90 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
90 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
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19-Oct-87 21:16 MST
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Sb: APtn 10/19 0859 UFO Sightings
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By DIRK BEVERIDGE Associated Press Writer
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WYTHEVILLE, Va. (AP) -- Wythe County sheriff's deputies have seen the
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lights
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in the sky that are causing a local UFO craze, but they are not preparing to
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battle space aliens.
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"I'd rather have something else put us on the map," chief deputy Herb
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Cooley
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said. "This brings all the weirdos out. Before this is over, somebody's going
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to
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have to see some little green men."
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Cooley said the department has received more than a dozen calls about UFOs
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in
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the past few weeks, but he pointed out that many more people who have seen the
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flying lights probably keep their mouths shut so no one will question their
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sanity.
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He has heard reports of the objects swooping down and running cars off the
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road, but the department has not received any such complaints.
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Sheriff's Sgt. Cihmer Collins, who spent 22 years in the military before he
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became a civilian lawman, has seen the mysterious craft and says they are
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probably with the armed forces.
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"I've seen a bunch of them, and all I've seen is refueling," a manuever
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that
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involves two aircraft joined in what appears to be a stationary position
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before
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suddenly bolting off in different directions. That matches the behavior of red
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and white lights seen by some of the UFO witnesses.
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"They did the same thing in Vietnam," Collins said. "There ain't no UFOs."
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But three military spokespersons in the Norfolk area said by telephone that
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the silent airships described over Wythe County do not sound like anything in
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the U.S. arsenal.
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"I don't have anything that doesn't make sound," said Ace Ewers, a
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spokesman
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for the Naval Air Station Oceana. He said A-6 Intruder bombers from Oceana fly
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in the Wytheville area, but they make a lot of noise.
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"If it wasn't making sound, I don't have any explanation for what they're
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talking about," Ewers said. "If the government's working on something like
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that,
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I don't know anything about it."
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Nobody else contacted by The Associated Press had a good explanation,
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although eyewitness accounts of the UFOs are easy to come by around Wythe
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County.
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A waitress in the Country Kitchen in Rural Retreat said a crowd watched a
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UFO
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from the parking lot one night last week. She described it as round, like a
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Frisbee, with bright red and white lights cutting silently across the sky.
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Other
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witnesses have reported green lights on objects of varying shapes.
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Jack and Carolyn Ellison told reporters about their sighting of two flying
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objects, one shaped like a saucer and the other like a large arrowhead that
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was
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following it at a rather low altitude.
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"We just stood right there where that Oldsmobile is and it went right over
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that maple tree," Jack Ellison said.
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"An airplane wouldn't have been that low, and it would have made noise,"
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said
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Carolyn Ellison. "I said, `Maybe it's the Goodyear blimp,' but Jack said, `No,
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that makes noise."'
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She had no idea what the things might be.
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"I've heard of UFOs, but I don't know," she said. "When I turned the radio
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on
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and found out other people saw it, I began to wonder."
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Wytheville radio station WYVE has received numerous calls about the UFOs.
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News Director Danny Gordon has been recording and airing some of the accounts.
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"Eighty percent are probably natural lights, Jupiter, the moon -- eyes
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playing tricks on them, the bottle," Gordon said. The other 20 percent sound
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believable, he said.
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His callers have described objects including a silvery cigar shape, a green
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camouflage cigar shape, a floating triangle and pairs of lights that hover for
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a
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while before splitting apart and quickly vanishing.
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Gordon said he has talked with people who seriously keep up with UFOs, and
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they have warned him to be on the alert for government men in black suits who
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will try to get him to stop publicizing the sightings. UFO followers have said
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the government has for years hidden its knowledge of UFOs to avoid widespread
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public panic.
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"I haven't heard anything from the government to tell me to stop doing the
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story," Gordon said. "If they're down here, they're down here incognito."
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Copyright 1987 by the Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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