and said as much, so they Here unmvare of the simplest facts of as tronorny. Nr. said that the most inter- esting thing he learned during the intervieH t.Jas that stars can move in the sky, rising and setting like the sun or moon; he said that this fact certainly ex- plained a lot of what they had seen, for Lhey had ass umed that the slm..r motion of the objects meant that they could not be stars or planets. The investigator did not express any positive opinions about the worth of Ouija Boards as means for obtaining information. Instead, he gave a short dis- cussion of the unconscious mind, how it can be seen in operation during dreams and when one get s inspirations Hithout knmving Hhere they come from, and pointed out that since the Ouija Board pointer must be moved by one' s otvn muscles and rain, it i s certainly possible that tvhat is t..rritten is coming from the uncon- scious, although one must still tvonder about the ultimate source of the material. One of the tvitnesses pointed out herself that this might account for why the "conununications" had a different character for each person t..rorking the board. This discussion met with great interest. The investigator voiced the opinion that as long as one were aware of all the possible reasons for the operation of the Ouija Board, he satv no harm in exploring the phenomenon, pointing out that many scientists study precisely such effects by various means. At the end of the interview, it became evident that Mrs. fel t greatly relieved, especially to be rid of the idea that something had gone wrong \lith her mind, a thought t1hich had obvious l y been t.Jeighing more and more heavily on her (at one poi.nt she thretv mvay the board and all Hritten materials associated witl1 this experience, and tried to forget all about it -but the red lights kept coming by). The obvious sincerity o her concern that comes through in tltl.! enclosed material was fully borne out in the interview; ~rr. concern was also evident, as was his determination to be loyal to his wife and to believe as she believed. Despite t h e fact that the subject-matter proved to be a rather ordinary series of misidentifications (save perhaps the very first sighting), the investigator concludes that the results of the trip were well worth the effort . l:err:o for the h"!~ord: 16 t:ar 67 R.~ceived call from c.. Fr s . on or about 7 ; :nrch 67 regArdin g her contact \tith extrat..;r_r"!strial v i sitors. She said that "t.hcy \oJan t'!d to talk vTiLh 1-:.::tjor ~.uintanilla. iler fanily has b~en obs~rved for n early t~r": 7 'lrs. 1'h:!3e 11r:u s ual craft have bt!~n aroun1 the c?.rC"a many ti.:-.~s. They hav"" o!'1e lar ge red liP;h~ and several s~allb,r flashing li~hts. Rece i Yed call f rom " nt in'; to know if the AF ,,.,.as go ing to come out and talk He had somt:thing t o tell th~ /\F. His wife had drat~ings of the things and of theli:r craft. He \'f'anted to t alk with :-:ajar Quintainlla in p~rson. FTD (TDETR) NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY EVA!':STO"', ILLI:-IO IS 60201 Hesearch and Aerial Phenomena Division r'lright Patterson Air Force Base Attn: Lt. :t-:arley Dear Bill: Nrs . l-1arlmve ,..,ants the 'vritten material she sent to us; she is go.ing to consult a doctor and feels that it may be pertinent. Could you send it to her right away? Address: Nr s . Jack Marlowe 2710 Turt.le Creek Drive Hazelcrest , Illinois 60429