TECHNOIR (24 page)

            Most of these events are all major occurrences in human history. Events so compelling, that in the Fall of 1973, they would banish an apparent invasion of the US to the dustbin of historical obscurity. It was an invasion that started in the American heartland and swept through the Deep South. An invasion not by communists or terrorists, mind you, nor hippies or devout Christians. But something that is still one of mankind’s greatest mysteries.

            Starting in early October that year, literally thousands of witnesses from Mississippi to Ohio began scratching their heads in disbelief at the riddles in the night sky. But they were adamant about what they had seen: Strange bright lights and strange aircraft. There were reports of weird ships landing in fields not far from the lights of Midwestern cities. And a handful of witnesses encountered midget-like humanoids, seemingly dressed in their own freaky sci-fi costume.

            The supporting cast of documented UFO cases for October, and for the entire year, for that matter, is down-right nerving. An Ohio sheriff, on an ink-stained late-October night, comes too close to several pulsating lights that are hovering over a graveyard on the edge of town. In Mississippi, two men are abducted by grey-skinned creatures with crab-like claws for hands, and they weren’t in costume! The abduction becomes a Close Encounter that rivals the Betty and Barney Hill incident. Indeed, acclaimed UFOlogist George D. Fawcett, in a 1974 issue of the iconic magazine
Flying Saucers (Mysteries of the Space Age),
claimed 80 landings of UFOs was recorded in 24 US states and 11 foreign countries. Not all sightings occurred in Earth’s atmosphere, either. According to the
Associated Press
, two astronauts aboard the orbiting SkyLab 3 at the end of September watched for ten minutes a mysterious red “satellite” oscillating about 30 to 50 nautical miles out behind them. When SkyLab 3 came back on the succeeding orbit, it was gone. And last but certainly not least, perhaps the most reliable UFO case of all time occurred during October 1973 – “The Coyne Incident.”

            This invasion was perfect for the witching season. A classic UFO storm to spread the chills. Just as long as the invaders did not destroy planet.

            “A tremendous uptick in landings and flybys in 1973, and mostly in the Midwest,” exclaims William E. Jones, director of Mutual UFO Network’s (
MUFON
) most active chapters; the chapter belonging to the Buckeyes’ of Ohio. “It was an amazing time for UFOs.”

            Aging paper records, mostly from big city police departments based in the American Midwest, show that on some nights, hundreds of calls were made reporting UFOs. Many were daily newspapers, during a time when most cities had two, running article after article about the night ordinary people who saw that...that Thing. The national nightly news would soon sink their teeth into the invasion, as NBC, ABC and CBS, ran UFO stories. Even the God Father of broadcast news, Walter Kronkite, flew to the scene of a small, mid-American town to interview shaken witnesses. And from one tough governor to many humble home-bound moms, the witnesses from 1973 are more than credible.

            The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon, the most respected UFOlogist group at the time, called the 1973 UFO wave “a flap.” They said UFO’s “are back in force,” and the lull in sightings that stretched back to the 1950s, over. This flap reportedly was the inspiration behind Steven Speilberg’s
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
.

            But this is also a Halloween story, and like many horror stories of today, this story also has a twist. “I met a veteran of the US Army some time back; he proved this by showing me a valid card that said he was a former officer,” said Jones of Ohio MUFON. “He told me he had an incredible story about 1973 to tell me.” The officer, a graduate of West Point, was troubled that “he knew something”, and needed to reveal it, says Jones, who has spent most of his adult life working for Battelle; a US military defense contractor in Ohio believed to have assisted in reverse engineering projects of debris from Roswell.

            The soldier’s tale would send a chill down Jones’ spine. “He told me the US Army earlier that year was in negotiations with some Greys. He was very matter-of-fact about this.” The invasion, this UFO swarm, said the former officer, was an orchestrated plan to get the attention of the US government. “He said they weren’t getting anywhere with our Army,” adds Jones. And they wanted to make a point.

            Echoing what Jones has to say about October 1973, is Peter Hartinger, who runs the
Roundtown UFO Society
, or RUFOS for short. Roundtown being Circleville, Ohio, which is in central Ohio, a region that was part of the epicenter of the 1973 UFO wave. Circleville earned its namesake by having its street grid designed around a circular-shaped Native American earthwork or mound. It is a smallish, sharp, well-kept town; and one that already is famous in UFO lore. Two days before Roswell, US military “weather balloons” fell out of the upper atmosphere and crashed near the city. The weather balloons, says Hartinger, gave the US military the creative inspiration it needed for the Roswell cover-up.

            Hartinger, who’s been researching UFOs for 50 years, remembers October 1973 very well. Pat Boone was headlining Circleville's Pumpkin Festival and the newspapers were jammed with stories about UFOs. Well-spoken about the subject, and also well-grounded, Hartinger is a chairman for his county’s parks commission. “Knowledge is not a matter of belief and desire, knowledge is a matter of evidence,” says Hartinger, who says he and his brother witnessed a UFO when they were in their late-teens. He calls it his “no doubter.”

            Like Jones, Hartinger feels the UFO invasion may have indeed been a message, yet not to get the attention of just the US military, but the entire planet.

            “They may have been motivated,” says Hartinger about the Greys, “I believe it was display that was put on. We were close to World War III (due to the Arab-Israel war at the time). The display was probably to tell us, ‘Calm down, there’s more to life than annihilation’.”

            Here are some of the trick-or-treat points and displays they made:

April 1973:

            While it was a little early for Halloween, this incident shows you never know who or what may come knocking when you’ve already have seen a UFO. It was day time in the small town of Milan, Indiana, and the owner of an auto-parts shop and his friend were going about their business. Unexpectedly, two visitors entered the shop, and their ride didn’t need an oil change. One was very tall; the other squat with a long head. Both were very thin. They sported tan gloves and tan suits that hung loosely on their frames. The owner also said their faces looked like plastic. Their eyes were black and glossy. And when they came into the shop, the owner’s guard dog turned yellow and fled. The owner of the auto parts shop had snapped a couple photos of UFOs six years earlier in 1967; and in a robotic tone, the visitors demanded he hand them over. MIBs or Men-in-Tan? They continued to demand he give them the photographs. He refused, and would be hounded by other strange incidents – and debunkers – years after.

Early October 1973:

            Ohio Governor John J. Gilligan is driving back to Ohio from Ann Arbor, Mich., when he reported seeing an amber-colored “vertical beam of light”, as reported in the October 18th, edition of the
Columbus
(Ohio) Citizen Journal
. After the sighting he was asked to tell his UFO story on the
Dick Cavett Show,
but refused. Yet during a press conference he surprised the entire nation: “I saw this. It was not a plane. It was not a bird. It didn't wear a cape. And I really don't know what it was.”

October 1973:

            The Deep South was seemingly under invasion, as well. For instance, in Garland, Texas, did the Body Snatchers come to town? A woman in Garland finds a strange yellow “blob” growing and “pulsating” like a beating heart in her backyard. She ripped it open with a garden hoe and it bled a purple sludge. Scientists figured it was a strange fungus. In Athens, Georgia, a silver egg-shaped object lands on a road and two small humanoids come out of the craft. A human driver waves a gun at the creatures and they retreat to their craft making a “whoosh” for it. In Falkville, Alabama, a Police Chief encounters a “man-thing” in a silver suit. In Pascagoula, Mississippi, two men from this planet, Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson, were fishing when a 100-foot oblong-shaped craft descends out of the sky. Three grey-skinned creatures, each about five feet tall, with one leg, and lobster claws for hands, confront Parker and Hickson and levitate the two men into their craft. Eventually they are let go. Later on, the two are left alone during a Sheriff’s interrogation and their conversation is secretly taped. The subterfuge fails as their conversation clearly shows this was no hoax or the two country boys were damn good at pulling one off. Several other local sightings before and after the encounter by credible witnesses support their story. Representing the US Air Force, Dr. J. Allen Hynek of
Project Blue Book
fame, interviews the men and believes their story. Project Blue Book was the US military’s public and apparently official UFO investigation unit, with Hynek as its lead civilian scientist.

Mid-to-late October 1973:

            With just days before tens-of-thousands of kids hit the streets seeking treats, local   police describe the city and egion surrounding Cincinnati as a “mess” of UFO sightings. Police tell the local media – which is getting many calls of its own – that they took 80 reports of sightings in one night alone. One “hysterical and screaming woman” tells authorities that an oblong craft with blinking lights killed two cows as it landed on her farm. Near the small town of Xenia, Ohio, three creatures with silver skin are spotted on U.S. 35. Police confront them, but discover the “creatures” are actually three teenagers pulling a prank by wrapping themselves in aluminum foil. The city of Reading, Ohio, goes dark as it experiences several power outages; the local utility quickly blames shoddy equipment. Near Cincinnati, Sgt. Hugh Oyer chases a white and yellow craft, saying later, “I never believed in UFOs until tonight.” Sheriff Deputies near the state’s capital, Columbus, were swarmed with UFO reports for four straight nights. On one night, deputies said they logged between 30 and 40 reports of shiny objects zig-zagging through the sky. In another part of Ohio, three counties worth actually, UFOs were described as “grayish discs with red and bluish-green lights,” others appeared as “orange-colored objects” and “blimp-shaped objects.” Some had “red lights around the rims with a blue flame or flare coming out of the bottom.” And in Muskingham County, Ohio, a Sheriff is spooked by three glowing lights – hovering over the local cemetery.

            But of all these incidents, even the apparent abduction of Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson, there is an incident from October 1973 that tops them all like a pointy black hat on a witch. Indeed, for Capt. Lawrence J. Coyne and his crew of a UH-1H Army Reserve helicopter, it was almost as if a wicked witch on a broom had taken complete control over their Super Huey. In reality, Coyne and crew’s Wicked Witch was a metallic, cigar-shaped ship. A UFO that was armed with a nasty green tracking beam. Without question, “The Coyne Incident” is one of the most credible and mind-boggling cases in UFO history.

            First of all, the case’s witnesses were citizen soldiers who also had solid day jobs. Lt. Arrigo Jezzi, 26, a chemical engineer; Sgt. John Healy, 35, a police officer; Sgt. Robert Yanacsek, 23, a computer technician; and the 36-year-old Crew Chief Coyne, who had spent more than half his life flying helicopters for the Army.

            “The Coyne incident stands out because of who the witnesses were,” says Ohio MUFON’s Jones, who also investigated the incident. “As cases go, you don't get much better than that.”

            It was 10:30 pm on October 18th, 1973, when Coyne’s 68-15444 Super Huey of the 316th Medical Detachment stationed at Cleveland Hopkins Airport, lifted off from Port Columbus (Ohio) airport. At the controls that night was Jezzi, and he ascended to 2,500 feet above sea level and started for home, roughly 100-miles to the northeast. According to Jennie Zeidman, a noteworthy UFO investigator who wrote a meticulous report on the incident, “The night was totally clear, calm and starry. The last quarter moon was just rising.”

            Before the Coyne incident, Zeidman spent many years working for Project Blue Book as an assistant to Dr. Hynek, who is infamous in UFO lore for his “swamp gas” explanation for a UFO case. As Hartinger of RUFOS likes to put it, “Hynek was being paid by the US Air Force to debunk UFOs.” Yet it has been reported that both Zeidman and Hynek were skeptical at first towards the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

            However, as their research with Project Blue Book (1952-1970) moved ahead, they came to believe that intelligent beings from another world were visiting Earth. There are also reports of Hynek quietly telling family and close friends the US military had retrieved “bodies” after “crashes.” When the Air Force dropped Project Blue Book, Hynek and Zeidman moved on to establish CUFOS, the Center for UFO Studies, which documented nearly 1,000 reports during October 1973, the highest amount ever recorded over a three week period. CUFOS would also investigate a mouth-gaping 27 humanoid cases during the year.