AIRPLANE VANISHES OVER LONG ISLAND SOUND
People in Westbrook, Connecticut were amazed Wednesday morning, January 15, 1997, when they heard that a single-engine plane dive toward the waters of Long Island Sound…and then vanish.
According to the newspaper The Day, “the Coast Guard, state Department of Environmental Protection, two rescue helicopters, fire departments from Westbrook, Old Saybrook, Madison and Clinton, and some marine patrols and private boats searched 100 square miles after a man reported he had seen a plane dive into the water.”
“Daniel Bowes of Meetinghouse Lane was having a cup of coffee at about 7:30 a.m. at West Beach on Salt Island Road when he saw a plane flying low over the water, according to Ralph Buck, a captain of the Westbrook Fire Department.”
“He told authorities it looked as if the plane took a nosedive, though he didn’t see a splash, Buck said.”
“‘He couldn’t tell me what it was,’ said Matt Brown, who took Bowes’ call at the Valley Shore dispatch center. ‘But it was definitely larger than a bird.'”
“No airport in the area reported any planes missing, according to state police Lt. Cliff M’Sadoques.”
At 4 p.m., the Coast Guard called off the search. No trace of any aircraft was found. (See The Day of New London, Connecticut for January 16, 1997)
(Editor’s Comment: Westbrook, population 1,509, is on the north shore of Long Island Sound, about 35 miles northeast of Moriches Bay, the site of the crash of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996.)
CROP CIRCLE FOUND IN CALIFORNIA PATIO
On Saturday, January 11, 1997, Randolph B. Warneke, director of global operations of UFOIA, conducted a field survey of what has to be the strangest “crop circle” ever found.
Pete and Nancy Culpepper are a retired couple living in the small town of Hemitt, California. At 8 a.m. on the morning of December 16, 1996, Pete went out on the cement patio at the rear of his home and “found a ten-foot-(3 meters)wide circle.”
“The circle was drawn with some kind of black substance. Almost like a magic marker or something like that. The circle was perfectly round. Almost at the center of the circle (but a little bit off-center) was a spot about five inches (12.5 centimeters) that looked like something or someone had taken acid and burned the top layer of the cement off. The gate that leads to the backyard had a lock on it so heavy equipment could not have entered.”
The Culpeppers’ street is a quiet neighborhood of retirees like the couple. Their cement patio measures are 14 feet (4 meters) wide and 20 feet (6 meters) long. Warneke photographed and videotaped the circle but did not take samples of the substance because this process would have significantly damaged the patio.
Hemitt is located 20 miles southeast of Riverside, California. (Many thanks to Steve Wilson and UFOIA for this story.)
UFO SIGHTED IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Monday night, January 13, 1997, Susan Reardon and her husband were in their backyard in the small town of Fortuna, California (population 7,591), which is 265 miles (424 kilometers) north of San Francisco. All at once, they saw something strange in the sky.
“A bright object similar to an airplane traveling suddenly stopped and hovered silently,” Susan reported. “It only moved a small amount back and forth in the place it stopped. Where it had been flashing and moving like an airplane, it was now like a VERY bright star. If you didn’t see it moving across the sky, you would’ve thought it was just another star. It stayed that way all the time we watched it. Anyone else see this?” (Email Interview)
DAYLIGHT DISC VISITS CENTRAL TEXAS
On Thursday, January 9, 1997, Dan Prewitt was driving on Interstate Highway 75 in Plano, Texas (population 73,000) just north of Dallas when he spied a UFO.
“I was driving and casually looked up to the sky,” Prewitt recalled. “To my surprise…and delight…I saw a disc-shaped object hovering roughly a thousand feet (330 meters) in the sky” near the horizon. For a moment, a shelterbelt grove of trees impeded his view. “When the trees got out of the way, it was gone,” he added. “It was a disc-shaped object that was partially reflecting the sun. It was high enough that, if it wasn’t a UFO, I would have seen it flying away or something.” (Email Interview)
TEAM VIDEOTAPES STRANGE UFO OVER PHOENIX
On Sunday afternoon, January 12, 1997, Arizona ufologists Tom King and Mike DeVarennes spotted and videotaped a strange black UFO as it flew over the Chris-Town Shopping Center and Camelback Road in Phoenix.
According to King, the UFO “was hovering at a very low altitude” and appeared to stay in the valley west of Squaw Peak, Mummy Mountain, and Camelback Mountain.
“The video shows a black (hockey) puck-style object hovering, with the camera loaded down on a tripod and trees seen on both sides. The most interesting thing about it was the rapid starts and stops the object makes. It does a quick series of 180-degree turns and looks like it’s on water (floating).”
King adds that the black hockey-puck UFO was seen over Phoenix eight days earlier on January 4.
(Many thanks to Errol Bruce-Knapp and UFO Updates for this story.)
MYSTERIOUS RUMBLING HEARD IN EVERGLADES
Sportsmen in Fort Lauderdale, Florida are talking about mysterious booming and rumbling noises heard west of the city in the Everglades.
The latest incident occurred at about 6 p.m. on Saturday, January 11, 1997. Jim Bob Landry, owner, and skipper of the Kendall Queen, had left the dock off Florida Highway 27 near Commercial Boulevard earlier that day with a sports fishing party. He sailed west on the Cypress Creek Canal and entered that part of the Everglades known as the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. As the boat was leaving the area, about 15 miles east of Belle Glade, Landry and his guests heard a “very loud rumbling noise.”
When they returned to the Lauderdale dock, they were met by “a fish-and-wildlife agent we’d never seen before,” Landry said, “He didn’t look like any fish- and-wildlife I’d ever seen. More like FBI or BATF. He says no one’s allowed in the Lox after 6 p.m.”
Landry said he has talked to other captains, and they too have heard prolonged mysterious rumbling noises in the Loxahatchee region. The booming was first noticed the previous week–January 4.
(Email Interview)
(Editor’s Comment: UFO Miami, please take note!)
ISRAELI MAN MUGGED BY TWO SMALL ALIENS
Although the saucers failed to meet last week’s date for a Tel Aviv rendezvous, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported yet another bizarre alien encounter in the West Bank.
On the night of December 29, 1996, Daoud Ahmad was asleep in his bedroom at the Nur-a-Shamat camp on the West Bank. “I awoke at one in the morning feeling threatened,” he said. “I tried to get out of bed, but two creatures jumped on me and beat me.”
Ahmad described the intruders as “60 centimeters (2 feet) in height, each had only one eye,” with large heads and a single stripe of hair worn Mohawk-style across their bald heads. “They were very strong,” he added, “They wore black leather clothes…After they beat me, I lost consciousness.”
After the altercation, Ahmad was taken to a local hospital where he was treated and released. He sustained seven severe bruises to the face.
According to Palestinian TV, neighbors heard the ruckus coming from the bedroom but saw no one emerge from the house afterward. (See CNI News, Volume 2, Number 21, Part 3. Many thanks to Mike Lindemann and his staff for this story.)
PYRAMIDAL UFO RETURNS TO BRAZIL
The giant pyramid-shaped UFO seen over the state of Rio Grande do Sul last November has returned to Brazil.
The huge UFO, whose base measures 100 meters (330 feet) in diameter, was spotted over the city of Alagoa Grande, in the northeastern state of Paraiba, last week.
The UFO (“um OVNI gigante baixou”) moved slowly over the rooftops, emitting colored lights, according to Luiz Eduardo Nelso. A rumbling sound was heard coming from the object. After fifteen minutes, the UFO rose suddenly, zooming away into space.
Alagoa Grande is 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Joao Pessoa, the state capital of Paraiba. Alagoa Grande is also 25 kilometers (16 miles) southwest of Guarabira, which has had numerous UFO sightings dating back to April 1996.
(Muito obrigado to Oriel Farias for this story.)
FUN UFO WEBSITES
Tony Craddock’s new CSETI site is now ready. Tony offers all-new graphics and format and actual field reports. Try http://www.cseti.com/
Steve Thomas is the proud sponsor of Britain’s newest UFO website. He’s concentrating on UFO sightings in the UK and can be found at this URL: http://www.cco.net/~trufax/menu/news.html#british
Remember the story of Ezekiel’s “wheel” in the Bible? Well, this early-day UFO is the main topic at Glenn Scheper’s new site. Check it out at http://www.gentech.com/~employee/glenn/ezekiel.htm
Don’t miss our parent site, UFO INFO, at http://ufoinfo.com/index.html
That’s it for this week. Best wishes from “the newspaper that goes home–UFO ROUNDUP!”
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1997 by Masinaigan Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post any items from UFO ROUNDUP on their websites provided that they credit the newsletter and editor by name and cite the date of the newsletter in which the item appeared.