Showing posts with label 1953. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1953. Show all posts

Friday, August 23, 2024

The Kingman UFO Crash Conundrum

The Kingman UFO Crash Conundrum  - www.theufochronicles.com

"Stansel told of a crash of a large, disc-shaped object near Kingman, Arizona. He was part of a large team of specialists brought in to examine the wreck and the body of one alien creature."



     Two years before Jesse Marcel, Sr. told Stan Friedman and Len Stringfield about the UFO crash in the Roswell region, Ray Fowler published the article, What about Crashed UFOs? in Official UFO magazine. Although he touched on a couple of stories, the thrust of the article was told by “Fritz Weaver,” a pseudonym for a man later identified as Arthur Stansel.

Stansel told of a crash of a large, disc-shaped object near Kingman, Arizona. He was part of a large team of specialists brought in to examine the wreck and the body of one alien creature. Although his specific task was to determine speed and trajectory of the object,
Kevin Randle - www.theufochronicles.com
By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
8-20-24

he did have the opportunity to glimpse the alien pilot and the interior of the craft. This was on May 21, 1953, according to his calendar and for more than twenty years, he kept the secret.

In February 1973, Stansel told two teenagers who were interested in UFOs about his adventure in Arizona. It wasn’t long before Ray Fowler, a respected UFO researcher, learned about this sighting and went to interview Stansel, who not only added a few new details, but produced his calendar from 1953 and signed a statement attesting to the validity of his tale. Of course, that statement was not witnessed by a notary, only by Fowler, and had no legal status as an affidavit.

I had investigated the Kingman crash long ago and was unimpressed with it for several reasons. Originally, there was only Arthur Stansel as the witness, no real documentation for the crash, and a suggestion that Stansel, after he had been drinking, told wild stories. There was a point when a second witness was discovered, but her credibility was not very good and her daughter said that her mother was a liar. You can read about some of that here:

Kingman UFO Crash

Kingman Rises from the Dead?

Kingman UFO Crash... Really?

Kingman UFO Crash Revisited

This latest flap began when Christopher Mellon, who had been a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence released a redacted email exchange he had with a person Mellon called a senior U.S. government member. We were not provided with a name. That meant, of course, that we could not verify that this source existed or if he had any inside knowledge about the Kingman UFO crash. That email, with the critical information redacted and with little in the way of useful information is seen here:

Mellon Redacted Email - www.theufochronicles.com
The Mellon email that tells us nothing of value but does mention the recovered UAP from Kingman.

Over the course of the years, we have been treated to many accounts of the case, that began with Fowler’s article filled with direct quotes from Stansel. I do have a copy of the complete report that Fowler filed with NICAP about his rather comprehensive investigation. That includes a transcript of Jeff Young’s initial interview with Stansel that ignited Fowler’s interview and report.

I’m not going to recapitulate that story because it has been told several times. I used it in Crash: When UFOs Fall From the Sky, though my assessment of the case was critical of the data. But this latest flap (which, BTW, I think will impact on David Grusch’s UFO testimony, but that’s something for another time), inspired me to revisit Kingman. I found information from Fowler, in which he verified Stansel’s rather impressive credentials and resume. There were some problems, which centered around his claim that he had been a consultant for Project Blue Book. He originally suggested a rather long-term association, but later told Fowler that it was short-lived. Stansel suggested it lasted only a few days and was based on his examination of the crashed off-world craft.

There is one important interview that seems to have been left out of this whole tale. In a section of Fowler’s report entitled A Man Who Made Contact, we learn some disturbing things about Arthur Stansel. Fowler wrote, “On the next following pages I will explain the fascinating tales of Mr. Arthur Stansel’s flying saucer contacts.”

That part of the interview, conducted by Jeff Young and witnessed by Paul Chetham, began with the question, “Did you say that you had contacted beings from other planets?”

His astonishing answer was, “Yes, but now we’re getting into things where you’ll just have to take my word for it because I can’t produce it or prove it.”

After a short discussion about a group who met regularly met to explore the contacts with other worlds, and who Stansel said, “We were involved in the usage of seances, we weren’t out to contact relatives, but we were out to contact other things,” the questioning continued:

Q: Do you think that it’s possible for a person to convey himself to any place on or of Earth by just using his brain power?

A: Yes. I’m convinced that’s true. I know that can happen because I’ve done it…

Q: Did you gradually or all of a sudden receive contact with these extraterrestrials?

A: We did this on many, many occasions after about a year meeting once a week. We would contact beings, but we never really knew what we were going to contact that particular Sunday night. On many, many occasions we contacted beings from planets other than Earth.

Q: Were these the same beings or were these different beings each meeting.

A: Sometimes they were the same, but generally they were different.

Q: Could you see them or visualize them?

A: Onetime we had an experiment, which took place for about three weeks, in which we learned astral projection, in which you project yourself to the point where the contact is…

Q: That’s using your mind to convey yourself?

A: Right, using your mind.

Q: You actually conveyed yourself to some beings?

A: Yes, I did. As a matter I was the only one who was able to go to that particular space craft which was many light years away.

Q: You were on the craft?

A: I was actually on it.

The questioning then turned to what he could see and how he interacted with the beings on that craft, saying that it was some sort of prison ship. The beings had been on it for a thousand years and had no control over it.

Q: Did you [Stansel] have a physical feeling of being on the ship?

A: Yes, very much so. It’s just like I was sitting here.

Q: Would you describe the inside of the ship?

A: Well, the furniture was different than ours in the fact that it had no legs. It was as if it were suspended in the air, but I remember checking for wires holding them up…

Q: What were the colors in the room?

A: It was basically red and it seemed to be generated by everything in the room. I saw no light bulbs, but the room was dimly illuminated….

Q: Were they short beings?

A: They were various heights. They were short and tall, but I don’t remember seeing any fat beings.

Q: Were they uniformed or did they wear different types of clothes?

A: They were uniformed in a way, but they were in different colors.

Q: Do you think that could have signified a rank?

A: That could be and another interesting thing is that the dress of the people was no different between a man and a woman and there were males and females.

Q: Were the males in short hair and the females in long hair?

A: No, you couldn’t tell by that. You could just tell by a woman’s bodily characteristics and facial features.

They discuss some emblems that were attached where we would have put shirt pockets. Stansel said that one was in the shape of a leaf and was red against a sort of blue glistening jerkin. There was another which was just a round shape, probably three inches in diameter and it too was glistening.

With that line of questioning finished, the discussion went in another direction. Young wondered if the prisoners had met people from other planets:

A: Yes, they had talked with many, but I was the first one actually projected. They got pretty excited over my arrival, for they felt I was the savoir who could get them back to their home planet or make communication with home base.

Q: Could you have projected yourself back to their home world”

A: I tried but I couldn’t. I think they were beyond range.

They moved the discussion to the nature of the ship, meaning that it was some sort of prison. Stansel mentioned these alien beings were complaining about their incarceration. He then said:

They were complaining about being prisoners because they had so much to offer their own civilization, but they had no way to get back to their civilization except through some intermediary and they thought I could be that intermediary. They had been conducting experiments, but they had been about a thousand years on the ship, so that there had been many generations of these people…

Other things that came out of this interview. He was told that there were thousands of worlds “of intelligent occupation.” That line of questioning ended at that point.

There was more of this sort of thing but then Stansel mentioned that of all these alien worlds, there were none that were interested in Earth. Earth is too overcrowded. Stansel said that they had contact many ships but the beings weren’t interested in Earth.

Then, falling into what would become the David Jacobs theory or hybrid humans, Stansel said, “In fact, there’s more than one extraterrestrial planet that have implanted people here, but generally people don’t know it… they just become part of our civilization.”

There was more of this sort of thing that reads like poor science fiction. At one-point Stansel talked of switches and buttons on the ship but I think of our touch screens that eliminate buttons and switches.

There were other disturbing things in the interview. Stansel, at one point seemed to suggest that he had been a consultant to Project Blue Book for a long time, but there is no record of it. He claimed to have seen a UFO during one of the Atomic Tests, but later claimed he had only heard about it from others.

Stansel did say that when he was interviewed by Young and Chetham, he had been drinking. He’d had four martinis but when Fowler asked the boys about that, they said Stansel had not been drinking. So, was Stansel drinking too much and offered it as an excuse for the discrepancies between the interviews conducted by Young and Fowler. Was the alleged drinking an excuse for telling conflicting tales? Was the drinking the motivation in creating a tale of extraterrestrial contact?

Here’s where we are on this. Stansel is the only man who was involved with the crash in Kingman that had forty or more expert consultants to speak about this. He suggested those on the bus were not allowed to talk during the four-hour trip from Phoenix to the Kingman area, but when they arrived, they were called by name as they were assigned specific jobs. Everything was carefully orchestrated but Stansel managed to see the dead alien pilot and caught a glimpse into the ship. Again, poor security.

There are many reasons that I simply don’t buy this tale and the later interview with astral projection, visits to alien spaceships in flight and all that other nonsense argues that Stansel was adept at spinning tales even he had only had a beer or two and not several martinis.

What this means today, is that the leaked email from Christopher Mellon is irrelevant. There may well have been an email exchange but it is, essentially worthless. Mellon and his unidentified correspondent may well have exchanged the emails about Kingman but that doesn’t prove there is any substance to the report.

There is another element to this and that’s David Grush’s claim of twelve craft in government hands. He may well have talked with Mellon, or someone else who believes the Kingman tale, but without evidence, it is just, dare I say it, a conspiracy theory. And that also suggests that some of Grush’s claims are false, if this is one of the stories. Doesn’t mean that Grusch invented any of the tales, but he has heard them from people he believes are telling him the truth.

Finally, Len Stringfield added some commentary to the Kingman case in his 1978 MUFON Symposium paper on crash/retrievals, and later in his status reports. He suggests the possibility of additional witnesses, but he failed to supply names of any of those witnesses. I am following up on this and will report on it later.

For those interested, I have reached out to a couple of other people who might be able to shed some light on this, including some in the Kingman area. To this point I have not heard back, but will update my analysis as it is warranted by additional information.

Friday, October 08, 2021

Family Watches UFOs in a Dogfight

See Flying Saucers Dogfighting - News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio) 7-13-1953


     The first Flying Saucer report in the area in several months was made by a Shiloh man and his family who parked their car and got out to watch a strange 70-second "dog-fight" between two Flying Discs (UFOs).

By News-Journal
Mansfield, Ohio
7-13-1953
[...]

... "The two things looked like tadpoles at first glance. They were tremendously large and appeared to be flying at about 1000 ft. and about three miles away from us," Patton said.

"They were diving at each other at terrific speeds and acting like they were 'dog fighting.' We watched them for about 70 seconds and then they disappeared in a flash, heading north," Patton said.

[...]

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

UFOs in Dogfight as Family Watches

Family Sees Saucers Dogfighting - News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio) 7-13-1953


     The first Flying Saucers report in the area in several months was made by a Shiloh man and his family who parked their car and got out to watch a strange 70 – second "dog-fight" between two Flying Discs.

By News-Journal
(Mansfield, Ohio)
7-13-1953
[...]


"They were diving at each other at terrific speeds and acting like they were "dog fighting". We watched them for about 70 seconds and then they disappeared in a flash, heading north,“ Patton said.

Tuesday, January 07, 2020

How the CIA Tried to Quell UFO Panic



How the CIA Tried to Quell UFO Panic

     In January 1953, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency had a thorny situation on its hands. Reports of UFO sightings were mushrooming around the country. Press accounts were fanning public fascination—and concern. So the CIA convened a
By Becky Little
www.history.com
1-5-20
group of scientists to investigate whether these unknown phenomena in the sky represented a national security threat.

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Disc-Shaped UFO Overtakes an F-84 ThunderJet | UFO CHRONICLE – 1953



Flying Saucer Reported at Close Range - The Troy Messenger Troy, Alabama 1-27-1953

     The U.S. Air Force today reported a small, metallic, disc-shaped object and was observed at very close range by another pilot.

[...]

By The Troy Messenger Troy
1-27-1953
He said it caught up with an F-84 Thunderjet, hovered a few moments and then shot out of sight.

It was the second disclosure in a week by Air Force Intelligence of mysterious flying objects over northern Japan near the Russian-Siberian area.

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Eerie UFO Reported to Land by Marine Pilots | UFO CHRONICLE –- 1953

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Marine Pilots Spot Eerie Flying Object - Greensboro Daily News (North Carolina) 2-12-1953

     An eerie account of a glowing disk-like object seen by four pilots was released today by officials at the Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point.

One of the pilots thought he saw it land, and believed it started a forest fire.
Greensboro Daily News
(North Carolina)
2-12-1953

Thursday, June 29, 2017

UFOs and The CIA | UFO CHRONICLE – 1967

UFOs and The CIA - The Boston Herald 4-24-1967

     A charge by a University of Arizona physicist that the Central Intelligence Agency in 1953 requested the Air Force to adopt a policy of systematic "debunking of Flying Saucers" [UFOs] raises again the
The Boston Herald
4-24-1967
question of the role of the CIA in domestic policy making. The charge is made by Dr. James E. McDonald, professor of meteorology and senior physicist at the Institute of Atmospherics Physics ... who believes that that "the least unsatisfactory hypothesis" about the origin of UFOs is that they are extraterrestrial probes....

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Another UFO Reported Over Secret H-Bomb Plant | UFOs & NUKES – 1953

 
 
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Crescent Shaped UFO Over Savannah River Project (1 of 2) 3-5-1953

- click on image(s) to enlarge -

Crescent Shaped UFO Over Savannah River Project (2 of 2) 3-5-1953

By Air Intelligence Information Report
3-7-1953


See Also:

Repeated UFO Activity Over Savannah River H-Bomb Plant

Former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Supervisor Says the Roswell Object was an Alien Spacecraft

UFOs & NUKES | Disc Shaped Objects (UFOs) Sighted Over Savannah River H-Bomb Plant




REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE


Friday, August 14, 2015

Kingman UFO Crash? | YESTERYEAR

Kingman UFO Crash

By Ryan Abella
kdminer.com
8-12-15
In 1953, a group of experts visited a secret crash site
     ... In 1953, the Nevada Test Site was testing a variety of methods of payload delivery, and in May of that year they were preparing a series of tests under the series "Operation Upshot-Knothole."

Eleven tests were carried out through air drops, towers and a gun-deployed warhead shot out of an artillery piece named Atomic Annie.

The most telling evidence of a possible UFO crash in the Kingman area came from an engineer on that test in Nevada. According to the engineer's narrative, he was taken to work under "Project Blue Book," an Air Force investigation of UFO phenomena conducted through 1969.

The engineer

His narrative was transcribed and written by Raymond E. Fowler, a regional investigator with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, in 1973. The narrative below was taken from the engineer's journals at the time:
... We disembarked from the bus one at a time as our names were called and escorted by military police to the area that we were to inspect. I noticed that as I was walking to the vehicle, that it was saucer-shaped. It was about thirty feet in diameter. The material looked like brushed aluminum. The entranceway was vertically lowered and apparently had jarred open. There was a light coming from inside, but it could have been installed by the Air Force. ...

Monday, August 06, 2012

Second Revelation at MUFON Symposium Concerns New Evidence On 1953 Kingman, Arizona UFO Crash

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1953 Kingman, Arizona UFO Crash

UFO crash sites detailed: Drew revisits Kingman, Arizona story

By Roger Marsh
examiner.com
8-5-12
     More than six years of intensive research has uncovered two “pristine UFO crash sites” in Kingman, AZ, that occurred over a four-day period in May 1953, according to UFO researcher Harry Drew who made the announcement Sunday, August 5, 2012, at the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) annual symposium in Cincinnati.

This was the second anticipated "blockbuster UFO discovery" MUFON promised at its three-day conference. On Friday, August 3, Executive Director David MacDonald announced that 60 volumes of “meticulous UFO research over 30 years” by the late Ufologist Leonard H. Stringfield were donated to MUFON.

According to Drew's web site, the researcher “uncovered evidence the Kingman UFO crash story was the blending of two separate UFO crashes that happened four days apart near Kingman, AZ, in May 1953.” . . .

Saturday, December 11, 2010

MY UFO EXPERIENCE | Witness Recounts 'Green Fireball' Traveling in a Straight and Level Path Down the Hudson River

Green Fireball
          

     
Reader Submitted Report
[Unedited]
11-30-10

     On one night in March of 1953 after returning home from a date with my Girl Friend, I saw a huge green ball of fire traveling at great speed traveling in a straight and level path down the Hudson River.

The fire ball was approximately 1500-2000 feet in altitude; the dazzling green refection on the surface of the waters of the Hudson River provided a good reference to establish probable altitude.

My vantage point was from the western side of the Hudson at South Nyack, New York (approx.25 miles north of New York City. The trees were still bare of leaves and offered an almost unobstructed view of the river. My Home at that time was about a mile from the river on a rolling mountain side setting known locally as Hillside Avenue.

The elevation of my house above the river, I would guess to be 300-500 feet; the field of view to the North was only 5-6 miles because Hook Mountain obscured view of the river at Upper Nyack. To the south of my home, the view of the river was unobstructed almost to the lights of New York City; a distance of probably 20 miles.

I offer these distances in an effort to refine my estimate of the speed of this Green UFO Fire Ball as it traversed the approximate 25 mile path down the Hudson river to New York City and points south.

The total elapsed time from first sighting of the UFO to the it's disappearance to the south was less than 10 seconds.

After gaining my composure from the shock of this bizarre Ball of Fire exhibition...I began to think...did you really see that thing that you thought you just saw??? I had a very difficult time internalizing the reality that
I had just witnessed.

Back in those days, if you mentioned UFO...or Flying Saucer you were regarded as a lunatic or fool at best.

The following day I was delivered from my self doubt and fear of losing my sanity, when the Local Paper, The Journal News published the whole story of how the same Huge Green Fireball was seen by no less than 50 People attending a Wedding Party at Haverstraw on the Hudson, about 20 miles north of where I saw it.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Oldies Still the Best: Al Chop's 1953 Classic

Al Chop to Henry Holt 1-26-1953- click on image(s) to enlarge -

By Robert Barrow
robert-barrow.blogspot.com
9-15-09

     Why run 1953's letter from Al Chop to Maj. Donald Keyhoe's publisher again (and a better copy), having featured it two or three times before? First, because I cherish this particular triumph of correspondence from the days when letters were letters, destined to survive on paper indefinitely. How long would this document have lasted as an e-mail? As a jpg image? If converted from rich text into lackluster plain text, minus the official look, what might have been its fate? And no official seal? Please! Like a day without sunshine, to quote a TV commercial.

I've even thought of starting another blog with one eternal entry displaying this letter and nothing more, not ever. In fact, were it in my power, I think I'd instruct every TV station in the country that still runs the National Anthem before signing off for the night to show Al Chop's letter prominently prior to a hitting the goodnight switch. I don't know, maybe a sober viewing should be a requirement for every high school American history class in the U.S. As readers of my blog regarding the 1956 movie, "UFO" know (see link), I've posted several personal letters from the late Mr. Chop over there, but this timeworn document trumps every piece of mail in my files just for the last paragraph's stand-alone shock effect from a man of integrity who was just trying to do his job.

Albert M. Chop, chief of the Pentagon's Air Force press desk, did far more than type out a letter to Henry Holt & Co., a major U.S. publisher -- he put a time line on history itself. Barely six months before churning out this testimonial to Keyhoe's UFO work, Chop had endured a very busy ringside seat and public relations tightrope amidst two bouts of apparent UFO activity high over the nation's Capitol, occurring within just a week of one another in 1952. In addition to the nightmarish days and nights which followed him to and from the Air Force press desk, Chop was already so impressed by a wealth of good military and airline UFO encounters that he slowly transformed from UFO skeptic to ardent proponent. Keep in mind, Al was an ex-Marine with a dual reputation as a responsible journalist, unlikely to radically alter his views without just cause.

So -- Mr. Chop answered a letter from Henry Holt & Co., responding in a remarkably freestyle manner regarding the possible origin of UFOs. Hard to believe, but up to that time a fellow working for the government could openly speculate a bit on things like this. Yes, he took a little -- a little -- flack from superiors over this because Al never suspected (though he should have) that the publicity folks at Henry Holt would take rabid advantage of a delicious opportunity to post the letter on the back of Keyhoe's new book jacket for the whole country to see and purchase (for some reason, as we've mentioned on a previous occasion, the British version did not include Chop's letter on the jacket). Flying Saucers From Outer Space was Keyhoe's title for this 1953 release, and now it seemed to project a profitable aura of official sanctioning about it, even if it didn't. Good. So what?

But, as I said, Chop accomplished not simply a letter, but an historic time line, an indelible stamp, on January 26, 1953, for this was the year when the "Robertson Panel" convened. 1953 was also the year that aeronautical engineer Capt. Ed Ruppelt departed Project Blue Book and the Air Force, only to die of a heart attack a few years later, still a relatively young man. Al left government service that year, too, for a while, but the reason, far from being job-related, was the simple fact that his beloved wife, Dee, hated crowded Washington and yearned for the open spaces. So they up and moved West, Al went to work for Douglas Aircraft Co. and eventually rejoined the government payroll, first at NASA (sometimes as the voice of mission control during a space launch) and then with the Atomic Energy Commission.

Al's letter pretty much delineates the end of an era, a period when citizens could depend somewhat upon openness in government. The CIA, H.P. Robertson and the gang were concerned about UFO reports messing up intelligence channels integral to national security, so everybody went nuts and decided to downplay UFOs from that point forward. Maybe it was a good idea at the time, but -- but look where we are today. The policy never went away and things just became worse. Any, any -- any government public information official daring to write a letter like that on official paper tomorrow would be nailed faster than you can say yes-we-can.

Way back in this blog, I posed a question or two about heroes, contemplating who they are and what makes them heroes. While many are obvious, too many more are not. Is it heroic, for instance, for ex-military personnel to come forward and alert the public that those UFOs which governments so stringently deny are actually, from their own perspective and observation, intelligently controlled objects sired by amazing sources unknown, even when such admissions may questionably violate security oaths they took years ago?


Make no mistake, Chop echoed the UFO opinions of many in the government, though being far too modest and careful to specify more than "some of the personnel" in his letter, at this time when freedom of official speech glowed refreshingly tangible in specific instances. "Some of the personnel," hardly a reference to office folks standing around a water cooler, meant high-ranking military people, engineers and scientists, and there were many standing silently on Chop's side of the philosophical aisle.

Contrast the early fifties with the current day, when former military officers such as Robert Salas and Charles Halt come forward, probably at considerable risk to themselves, to alert us of incidents which open governments are charged with telling us about, but won't. Yet, the numbers of former military UFO whistle blowers appear to be on a steady increase (per especially the research and writings of Robert Hastings and revelations from the Bentwaters RAF base/Rendlesham Forest witnesses). Who are our modern heroes? Who are the new patriots -- or is there a "new?"

Funny, isn't it? In Chop's time, everybody recognized the enemy. Now, nebulous forces and agents of regulation consider us our own worst enemy, and telling the truth is, presumably, a punishable offense, as supposed national security entities wait vigilantly to wield a destructive club in strange ways against their own. Our own. Oh, absolutely yes, how I honor Al Chop's truthful, lay-it-on-the-line letter to Henry Holt & Co., truly bold and tragically emblematic for the end of an era.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

MY UFO EXPERIENCE: Craft Defies Conventional Explanation

My UFO Experience
Reader Submitted Rreport
[Unedited]
3-27-08

     Good evening...

The following 'incident' occured about 7:30 AM in May 1953...It was sunny and clear and the location was the foot of Pipeline Road in Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada.

Please note that we were not close enough to observe any shape because the object was an estimated mile or so away outlined against a mountain...But it's behavior was certainly not from that time, unless you consider the 'top-secret' excuse the governments at the time used...

There were 3 of us - myself, John XXXXXX, my friend, Ron XXXXXX, and the school bus driver whose name I have forgotten...We were outside the school bus waiting for a student who was late...

While enjoying the sunshine a bright reflection caught my eye - it was against the mountain background and at the time it was stationary...It suddenly moved horizontally very quickly and then came to a stop...I then brought this to the attention of the other two who proceeded to watch with me...Once again it moved very quickly horizontally and again came to a stop...I would estimate the movements at about half a mile each time but, of course, I could be wrong...While all 3 of us were watching it made two more rapid horizontal movements, and then into a short vertical climb and then another horizontal movement...Please note that all of these movements were very rapid and the stops were immediate...

After about a minute it suddenly it went into a vertical climb at an extremely fast rate of speed until it was out of sight...I would estimate the elapsed time of the 'incident' to be about 5 - 10 minutes...If it was 'observing' something I have no idea what it could be because the area was all farmland at the time...

When we arrived at XXXX XXXXX High School my friend kept his mouth shut but I, unfortunately, proceeded to tell everybody what had happened and that we had probably seen a UFO...I never heard the end of it until I graduated in 1954...

Not much, but glad I could finally relate it to someone with credibility...

FYI I got the name of Sam Maranto from a recent interview one of our local TV stations had with Dan Ackroyd, who, as you know, is a firm believer in UFOs, as I have been for 55 years...I am now 71 and am rekindling my interest - that is why I sent this email...