266 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
266 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
The following interview took place on Wednesday, 4 November, in
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Wytheville, VA. Dan Gordon is the news director of radio station WYVE in
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Wyethville. Since October 1st, his station has been besieged with calls
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from residents who have witnessed something strange in the night skies.
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When the calls wouldn't stop, he decided to take a look for himself.
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Gordon was interviewed by ParaNet member Ronald Jennings of Newport News.
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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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Gordon: ...I call it an aircraft because that's the only term I can
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think of for it. But on October the 13th, on a Wednesday, I was
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with a friend of mine who's a former pilot. And we had spent
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about two and a half hours in the cold with our heads out the
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window looking for the UFO that people had seen. Because I had
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been reporting UFO sightings [as a newsman] up to my neck, and I
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decided that the only way I could actually solve the puzzle was
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go out and see the UFO for myself...
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My friend and I rode through all the areas where the sightings
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had occurred, especially multiple sightings. As we were coming
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home, we had about given up the search, I looked to the left on
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Route 21 South, which is about four and a half miles due south
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of Wytheville, between Wytheville and [Speedwell?], I noticed a
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very unusual aircraft coming to my left. So I stopped the car
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and got out. As it approached, it looked like it had...the front
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shape was kinda like a funny-looking, round front to a craft,
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with a long, split cockpit, and I say "split" because as it
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approached, one side of the cockpit went dark. It had a strobe
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that was putting out five different colors of lights on the
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right side of the craft. I told my friend to get out, because he
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was on the other side of the car, and he got out, and we both
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were pretty astounded just from what we saw as it was coming
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toward us.
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I had a 35 mm camera on the dash, he had an [?] in the trunk of
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the car. From there on in, we were so astounded and appalled we
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were froze to our spot. We did not use either camera. I've been
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in the news business nine years, I've never missed a shot, to my
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knowledge. In sports...I've covered murders, fires, guy hung
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himself from a tree...everything. So nothing appalls me. This
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appalled me. I probably was standing with my mouth agape.
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As it came by me, a side view...it seemed like it went on
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forever. We're talking a couple thousand feet [altitude]. The
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altitude was estimated by my partner, who's a former pilot and a
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former airplane mechanic in Florida...we estimated 2000 feet
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based on the treetop level. As it came past, like I say, it was
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a very large craft, some 8-900 feet in length, probably bigger
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than any 747 I've ever seen at an airport. As it came by, it
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continued very slowly, just like it would skim through the
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air...no sound, no jetstream [contrails], no smell, no nothing.
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Totally quiet, and now we're on a road where there's radio
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going, there's no noise whatsoever. No other cars coming. As the
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craft gets past me, the rear of it - and I say the rear, that's
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the area that we are looking at as it was going away from us -
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had three panels of what appeared to be windows. The top one was
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parallel with the ground, and appeared to be like in a circular,
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dome shape at the top...looked like a window pane you would see
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in a house. To each side of this window was two, they were going
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vertically, same size windows, looked like three windows on the
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end of a house. It was emitting no light, yet it shone a very
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soft white light from the inside like a 75-watt bulb would show
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in a house with very thin shades.
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We were both, like I say, appalled. We watched it continue...it
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went behind a cloud. At the same time it went behind a cloud, I
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noticed a spherical dull-red object come from the left, parallel
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with the ground, not from up or down, at a high rate of speed.
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It was not a hologram or a laser or anything because it blotted
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out the stars as it traversed across the sky. It went behind the
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cloud directly with the aircraft. The aircraft momentarily
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(maybe a minute elapsed) came out of the cloud, the spherical
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object didn't, at least not by itself. The craft continued on
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south and we lost sight of it. Because it was the first sighting
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I had ever had, being a skeptic I automatically asked my friend,
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"what did you see? Describe it back to me," to make sure I had
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seen the same thing he did. Because during this whole time we
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were almost quiet. He described virtually the same craft, and
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told me it was unlike any conventional aircraft he had ever
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seen, in magazines or in his dealings with aircraft. And
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naturally we couldn't explain the spherical object. So, because
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we didn't get a picture, we cursed ourselves all around.
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So the next night, with a photographer, John Stember, a fashion
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photographer, and his girlfriend and the pilot and myself went
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back in the general area, stopped in the same area, didn't see
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anything. About two miles up the road, the same route, on
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Thursday night of this week, the day after I'd seen the first
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sighting, we saw a craft hovering over a dirt road, to the left.
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I pulled over, slammed on the brakes, we jumped out. The craft,
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like it sensed us, turned and proceeded along the mountain top.
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We grabbed cameras and started shooting with videotape and two
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35 mm, at a pretty good distance. I had a 135mm lens, 1000 speed
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film, shot [1/50th?]. He was shooting with, I believe, a Nikon,
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500mm lens, and a multiplier, which made it 1500mm. My camera
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quit after three shots. Don't know why. Got back in the car, it
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worked fine. Next day the camera was checked by a local camera
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shop. Wasn't anything wrong with the battery. I put a new one
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in, just in case, but for some reason it stopped after three
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frames.
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What I got was a light shape of a spherical object, a dome
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shape, and another craft coming down, preparing to dock in
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behind. We witnessed this craft docking behind us, large domed
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craft, and proceed with it some 15 miles before it went out of
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sight. The videotape showed nothing but just some very dim
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lights. The 500mm lens with the multiplier came out blank. Mine
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just had a few dots, it was blank. Not enough light let in,
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undoubtedly.
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So we decided from there to go public with it that Friday in a
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press conference here at the radio station. And we had a
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gentleman who's a computer analyst, Andrew Convery, in from
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Virginia Beach. He had seen it at a motel, the same night, in
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[?], some 15 miles away. We went public, we did not have the
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film developed yet. We tried to see if we could get any response
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from the military, or if we could get any input from anybody
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else, before we actually told people, and showed them what we
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saw. We had no response. We got no response from anybody except
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the public, they had seen the same thing. We had fifty reports
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of the same object, same description, before they had ever heard
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our description. We had never gone public in the media in any
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form in this county, in this area, with this type of sighting,
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even though we had other sightings, we had not described this
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large, "mother craft", I'll call it. We had 50 sightings. We
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even had a lady come in and participate in the press conference,
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Emma Burchette, who had seen it the night before, had not told
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me what she had seen, we put her on the panel and she told the
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press. It was the first time I'd heard it. It was identical to
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my sighting.
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After the press conference, I was hit by a media blitz. So I was
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having a hard time finding [time] to go look for the object. I
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went with a lot of TV crews in the area, and we never saw
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anything. So, finally the media blitz died down a little bit
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last Friday. My wife, my child and I went back to 21 South, the
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same area, finally spotted the craft up on the mountain - Sand
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Mountain - and watched it hover for 20 minutes. Same craft. It
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would not come off the mountain, just hovered up there. And I
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drove all around trying to find a road to get up to that area,
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so I could photograph it. I wanted something close. I came to
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town to get gas, I was about to run out of gas, I came back and
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it was gone.
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I've seen it on three occasions, in a nocturnal sighting. On
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October 16th, after about two weeks of UFO sightings, I'm still
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not sure if my mind was playing tricks on me, but I seen, in a
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bright blue sky, 6:00, at Exit 19 off Interstate 81, looked up
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and saw what appeared to be a pie-pan turned upside down, just
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sitting there, and all of a sudden, zoom! it was gone. Silver,
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kinda gold-silver object. No wings, no sign of jetstream,
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nothing, it was a day where you could see jetstreams everywhere.
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I assumed at that time that maybe my eyes were playing tricks on
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me. To this day I'm still not sure but it appears, we have had
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three daytime sightings by people who will not come forward to
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the public but they've told me. And we've had over a thousand
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sightings total.
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Jennings: In what period of time?
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Gordon: Since October 1. Last Monday night, October 26th, I was in the
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Speedwell area with five people, including four members of a TV
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crew from channel 9 in Washington, DC, we saw 25 jets in one
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area chasing red and white spherical objects. Chasing, but
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couldn't catch. The objects would hover, they'd chase, and
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they'd hover and stop and chase again. Never caught 'em. Finally
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the objects went off over the horizon. When I called Langley
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about it, the lady said they were conducting some kind of
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starflight exercise, its something they scramble their crews
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without notice, and they were done by 6:00. I said, "Lady, they
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were here at 8:30." She said, "no we weren't." That's the end of
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the conversation.
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Jennings: Was this Langley, VA or Langley Air Force Base, Hampton?
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Gordon: Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.
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Jennings: OK, could you tell me approximately the times that these
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sightings occurred at, that you've seen?
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Gordon: Between 8 and 10 o'clock. All the sightings that I have
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documented that people have called me, with the exception of
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three or four, have occurred between 8 and 10 o'clock, Monday
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through Friday.
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Jennings: What about the one in the daylight, do you know what time that
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was?
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Gordon: 6:00. One gentlemen saw them at 5 and one saw them at 4:45.
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Jennings: In the evening?
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Gordon: Yes. We had one sighting at 6AM in the morning, another at
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12:45AM, but primarily everything from 8 to 10.
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Jennings: Did the object emit any sort of a noise?
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Gordon: People that have gotten closer than I have, say 6-700 feet, one
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gentleman had it 400 feet above his house, based on [the size
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of] his house and three more houses, he said that it had a real
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solid "hum," when you quit talking you could hear a real faint
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hum. Most anybody's told me, its either a drone or a hum. No
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roar, no hiss, no whoosh, or nothing. Course mine was at 2000
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feet, I couldn't hear it.
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Jennings: Could you describe the shape of the object, again, please?
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Gordon: Well, the front, is like a very, like a flat, round shape, its
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almost like somebody took a "U", I mean a circle, and cut off
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the side and made it flat on one side. You've got a long,
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elongated cockpit area, it appears to be a cockpit area, with a
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slope on the front. And the rest of the aircraft takes many
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forms. Even though the back has windows in it, it almost looks
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identical to the Star Wars vehicle, that was in the movie "Star
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Wars" that flew between the asteroids, and it had all the
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different shapes and sizes on it. It [the Star Wars ship] was
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real dirty charcoal-gray, whatever, if you remember the Star
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Wars vehicle. That's what people keep describing it as, is a
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Star Wars vehicle.
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Jennings: Well, which vehicle in "Star Wars," it wasn't an X-wing fighter,
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was it?
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Gordon: No, we're talking about the battleship, whatever,...
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Jennings: Well, are you talking about the ship that Han Solo used, by any
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chance? That big thing...
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Gordon: Whatever the big ship was that....
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Jennings: Not the Death Star, not the big round sphere, it wasn't
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something like that?
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Gordon: No, we're talking a ship that had a lot of different shapes on
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it, it was not smooth.
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Jennings: All right, that was the ship, I think, that Han Solo flew in the
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movie.
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Gordon: That's what people describe it as, and that's the only I know
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that closely fits it. Its not a smooth object that people are
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seeing, now, that's hovering over their houses.
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Jennings: OK, one more question, are the sightings still going on?
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Gordon: Oh, yeah, we had five today reported to me on the telephone,
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another five walked in the door and told me.
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Jennings: Also, there's some reference to the Sheriff having seen
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something?
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Gordon: We talked to three members of, deputies of the Sheriff's
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department, in the town of [?], the town of Wytheville, and the
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chief of police in [?] saw it, saw it in [?] on the first night.
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That's what initiated the sightings, but since then, primarily I
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think maybe because of the media blitz, they decided all the
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sightings were refueling of aircraft.
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Jennings: And as far as you know, no photographs of the object came out,
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as yet?
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Gordon: Well, mine has come out, its just not definitive enough to
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produce, it doesn't show the mountain range because its too
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dark. It can't show anything in comparison to the object,
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because of the distance and the light.
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