56 lines
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
56 lines
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: 1966 UFOs CALLED GAS FILE: UFO3314
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Article #: 7
|
|
From: UFO INFO SERVICE
|
|
Date Sent: 06-17-1986
|
|
Subject: 1966 UFOS CALLED GAS
|
|
|
|
SOURCE: NYT (DETROIT)
|
|
DATE: 26 MARCH 1966
|
|
|
|
|
|
FLYING OBJECTS ARE CALLED GAS
|
|
|
|
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a Northwestern University Astrophysicist who is also USAF's
|
|
civilian investigator of unidentified flying objects, after studying the widely
|
|
witnessed Dexter and Hilsdale UFO sightings in southern Michigan, has called
|
|
the report by 87 coeds, a college dean, and a civil defense director from
|
|
Hillsdale "a very puzzling sighting. There has been a flood of other reports
|
|
from this area and I could not possibly have the time to investigate all of
|
|
these." The other reports were of little scientific value, he added, because
|
|
there were no substantial groups of witnesses agreeing on what they had seen.
|
|
The other of the "two principal events" happened at Dexter the previous night
|
|
when some 50 people reported seeing a similar football-shaped object hovering
|
|
over a swamp.
|
|
|
|
Dr. Hynek said "This could have been due to the release of variable quantities
|
|
of marsh gas. A dismal swamp is a most unlikely place for a visit from outer
|
|
space. It is not a place where a helicopter would hover for several hours, or
|
|
where a soundless secret device would likely be tested." Rotting vegetation
|
|
produces the gas "which can be trapped by ice and winter conditions. When a
|
|
spring thaw occurs, the gas may be released in some quantity." This may cause
|
|
lights "sometimes right on the ground, sometimes merely floating above it. The
|
|
flames go out in one place and suddenly appear in another place, giving the
|
|
illusion of motion. No heat is felt and the lights do not burn or char the
|
|
ground. They can appear for hours at a time and sometimes for a whole night.
|
|
Generally there is no smell, and usually no sound - except the popping sound of
|
|
little explosions." The astrophysicist emphasized that his explanation did not
|
|
"cover the entire UFO phenomenon over the past 20 years" and that very few
|
|
sightings could be attributed to marsh gas.
|
|
|
|
Dr. Hynek also said that the Milan photographs taken March 17 were "without any
|
|
question" only time exposures of a rising moon and the planet Venus. The
|
|
consultant agreed with a questioner that the flying saucer phenomenon could be
|
|
an interesting field of study for other specialists such as psychologists and
|
|
sociologists. Though his investigation here, he said, is over.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
*********************************************************************
|
|
* -------->>> THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo <<<------- *
|
|
********************************************************************* |