Alternate Perceptions Magazine, September 2018
1968 – A Fifty Year Retro Look
by: Rick Hilberg
On February 18 at two in the morning, a group of teenagers noticed a flash of light near a pond on Vashon Island in Washington. Going to investigate, they found an object “about the size of a car,” although its form was indescribable.
The object shot off a beam of light about the size of an auto headlight. The frightened boys ran to get a King County deputy, and quickly brought him to the scene. The object had vanished by that time, but water in the pit, about 50 feet from edge to edge, was covered with two inches of ice. Yet other smaller bodies of water nearby had no ice on them whatsoever.
Deputy Holke, whom the boys summoned said, “The ice was clear, and funny thing: it had no water on top of it although it was raining all day.” We've heard of UFO heat rays...but now ice rays too?
Seven persons saw a UFO hovering over New Castle, Pennsylvania at about 8:20 p.m., March 1. The object was in the vinicity of U.S. 422 and Pa. 551.
Frank Park and Frank Pisciuneri, and Park's wife claim they saw the whitish-pink object flying over a farm for about 10 minutes. It was described as being pancake-shaped. They said there was no sound and it was nothing like any conventional object. Four other persons in the area also claim to have seen the same object at the same time.
On March 2, Police Chief Alvis Maddox of Childress, Texas chased a UFO for about 15 miles shortly after 9 p.m. “I saw this light approaching me from the northwest and it was going southwest. It looked like it was between 500 and 1000 feet in the air and it was about half a mile ahead of me.” Maddox was then about three miles out of Wellington. “When the light got to the highway it turned south and went down 83...I drove up to a speed of about 105 mph and the light went left of me,” Maddox said. The object disappeared in the southeast just before Maddox came to the Red River Bridge.
A Monroe County, Ohio boy claimed he was burned on the arm by a UFO March 19, along Route 145 near the community of Wilson. Gregory Wells, 13, had gone to the nearby home of his grandparents to get a bucket of water and was returning to his family's trailer residence when the UFO appeared and hovered over a tree some 25 to 30 feet off the ground. Suddenly a beam shot from the lower part of the object knocking him to the ground. The boy's mother used the water her son was carrying to put out the fire that started in surrounding grass as the burning jacket was removed. A hole was burned in a heavy sweatshirt Gregory was wearing.
There was no trace of abnormal radioactivity at the scene, and Gregory reported having seen the object hovering the evening of the 17th.
On April 9, Lee Rowland and his wife Emma saw a UFO over their home in Washington Courthouse, Ohio. They were standing in front of their house at about 8:30 p.m. when a large ball of fire appeared near the ground about 1 ½ miles north in an open field.
Rowland said as he watched, the object rose into the sky at a 45 degree turn and was last seen headed north. “While watching it leave,” he said, “another object appeared coming in the direction of my home.”
The second object was traveling north to south and just above the trees. He said it was about 50 feet in diameter, flat with a bright blue light around it and a white dome on top.
On May 31, Bill Pokorny of Elvira, Iowa claims he saw a UFO land in his field. Pokorny was starting his tractor when he spotted what looked like a “foreign car” in his field. After looking closer he saw that the object was a six-foot square “box-shaped object.” He said it looked like weathered tin and was grayish in color. Pokorny said, “The shine on the inner part was so bright, I called my daughter to look.” Then two panel-shaped objects slid out of the sides of the UFO and the shape of the over-all object changed from a box to an oval. The object then began to spin in a counter-clockwise direction as it sat on the ground in the cornfield. Pokorny then ran to get his binoculars, but by the time he got back the object had left. Neither he nor his daughter saw the UFO leave.
On the night of June 5, Mrs. Almer Finnerty of Saco, Pennsylvania saw a cigar-shaped object, a bright orange red in color, moving in a northerly direction. She reported that the UFO remained stationary above the horizon and slowly disappeared at about 8:25 p.m.
Nine ruby lights were seen by thousands of people in Seattle, Washington on the night of July 7, soaring over Puget Sound. Rudy Malaspina, a real estate salesman, was flying his plane to Boeing Field when he spotted the objects.
“I could hardly receive the center. Then the center handed me to Boeing Tower and I noticed right directly in front of me nine vertical lights on a collision course. We were closing fast. I said, 'This is military formation!' and I turned right. These nine lights made a right oblique turn instantly.
“You're not supposed to turn without directions from the tower, but I turned.”
“Just two seconds later, I looked over my shoulder to see where this formation was going and I saw it right over the southern tip of Green Lake. It was a bright moonlit night and the lake was a perfect reflector.”
“Well, four rockets were fired from these objects, and they were not flares. They were rockets. Three of them hit southwest of Green Lake.”
Malaspina then called the tower and told them a military formation was shooting missiles. They replied that they had no knowledge of such a formation in the area. The objects were described as red oscillating bright and then dim.”
“Then I sighted them over West Seattle and they were stationary. I was doing 360 degree turns beneath them, using the moon and the edge of Elliott Bay as reference points. They were stationary, then they flew back across Elliott Bay from the north end of West Seattle, over Queen Anne Hill and then came back toward me.”
“I chopped my recognition lights and they came back toward me. When I put my lights back on, they went away from me. They were definitely aircraft. I wouldn't believe it myself but I saw it and figure this: my magnetic compass was reading 300 degrees when I made my landing at Boeing Field and it should have read 130 degrees. And my clock in the plane stopped at 10:35 p.m.
Reprinted with permission of Rick Hilberg from the Flying Saucer Digest (No. 221, Summer 2018), which he is editor, and of which his wife, Carol Hilberg, is managing editor. This is one of the few print UFO publications still in circulation, available for $10.00 for six issues. Please make checks payable to Rick Hilberg, located at 377 Race Street, Berea, Ohio 44017.
