PROJECT lC073 R.:Cv:~D 2. LOCATION 1. Nu:~E'ER c,;: oaJECTS 10. CONCLUSION is. LENGTH O r OBSERVATION 11. BRIEF SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS i ; 1. 1 y ? E c;: c;:;:;~ RVA Tl ON 2-?~c2.red brign.ter -r.~an the origiYce sc sr.ar; ,..ras compared to a brig!'lt round li~"lt bulb i 7. COURSE ~ ::ct ~;era like c.. oright star. Color: vras Prviou ec!.u.;,na o{ thh form may be u10ed, 34. Date you completed this questionnaire: 35. Information 'H.,ich you feel pertinent and which is not adequately covered in the specific points of the questionr.c ire or a narrative explanation of your sighting SHIPPING C QST NUMBE:R OF ! TITLE OR SUB.JE C T Sr~fi\1 COL REV CONTACT DUPE 8MM COL REV CONTACT DUPE ADl'L NUMBER SIZE NUMSER SIZE 00 FT. REELS 00 FT. CANS SHIPPING ORDER F'OR TilE ACCOUNT OF UNIVEHSITY , ILLINOIS 60201 Their P. 0. No. VERBAL P AC.KI:O UY D ATE WAYBILL NO. INS. NO. 9262 PRINT NUMBERS NUMBER SIZE NUMBER 00 FT. REEL CASES 50' CARTONS OTHER MATERIAL ORDER COMPLETE 2 PRINTS SHIPPED TO PATROLMAN WILLIAM FISHER (ALSO ORIGINAL) THANK YOU MT GEO. W. COLBURN LABORATORY INCORPORATED 164 NORTH WACKER DRIVE CHICAGO. ILLINOIS 60606 PACKING SIIP. AND LABEL Cases inv0sti; .lted by 'iJilli::-!m Po\Ters- Henderson, Ill, C :L'ilbridge, Ill. .J(:.lesburg, Ill. Eo line , Ill. Unidentified Unidentified DEARBORN OBSERVATORY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY EVANSTON, ILLINOIS 60201 5 April 1967 FTD (TDETR) 3esearch and Aerial Phenomena Division ~-Fright Patter.so~ Air Force Base At~tn: l-1ajor He.~-::.c r Quintanilla fua. r ~-'laj or Quir-tc.::.illa: Enclosed is the rc:po.rt on the Galesburg and Moline , Illinois, sighting of Marc~ 10-11, 1967. Sincerely yours, Systems Engineer INVESTIGATION OF NARCH 10-11: GALESflJRG AND MOLINE, ll.,L Four witneDses or sets of witnesses were contacted and interviewed du ng this 1-~ day trip;(since officers from Chanute Field were in the a also,)only the cases that sounded as if there might be something s sta~tial to the story were investigated. In the course of the invest- ~zation, four or five incidental sightings were dealt with by telephone in person; all were of the light-in-the-sky type, and could reasonably c~ attributed to Venus a.nd Jupiter, or airplane landing lights. There . .:ere several brief i !'lterviel'rs with newspapers and radio stations, in \'rhich t~e investigator g~ve a review of the bright objects which were in the &~:y and could be mistC.ken for something usual. The investigations with t~e principal ~dtnessas are reported below. :.=..:esburg, Illin':):. :s. about 40 years old, and married; he has tes~ a Deputy f or a~ least 15 years. At present he conducts a night p :'ol alone th!'ct:s~)Ut the outlying areas '\'Forking out o:.: t~.& Sheriff r s .:~e::ar...ment in do1mt"~""' On the mc~i_;.; of l~1arch 6, at 0425 {by watch), ~:~? ~! overpass e r.~le east of Henderson, which is east Ee )fte~ stops here, because there is a good vie~r of t he saw a meteor or a fira- at least 15 miles away. This object was red in _...,_ ' immediately that it '\-ras traveling apparently up-,.;z a nd toNard him; he saw shortly that it was nothing with which he lttas !'2~li1r, and (still in the patrol car) reached into the rear of the car to get his binoculars out. \Vhile he was finding them and gettine them out, he kept watching out the side rear window, (car facing west). At this point he almost decided to "get out of there", but remained. He g out of the car, and looked at the approaching object through bin- oculars, at which time he saw the shape shown in the accompanYing ~::-?-winQ: (made except for labellings). He said that if one i=zgined the bottom part to be like one of the rubber cups placed under f:.~i ture legs, and a dome set do\-m into the cup, the appearance l"rould exactly the sa~e. The whole bottom part seemed to be spinning rapidly, e.t "4 to 500" RPM (or possibly "4500 Rf'}1"-the tape isn't clear). The section pulsated red all over at irregular intervals, averaging a or more betwaen pulsations; the pulsations were definitely not r9gula.r, nor did t:;:::y display any other patte The object ~pproached straight tow and passed dir- e'::tly ov-erhead at l ow altitude. At the overhead point, tt".:.:tt it would hav~ subtended about 14 inches at a1,n' s length, or roughly ~Jv c.egrees. He c~uld see the circular plan vie\'1 of the bottom, which was c~so r otating, a ~ppeared to have closely-spaced strips across it, whi ch ~otated with the rest of the bottom section. A hissing sound was !lea.!'C. ~.,-hile the oc.ject was near, like air under high pressure escaping. e "':'"::!.S no tone :.o the sound, just a hiss: said there \'Tas no tr. e sound of any kind of engine, jet or piston, that he He is a private pilot. The hiss l'ras continuous, gro\dng in intensity aa ~te object approached and fading as it left. en the object had passed over and had travelled on its straight cou.rse toward the northwest for perhaps one minute, a briJliant column of light shone straight down from the bottom of the object, for two or threa seconds, and then shut off again. This column of light was about 3/L the diameter of the object, and its sides were parallel and normal tJ the ground and the level bottom o.f the object. The bottom of the ::"'-2::~ vias cut off by trees. The light was white, and likened it a ray of sunlight shining from between clouds. After the light shut the object continued to the horizon. It disappeared at 0436, having ken 10 minutes bet;..;een the overhead position and disappearance. The top of t~e object appeared to be white, and sparkled like s3.lt crystals on a road when headlights shine on them, although ~!eadlights (\-ihich wer~ on) were not aimed toward the object. At the top ~&s a circular (apparently) area which seemed to have a dome of trans- ent material set i~to it, but inverted -going inward rather than o11tward. Surrounding the whole object at, all times \'las a bluish-vrhi te t:.:a, like a halo ==-=- d the moon, or like the scattered light around a ig~t above the ground was such that his horizon would be .~.:~out 7 miles z.-~3.:/; if the object were 200 feet in the air, another 14 ::--i les would b9 a.c d, maldng 21 miles from overhead to the northwest The obje~t travelled this distance in 10 minutes, and s~:~ se ed t o J?eed up during the last minutes. Assuming a ~onstant s e~. a c~L ~alc~a~e the airspeed as about two miles per minute, or l 2C s :.2-::ate miles per hour. The speed would be proportional to the square roo~ o~ the height above the ground, so that at a 100 foot altitude, the spec:;c. Jould be s5 mph, and at 1000 feet it would be 265 mph, esti; ed the speed at 300 mph, and was rot able to estimate altitude. However from his size estimate (3 0 feet) and the angular diameter when closest, the object would have had an altitude of only 50 feet. An~ular estimates are well-known, hovrever, for being grossly exaggerated by al- m~3t all witnesses, trained or not, so the actual height consistent li.lth -foot diameter could be anything up to 500 feet. once saw a similar object, without the bright white light, about 1 2 to 15 yea~s previously when he was a Deputy in Humbolt, Iowa. E~ watched it dart back and forth, starting and stopping abruptly, for ;.~,::>ut half an hour :r and then called a skeptical officer to come and join n~m; the officer was impressed. However, many uitnesses will say an cbject was "similar" when the points of similarity are very few; there t.;a.s no way to get enough detail on this previous sighting to enable an e~:-alua tion to be :1::.de me:ntioned that on tvro additional occasions over this time-span he has seen objects ~hat did not s eem ordinary, but t~at the present o was by far the most impressive. He is positive that w t he saw was not an airplane or helicopter, or'bne of them little :::astic balloons" (there had been a hoax in the area involving a balloon c:.:.i a. flare). He s::.:/s he saw what he s aw: he is certain it is some kind o~ piloted craft, t~at it is nothing conventional, and that he could not h~ve staken a i~g else for such an object. He says his eyesight is per: and that he i s not given to hallucinations or to telling lies. Ee >::.2 ,:)een ribbeG. a good de al by his fellovr-officers and even by his wi~e, but he s ays he doesn't care: they don't know what they're talking about, because they didn't see what he saw. He i s willing to accept the ide~ t.~at the earth is being visited from other civilizations in space, sa~ting that he doesn t t find this idea fantastic at all: in a thousand years we may well be doing the snme thing , and in this universe there tnust be other civilizations at least 1000 years older than ours. This witness' story is unshakable; he is positive of what he sa\lr, h~ ~ppears to be entirely in his rig~t mind, and his description is clear. ~ =~st classify this report as dealing with an unconventional object. s is the only conclusion possible on the basis of the presented i~formation and the apparent character of the witness. Far.m housewives. Present at the interview Four yoQ~ger children who were involved in the sighting were not p:-esent, because "tall:ing about it upsets them too much." The two la.diez a.re next-door neighbors, living on fanns about miles east o have been watching UFO's frequently since last August; h~wever their interest arose from a sighting in August c:: 1966 \'lhich s:r:.:.:1 reasonably interesting, and so their subsequent o~se~y~tions are a~ :east motivated. Many of their observations have to C.:: xi.th lights i :; T.:1.e sky, and they readily admitted that most of what :.::e:-hc:.ve seen r::. -:: had been conventional objects such as stars, planets or c..:.rcraft. !Iowe~7ar on at least three occasions objects were seen \'Thich as conventional. The Aug~s~ sighting involved a large oval red object that flew ai~ ~..itting a high-pitched l'lhine on a single pure time like sightings in Lansing Hichigan and surroundings, 21-25 Na:y, 1964, in USAF files). The next \'ras on the Friday night folloldng the eat snowstonn of 28 January (?) 1966 t o tell her something u a s flying right tot.;ard her house. Hr her son, and two daughters sal'r the object through a windo\v. It \-Jas very large, oval, aQd carrled red, green, and yello\'1 lights; it flew low over the house, and then seemed to drop suddenly behind the trees in a field north of the house. They have not been out to that field to investigate d do not intend to go. The sighting ~rhich stimulated the investigation took place at 7:10 p.m. on J.:arch 9, 1967. The ladies were outside looking for UFO' s ~s they do quite often, when ropped her eyes toward the rizon a little s outh of west, and saw a bright pulsating red object r.~nging in the air , jt4st above treetop level. It was apparently closer looked too. The object ne ~>creamed, and -:":as shaped like a pa ncake, with a rim made of red lights which s eemed to pulsate irregula~ly. The top was rounded, but there wa s no high dome o-:~ it. The obj ect app~oached closer, and suddenly it seemed to explode. A brilliant white cone of light fanned out from the object toward the ,, .. :..tnesses, so br:.:g~!:.. t hat all who were l'ratchi ng (two adults, t~To teenagers, a~i f our smaller chil dren) had to cover their eyes; -::~at., ,tlhite light - I don't know lt-rhat it was, I've never seen anything ll!:e it.n The laj:..~s were visibly upset during this initial recounting tears in her eyes. The white light lasted 10 seconds (by re-enactment), and then t~.::-::s:. suddenly o:~ ~ The red pulsating lights were again visible for a the object accelerated very rapidly off to the north, diss.p?earing behi:1d trees in the northwest, or about 50 to 60 degrees f rc::: ~rhere it was first seen. Angular diameter was impossible to obtain, alt~ough the witnesses said that the "snowstonn" object had been much closer and clearer. The fact that, the witnesses have been looking for UFO's more or less a s a hobby, and that they take them rather seriously a nd speculate a.~ou-:. what they l'tant here and l'rhere they are from, ma y seem to d etract .:::-:::i t t:eir qualifications as witnesses. llo\'lever, the y gave the impression :: b?in; quite ordinary witnesses; their many sighting s are typica l of : er sightings of planets and stars by people who are i gnorant of ~ztronornical obj e c t s or technology i n general; their interest seemed ::...:.ite adequately e)':pl a i ned by their initial experience last August, and ried no overto~c3 of mysticism. Indeed the y had neve r paid attention objects in t he s :i bafore t he August sighting. One would e:-:pect tha t witnesses like these would s e e many thing s ich they could not explain if the y observed t he s ky regularly ; there ~s no reason to thir~ that they are lying about having seen s omething , or that they are ha llucin ating . It wa s evident from their talk that while ey suspecte d m y objects of being UFO's, the sight of the object on the ~:.:: of 1-iarch was z. :-e~l shock: they recognize d inu:nedia t ely tha t they ,_.:~:-e d~aling with 3~nething quite different from the t1(JF0' s" they h a d been s previously. : t should also be noted th~t while the l adie s had ob- s er-,-ad many U.tlkno-.-:-. objects together during the p ast months, this wa s the ever reported anything . Even the n they reported it '=::::-: t:.s~ t!ley aard that other people 1trere making reports, and in :.:-:-:::..:--;:~...:: .; cly-k~s-::1 ~eports the y mentioned only a sighting from s e ve r a l :;r:eviously, an object vrhich they readily aeree d could have b~en when the investigator explained the appear ance of Venus and \lhen ?.!16 ~i:;~re it c ou l d be seen. They reporte d the object of Harch 9 only a.fte~ being convinced that they \'lould receive no publi c i t y and would not be ridiculed. 5 minutes; later that night there were many radio reports from further s outh concerning bright objects "hanging in the sky". (The::;e all sounded J~ke Venus or Jupiter). Si sighting \'ras not at close range and involved no ~:j~ct, no conclusion about the actual cause of the lights can be reached. ? _-.-2-case should be classified, "unknown: too little infonna.tion for con- :J:1sion." This woD.ld correspond to the present class, "In&1lff'icient ::..ronnation", except tha.t by nature, no matter how \"Tell-observed by the .. ,.;:_ tness the lights 'lier e , no decision could be reached. The object itself ~ ~ nearly devoid of i~fonnation. patrolman, 1-ioline Police Department, Moline, Illinois. sigh~ing occurred on the afternoon of March 9, 1967. eldest son vra.s ~ .. d.-:,:-: him at the time. This case has been thoroughly :.:--restigated by of:'i~.~::'s from Chanute Field, so only general observations , be made conc =- g the motion picture film taken by The objec: . ::.s located on 14th street and 16th Avenue, looking seen visually at, about a 45-degree elevation rom the 30-degree angle given initially). The :: hwest portion of Noline. object ..:;?~t north; the witness felt that he could almost see :n~ . .:.. :.: ~.:E:.s, but. :.~ ':>eca"!le smaller. The film docs not cover the