The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters

by Story, Ronald

  Up until this time, Nurse Kendall had been so entranced with what she was watching that she did not think to call anyone, but when the object began to move away, she realized no one would believe her, so she called to Nurse Wilson, who reportedly went to the window, and saw the strange object just outside. She said, “What on earth is that?” to which Mrs. Kendall replied: “I guess it’s a flying saucer.”

  The couple then dashed quickly to the nurse’s station, down the hall, and told what they had seen. They were not believed at first, but eventually two nurses, followed shortly by a third, came into the ward where they watched the lights of the disk-shaped craft. It was some distance away by then, but the lights were clearly seen by all. One of the nurses ran down the corridor to a bathroom and watched the object circle five or six times after which it took off “like a streak” to the northeast.

  Detail of UFO occupants as described by Doreen Kendall (Artist: Brian James)

  Mrs. Kendall later said that she had not been afraid, but just was very curious. She had the impression that the disk was having mechanical trouble.

  —CORAL & JIM LORENZEN

  Reference

  Lorenzen, Coral and Jim. Encounters with UFO Occupants (Berkley, 1976).

  Coyne (Mansfield, Ohio) helicopter case On October 18, 1973, the four-man crew of an Army Reserve UH-1 helicopter, based in Cleveland, Ohio, flew to Columbus, Ohio, for regularly scheduled physical exams. When finished, they left the medical facility at approminately 10:00 P.M., drove back to the airport (a distance of two miles), filed a flight plan, and took off for the return to Cleveland at approximately 10:30.

  The night was clear, calm, starry, and moonless; the temperature was 43 degrees F., visibility 15 miles. The route was familiar and the men were relaxed.

  The aircraft was commanded by Capt. Lawrence J. Coyne, 36, full-time commander of the 316th Medivac Unit of the U.S. Army Reserve. Coyne was rated for helicopter, seaplane, and fixed-wing aircraft. The copilot was Lt. Arrigo Jezzi, 26, rated for helicopter flying only. Sgt. John Healey, 35, a detective in the Intelligence Unit of the Cleveland Police Department, was the flight medic. Spec. 5 Robert Yanacek, 23, was the crew chief. He had seen active duty in Vietnam as a helicopter crew chief.

  Jezzi was flying from the left-hand seat. The helicopter was cruising at 90 kts. at an altitude of 2500 feet above sea level over mixed woods, farmland, and rolling hills averaging 1100 to 2300 feet elevation.

  Near Mansfield, Ohio, Healey, in the left rear seat, saw a single red light off to the left (west) heading south. It seemed brighter than a port wing light of a normal aircraft, but because it was not relevent traffic, he did not mention it.

  Approximately three to four minutes later, Yanacek, in the right rear seat, noticed a single steady red light on the eastern horizon. It appeared to be pacing the helicopter. After watching it for perhaps a minute, he reported it to Coyne, who instructed him to “keep an eye on it.”

  After about another 30 seconds, Yanacek announced that the light appeared to be closing on their craft. Coyne and Yanacek watched from their seats. Healy got up and stooped in the aisle to observe. Jezzi’s view was obstructed.

  The light continued its approach. Coyne grabbed the controls from Jezzi, began a powered descent of approximately 500 feet per minute, and contacted Mansfield control tower, requesting information on possible jet traffic. After initial radio contact, the radios malfunctioned on both UHF and VHF.

  The red light increased in intensity and appeared to be on a collision course at a speed estimated to be 600+ kts. Coyne increased the rate of descent to 2000 f.p.m. The last altitude he noted was 1700 feet msl.

  As a collision appeared imminent, the light decelerated and assumed a hovering relationship above and in front of the helicopter. Coyne, Healy, and Yanacek reported that a cigar-shaped gray metallic object filled the entire front windshield. A red light was at the nose, a white light at the tail, and a distinctive green beam emanated from the lower part of the object. The green beam swung up over the helicopter nose, through the main windshield, and into the upper tinted window panels, bathing the cockpit in green light. Jezzi reported only a white light from the upper windows. No noise or turbulence from the object was noted.

  After a few seconds of hovering, the object accelerated and moved off to the west, showing only the white tail light. Coyne and Healey reported that the object made a decisive 45-degree course change to the right. Jezzi did not observe the course change. Yanacek’s view was partially obscured.

  While the object was still visible, Jezzi and Coyne noted that the altimeter read 3500 feet with a rate of climb of 1000 f.P.M. Coyne stated that the collective was still in the full down position from his evasive descent. The magnetic compass appeared to be malfunctioning.

  Coyne gingerly raised the collective. The helicopter climbed nearly another 300 feet before positive control was regained. Then the crew felt a slight “bump.” Coyne descended to the previously assigned altitude of 2500 feet, radio contact with Akron/Canton airport was easily achieved, and the flight continued to Cleveland without further incident.

  THE GROUND WITNESSES

  Mrs. Erma C. and four adolescents were driving south from Mansfield to their rural home on October 18, 1973 at about 11:00 p.m. when they noticed a single steady bright red light, flying south. This observation lasted about thirty seconds. Approimately five minutes later they had turned east on Route 430 when they noticed two bright lights—red and green—descending rapidly from the east. They then became aware of the “beating sound, a lot of racket” from an approaching helicopter. Mrs. C. pulled over and parked. Two of the children, both aged 13, jumped from the car. They witnessed an unknown object “about the size of a blimp (or) a school bus” approaching from the east, and the helicopter approaching from the southwest. The unknown object assumed a hovering position over the helicopter and maintained this position as both aircraft, at very low altitude, crossed the road behind the auto. An intense green beam flared from the object, enveloping the helicopter and the environment. “The woods, the car, everything turned green,” the ground witnesses reported. As the helicopter continued toward the northeast, the hovering object was in retrograde motion, which was corroborated by the ground witnesses who reported it as a “zig-zag.” The crew was of course oblivious to this component of the object’s flight path.

  *

  Eyewitness sketch by National Guard helicopter pilot Larry Coyne

  The ground witnesses then observed the helicopter and object separate and the object proceed to the northwest, exhibiting only a white “tail” light, while the helicopter continued off to the northeast.

  A second set of ground witnesses was found in 1988. On October 18, 1973, Mrs. Jeanne Elias was in bed watching the 11:00 P.M. news when she heard the sound of a helicopter, unusually low and very near the house. The residence is southeast of Mansfield, less than six miles from the Mansfield runway and 1.75 miles from the C. family’s position. Jeanne was used to close aircraft activity, but this time felt there was definite threat of a crash, and (she realized rather foolishly) hid her head under the pillow. Her son John, 14, called to her from his room. He reported that the helicopter noise had awakened him and he had observed a bright green light “coming so heavy into my room.” Neither Elias visually witnessed helicopter or object.

  The eleven witnesses (4 crew, 5 C. family, 2 Elias’) were interviewed on location, repeatedly, separately and at length. All reported that the object appeared solid, with no diffuse areas, no train or trail, no fuzzy outlines. It had precisely positioned lights (including a ‘maneuverable’ spotlight), which bore no relationship to standard FAA aircraft lighting requirements. It made decisive hard-angle turns. It may have affected the helicopter controls and instruments. Scrupulous analysis of the individual increments of the event indicate that the object was in continuous view for a minumum of 300 seconds.

  The identity of the object remains unknown. Clearly, with a duration of at least five minutes,
it could not have been a meteor.

  —JENNIE ZEIDMAN

  Crash at Corona (Marlowe, 1992). Stanton Friedman and Don Berliner try to make a case that two separate extraterrestrial spacecraft crashed in New Mexico during 1947—one outside Roswell, the other 150 miles to the west. With this book they became the first authors to speculate that the military retrieval of this spacecraft debris produced technological spinoffs for human science, including solid-state electronics, an idea latched onto and made into a bestseller five years later by retired Army Colonel Philip Corso.

  —RANDALL FITZGERALD

  CUFOS See J. ALLEN HYNEK CENTER FOR UFO STUDIES.

  crop circles In August l980 near Westbury, Wiltshire, some roughly swirled circular patterns were found in fields of oats. This was in an area famous for UFO activity in the l960s—where the “Warminster Thing” had been reported.

  The marks were studied by the Bristol UFO group, Probe (headed by Ian Mrzyglod), because of tales that they were UFO “landing sites.” Probe consulted with a local physicist, Dr Terence Meaden, who convinced them that the patterns were the result of fair weather whirlwinds—a mild form of tornado. Although Britain has few destructive tornadoes, it has more wind vortices of this modest type per square mile than any other country on Earth. Meaden operates TORRO (the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation) and regularly advises on the sites of damage-sensitive projects such as power stations.

  During the next few summers several more circles appeared—apparently consistent with this weather theory. Then, engineer and UFO enthusiast, Pat Delgado, discovered the phenomenon and alerted the media. By l983 he, later with Colin Andrews, had ensured that the stranger possibilities for circles were very much in the public perception, via articles for Flying Saucer Review and press interviews.

  The l983 circles came in a new complex form—several linked together in a geometric pattern. However, one was soon exposed to be a hoax by Mrzyglod, now working with BUFORA (British UFO Research Association). A national newspaper had tried to trap other media sources by paying a farmer to fake the “quintuplet” pattern.

  Faced with this challenge, Meaden attempted to modify his theory to involve electrified forces and multiple tornado funnels. This was possibly a step too far. Circle patterns got even more complicated and turned into “pictograms” that were of obviously intelligent origin. Alongside this escalation and the rising level of media attention—at first in the U.K. and then globally—a crop circle research community of several thousand people rapidly sprang up. Although more modest in size these days this community still exists.

  In l986, BUFORA published the first-ever book on the subject, Mystery of the Circles, compiled by its Director of Investigations, Jenny Randles, and a Hampshire statistician, Paul Fuller. They reported the work of Mrzyglod (who quit UFOlogy in disgust at the lack of common sense), Meaden, and theories of Delgado and Andrews.

  The conclusion was that circles were a combination of hoaxing and weather effects. The report was issued to the serious media, and led to outrage in certain quarters of the UFO community who thought BUFORA were destructive skeptics. A public seminar was arranged by BUFORA in London at which—for the only time ever—all the key players in the story got together and had their say. A vote at the end by the audience overwhelmingly endorsed the BUFORA verdict.

  Undeterred, and with the circles becoming ever more “unnatural” in appearance (including by l990 images of whales and spiders), Delgado and Andrews signed a major book deal. Circular Evidence— packed with spectacular aerial color photos—became a global bestseller, attracted huge media attention, and established the circle mystery for all time.

  Delgado and Andrews claimed that the circles were most likely the result of unknown energies—although the circle community was speculating much further. Talk of alien messages, cries to prevent the destruction of our planet, and more esoteric tales were soon incorporated.

  BUFORA fought back with a more indepth look, Controversy of the Circles (1989), again by Fuller and Randles, arguing in detail for the twin theory of hoaxing and wind vortices. They now had gathered a number of eyewitness accounts, where circles had been seen to be formed by what looked like the wind. However, their case was little heeded. In l990 the BUFORA researchers greatly expanded their work as Crop Circles: A Mystery Solved?. This work emphasized the greater level of hoaxing, predicted that the hoaxers would create patterns of a sort that could not be windproduced, and also reported on research by Japanese scientists. This had established that the electrified vortex, proposed by Meaden, could be artificially generated in a laboratory and did leave simple circular aftereffects. These were also found in disused underground railway tunnels, where the combination of wind and electric fields provoked similar conditions. The BUFORA team also proposed that some UFOs might, in fact, be visible electrified vortices.

  In September l991, two retired artists, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, approached a national newspaper claiming responsibility for the circle hoax and successfully fooled Delgado under the watchful eyes of a newspaper. They said they had created the most publicized circles from l980 onward, after seeing a circle in Australia in l966, which they did not fake. Bower and Chorley added that they had deliberately escalated their activities to fake new amazing patterns in direct response to Meaden’s ever more convoluted theories. This was just as Randles and Fuller had predicted in their book the year before.

  After the tricksters quit in l991, circles continued to appear in some numbers each summer. Between May and September, in crop fields all over the U.K., although mostly in south west England, a wide range still do appear. After the publicity blitz from l989 onward, they were also found all over the world.

  While termed “crop circles,” because they mostly appear in cereal fields, they have, in fact, been reported in grass, reeds, sand, ice, and even on a wet road surface. They simply last longer in cereal crops, which are permanently deformed and so remain visible for days or weeks until discovery. Circles in grass, for example, tend to be blown out within hours and are much less pronounced.

  Following the Bower and Chorley confessions, the media lost virtually all interest in circles—claiming everyone had been fooled by these two men and an army of copycat hoaxers that trailed in their wake. Meaden moved on to other research. The crop circle community, bruised but not defeated, continued to try to prove that there was a real mystery. BUFORA argued that they had solved the mystery.

  The key may be research by Fuller in the l990s. He made a massive search for crop circles before the admitted activities of “Doug and Dave.” This search included scouring old records, scientific literature, and aerial survey photographs of the landscape taken decades ago. Randles, meanwhile, went to Queensland to investigate the genesis of the l966 circle—said to have inspired these two hoaxers.

  This turned out to be one of many such patterns found for years in matted reeds in this poisonous snake infested swamp land south of Cairns. There is little prospect that these are hoaxes. Yet all were simple, single, oval shapes like the first ones seen in Britain. Moreover, Fuller found dozens of examples dating back into the l9th century, including eye witnesses who actually saw circles form. There were even some folk tales from as far back as the 16th century that might relate to circles found then and ascribed to the devil. Yet in every case—and all modern eyewitness sightings—only single, simple circles appeared.

  The conclusion that one might reasonably draw from this is that simple circles can, and do, result from some kind of wind vortex. Throughout history this has produced occasional crop marks, and that led to the Queensland circles in l966.

  This natural phenomenon then gave Bower and Chorley the idea to create a hoax back in England. Having faked only simple circles with limited impact, and seen that there were apparently some genuine cases of a similar nature, they moved on in response to Meaden and BUFORA’s rational ideas. The complex patterns, they thought, would prove that an intelligence must lay behind the marks and scupper Meaden�
��s theories for good. This happened, in so far as the media and public were concerned, but led instead to escalating wild ideas about alien forces.

  Once the mythology was in place, there were too many people who had invested time and effort—not to mention the tourist potential. Some farmers quickly learned they could earn more from faking a circle and charging entrance fees than from selling the same corn!

  The result is the confusion seen today where arguments rage back and forth. Yet still nobody has reliably seen or filmed a complex circle pattern being produced or found any solid evidence of a link with aliens. The case mooted by BUFORA in l986 still stands up well to scrutiny.

  —JENNY RANDLES

  References

  Andrews, Colin and Delgado, Pat. Circular Evidence, (Bloomsbury, 1989).

  Noyes, R., ed. The Crop Circle Enigma (Gateway, 1990).

  Fuller, Paul and Randles, Jenny. Mystery of the Circles (BUFORA, 1986).

  ________. Controversy of the Circles (BUFORA, 1989).

  ________. Crop Circles: A Mystery Solved? (Robert Hale, 1990; revised 1993).

  D

  Davenport, Peter B. (b. 1948). Peter Davenport has been Director of the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) since July 1994. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he attended high school in St. Louis, Ethiopia, and New Hampshire. He received his undergraduate education at Stanford University in California, where he earned bachelor’s degrees in both Russian and biology, as well as a translator’s certificate in Russian translation.

  His graduate education was completed at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he earned an M.S. degree in the genetics and biochemistry of fish from the College of Fisheries, as well as an M.B.A. degree in finance and international business from the Graduate School of Business.

  Davenport has worked as a college instructor, a commercial fisherman, a Russian translator in the Soviet Union, a fisheries observer aboard Soviet fishing vessels, a flight instructor, and a businessman. He was the founding president of a Seattle-based biotechnology company, which currently employs over 300 scientists and technicians.