The following articles were published in the 7/8 1988 and 9/19 1990 IUR. On July 13, 1968, my sister and I made a holiday trip to the New England states. We planned to go on July 4, but were unable to. Two DIA coworkers and I left Washington, D.C., at 6:00 A.M. and, after a traffic delay, arrived at her dormitory at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, at around 10:30 A.M. (I took a photo of them talking to us in front of her dorm.)
At around 1:00 P.M. we left, taking Route 95 north. Around 3:00-4:00 P.M. (we both forgot our watches but had a good idea of the time because we checked it whenever we stopped), we stopped in Connecticut (one hour) and then arrived at Boston around 5:00-6:00 P.M. Since it was still daylight we decided to travel from 128 up Route 3 into New Hampshire. (I took photographs all during this trip and took a photo of her in NH, but don���t know where���there was a lake and pine trees in the background and I had NH and fern forest marked on the photo.)
Around 9:00 P.M., we returned to Boston. We drove from Rt. 3 to 128 and from there entered Boston on Route 9���something slightly odd happened at a filling station here, but I don���t remember what it was now. Then, unable to find a motel room in Boston, we decided to search the Boston outer belt. At about 10:00 P.M., we were traveling west on Route 9 and noticed an unusual object to our south. We hadn't been thinking about UFOs and had previously paid little attention to this subject.
As we traveled on Route 9 and then south on Route 128, we watched the object intermittently. Part of the time trees obscured our view. The object was as bright as or brighter than airplane landing lights, but moving in an erratic pattern and blinking. She said she thought it might be a UFO. I told her that it was a helicopter blinking its landing lights. Awhile later she told me that she once had a sighting of a possible UFO. I was surprised because our parents were negative on the subject of UFOs and hadn���t permitted us to talk about it during our childhood. 1 told her that I might have made a previous observation and also mentioned a small object we had seen in our bedroom when we were children. (See my ������Bedroom Light,������ IUR, March April 1988.)
As we continued on 128, we could still see the object to the south in front of us. It was impossible not to notice it. I informed her that if it were a UFO, the radio stations would announce its presence and people would come out to look at it. Since no crowd was watching it, it couldn't be a UFO.
To our south we could see airplanes coming in from the east and traveling to the west with their landing lights on. Some of them may have been landing at the Norwood Memorial Airport on Route 1. The object appeared different from the airplanes because it took a meandering path, its lights were blinking all the time, and it was lower, showing less angular displacement from the ground than airplanes the same distance away. It appeared to be traveling south along Route 95.
Because I was driving, I didn't watch the object as closely as she did. I was put out because she was paying attention to the object instead of watching for a motel. Years later, in 1984, after we had submitted our reports to CUFOS, she told me that she thought the object was unusual because it would hover and then flit to another place at an incredible speed. Since I didn't watch it closely (its unusual appearance was so obvious that I didn't even consider that it could be anything abnormal), I noticed only its odd lighting and meandering trajectory.
Traveling south on Route 95, we noticed what appeared to be a basketball-sized object around 50-90 feet away from us. On or near the ground, it constantly changed colors and was in a thick woods on the west side of the road. As I remember, the colors varied from red to blue and changed so that they gradually blended into each other. For example, they would change from red to bright pink, dark pink and then to more of a bluish color. The object seemed to have a thin dark strip that slowly rotated around it. At that time, I didn't know where the airports in the area were and assumed that the light belonged to an airport. (Since then, I have learned that the nearest airport��� Norwood���wouldn't have been in that location.)
As we passed the light, the inside of the car lit up for a minute or more in green, as if several green Christmas tree lights were shining inside the car. I remember looking for the source of the green light and not seeing anything; the ball of light by the road wasn't green. I also remember discussing the green light with she while the car was lit up. I think we decided it must have been an airport light (although now I don���t know what it was). I don���t recall that I saw green light on the outside of the car. I don���t know if the possible UFO was in sight at that time, because I wasn't watching it. She remembers nothing about the ball of light or the light in the car. She had continued to insist that the object was unusual and this irritated me, because I thought a UFO couldn't be that close to a city and that obvious without attracting attention. I remember shouting, ���It���s a helicopter!������ Further south, she said that it was going to pass over the road and insisted that I stop. I pulled to the west side of 95, grumbled, and pointed my hand out the window, so that I could immediately say, ������See, stupid, a helicopter,������ as soon as I saw the object. Just as l did this, I saw a distant meteor���s brief flash (subtending a small degree of arc) and remarked on it. Immediately, in approximately the same place, several degrees north of east, the low blinking object appeared flying over the trees. I don���t know the degree of arc that its long axis subtended, but I was able to easily see and count seven distinct, brightly-lit square areas in a horizontal row along its length. These looked like windows. The object resembled a football with seven windows along its midsection. We thought we were viewing the inside of the object. At the time, this seemed so obvious that I didn't think of figuring out why we thought the squares were windows instead of panels. I think one reason was that there was the effect of depth that we were stereoscopically seeing inside the object. It seemed as if we were looking through a transparent layer and into the object���s interior.
We have seen advertising airplanes and this object looked nothing like one of them. The squares were on the side of this object. Each of the seven was square; their sides made exact right angles, and they were in a row. The object crossed the road slowly so we had plenty of time to view it from different angles and its appearance had nothing in common with an advertising airplane���s. The lit areas were definite squares with distinct spaces between them. The corners of the windows were not rounded as are aircraft windows (to prevent fatigue cracks), and they subtended approximately 1/4 of the object���s width.
In her CUFOS report she said that when we first saw the object, ���a light seemed to shine down from it and shone in our car,������ and added in a letter (1984) to me that the inside of the car lit up in blue. I don���t remember this. Perhaps only she saw this because she had to look across the car, whereas I was looking out the window. I immediately turned off the car, got my camera out, removed my film from the car trunk, and watched the object over my shoulder as I loaded my camera by placing it on the car trunk and feeling it. She was standing to my west behind the car. The object traveled from cast to west.
The object was much lower than the airplanes. We had seen this as we approached it and thus had been able to compare its altitude with that of airplanes from several angles and distances. The object���s inside was evenly lit by a very high intensity white light, which resembled mercury vapor or fluorescent light. The light wasn't concentrated anywhere, almost as if the atmosphere inside the object were glowing. We were also surprised by the light���s brightness. We had watched the object all the way from Boston and the light was as bright or brighter than airplane landing lights. We expected to see something like the inside of an airplane with furniture, or pilots, but didn't see any features. We discussed the fact that we couldn't see the operators and were puzzled. I hoped to take a photograph of the inside of the object with operators. Since the windows took up a fair portion of the object���s area, we speculated about whether it might be empty or have operators (if human-sized) under the windows or in the front or back, where there weren't any windows.
She said that its silhouette occluded stars. I didn't notice this because I paid attention to loading my camera. I think, however, that I also saw a silhouette. The object was fairly low and there may have been enough light diffusing from Boston, the freeway, and its own lighting to have enabled us to see its dark portion. It passed very slowly over the highway giving us a lot of time to view it from different angles.
As we watched it, we repeatedly asked each other detailed questions, such as: ���How many windows do you count?��� to determine whether we saw the same thing. The sky was clear. We would have been able to determine whether it had wings. If a wing had been above the windows, their light would have reflected from it, and if a wing had been below the windows, it would have blocked our view of the windows. We saw no indication of wings. We heard no sound from it, although we had been able to hear nearby airplanes that were higher than the object during the time we watched it. It had a small unblinking red light on one end and a small unblinking green light on the other end. Neither of us remembers which light was on which end. We didn���t see any blimp above it; thus, we didn���t believe it to be the undercarriage of a blimp. We were calm, scientific, and methodical and continually checked our observations by asking each other questions.
The blinking pattern was complicated. Although I can���t recall the pattern exactly when the object crossed the road, I think that its three front squares would blink on and off twice; then all seven would blink on and off once, and the last four squares would blink on and off. Its squares would then be off for a while. Afterwards they would repeat the sequence.
We thought there might have been two compartments in the interior; such that the lights in one area could he turned on separately from the others. She does not now recall that the lights had any pattern during the rest of the observation. She also thought that the object could have moved in any direction and didn���t necessarily have to go forward as an airplane would; thus, the blinking pattern would also have depended on the object���s orientation. I would estimate that when a group of windows were lit, they stayed on for around a second. I think that possibly when the three windows were lit this blink was of the shortest duration, and there was a difference also in the duration of four versus seven squares being lit. Also, during the observation, she kept referring to the blinking pattern as signal. I didn���t understand why she kept saying this. She seemed to think that the object was signaling someone. When I finished loading my camera, I believed that the object was still close enough for the separate windows to be visually resolved.
By this time, however, a tractor truck with a trailer pulled over in front of us. I assumed that the driver had stopped to watch the object and was glad that we had another observer. The driver came back and asked what we acre doing, acting as if he thought we were having car trouble. We knew that it is dangerous to take up with strange men at night and so we just pointed to the object and asked him what it was, acting as if we thought it was an unusual airplane.
I was standing behind the driver���s rear tire of our car. She stood behind the passenger rear tire to my west, and the truck driver was standing east of me. I pointed to the object���s position in the northwest at perhaps 40 degrees in azimuth. When I pointed to it, he rotated his whole body 180 degrees, so that he was facing the southeast and looked to about the same azimuth as the object, and said that he didn't see anything. Then he rotated back to face northeast. Then he asked the same question a second time (in a sincere manner). I gave the same reply and he then went through the same set of motions. Then after he had rotated back to face the northeast, he gave us the cuckoo sign (pointed to his forehead and shook his head) and returned to his truck. He never looked in the object���s direction and 1 didn���t press the issue because I was afraid of him. I think I recall that the UFO had been directly over his truck as the object slowly passed over the freeway.
I don���t remember much about his appearance. He was a little taller I am. He must have been average in appearance, because I didn't notice anything in particular about him. She doesn't recall talking with him at all; however, she does remember the truck���s passing us, parking in front of us and following us later. She remembers that the driver didn't see the object. By the time the truck driver left (I was afraid to take my eyes off him when he was there, so I didn't take a picture), the object was farther away and probably too far away to photograph the separate squares. I didn't consider flagging down another witness because I was trying very hard to take a picture and I was hesitant to confront strangers at night.
The object must have been to my northwest when I started talking with the truck driver. When I was finished, it should have been further northwest. At that point, I didn���t want to take a photograph while standing by the freeway, because I was afraid of getting traffic lights or lens flares in my photograph. I had photographed stars before with this camera and knew that I needed a time exposure. There was a small tree-covered hill to the west, so I asked her to guard the car while I ran over the hill to try to take photographs. I don���t know why I thought I could get a good photograph. She began to argue with me, insisting that She come with me. She said later that she thought the object was close and did not want me to run toward it.
But I was afraid that the truck driver would take over the car if we both left. We continued to argue and finally she stayed by the car. (When I talked with her in 1987, however, she insisted that she remembers nothing about talking with the man and didn't understand what I was talking about when I wanted her to guard the car.) I ran up the hill to the west, through a group of trees, and came out on the other side of the hill. There was a freeway fence and an area with no trees. The UFO should have been to the northwest but I���m not sure where it was. I can recall not taking photographs when cars went by on the freeway (to the northeast), so that my camera might have been aimed to the northeast. If it had been to the northwest, there wouldn't have been any reason for me to go up over the hill.
It is possible that the object changed its trajectory from traveling from the east toward the west to traveling from the west toward the north or northeast, while I was speaking with the truck driver or going through the grove of trees. I looked around this area in 1987 and there is a fence on the other side of the hill, which follows along the freeway.
I was extremely interested in taking the photograph, because I thought that we were viewing the inside of the object and I didn't know of any other instance of someone���s getting this opportunity. I got one photograph that showed the object.
After I made my CUFOS report and read her report, there were parts of hers that I didn't understand. So I asked for her recollections: ���We realized that the object was going to go directly over the road in front of us or just over the trees (about 70 feet up). Irena pulled the car over to stop so we could get out to see it better. We both rapidly got out. Irena climbed a small hill to get closer. I stayed near the car. I was watching to see if could see people or beings inside. I couldn't even see a shadow. Then Irena decided to take a picture of it and hurried down the hill and got her camera out. The film was out in the camera and it seemed to take a long time for her to get new film in. She seemed to have a problem getting the film in. Then she was ready to take the picture, but the object was quite a ways off then. It immediately left the area where we were as soon as it crossed the freeway. There was no sound when it left. It just seemed to suddenly get into another place.
She also recalls that all the time I was over the hill she could hear me talking. (I don���t recall talking when I was there and there was no one to talk to.) Also once, she said that she remembered my running back over the hill twice and that I seemed excited and was shouting once. She also said once that when I was on the hill she thought the UFO was right over me. That is why she said in her CUFOS report, ���It could be right over you and completely disappear.��� She reported hovering. This surprised me because I didn't recall watching it hover. She thought I was close to it when she thought that it hovered over my head. She also said that she thought it made several passes over the car. It must have made more than one, because it was in the wrong direction when I was on the other side of the hill ready to take pictures. I do vaguely recall another pass, but the memory is discontinuous with the rest of my memory. I don���t recall any of this and found out when I asked her after I read her report in July 1987.
Although our recall of the possible UFO���s appearance and of most of the observation is the same, our recall of certain particular events during the time we were stopped is different. Several events that we remember differently are: (1) The number of times I ran over the hill and whether or not I was talking; (2) speaking with the truck driver; (3) the object���s blinking pattern; (4) its trajectory, distance from us (she seems to remember that when she first saw it, it made a low close pass over us), and whether or not it was directly over me; (5) its zooming away.
I believe that my recollections are accurate because I made notes shortly after the event and kept them; she also made notes. (She believes that she sent them to Project Bluebook. I have checked and her report isn't there - however, it has been reported that a number of reports are missing from Project Blue Book files.
These differences may have occurred because (1) We paid attention to different things, (2) her recall over time may not be as good as mine because she lost her notes or (3) the possible UFO did something to our minds. In some instances, her memory seemed better than mine, as in her recollection of the object���s blinking pattern. The only blinking pattern that 1 recall had to do with seven, four, and three squares blinking. She recalls this pattern but in general she thinks the pattern was random. Perhaps this is because she watched it for a longer time than I did.
Also, three of her accounts say that she saw the object speed away around the time that I look my photographs. I don���t remember seeing it do this. I didn���t even think about it until 1987, when I wondered why the object wasn't in the location (in the northwest) where I thought it should have been, when I took my photographs. (If it had been to the west, I wouldn't have needed to leave the freeway.) She appeared to have watched it ���suddenly get into another place������ at around the time I was talking with the truck driver. Moreover, although we were parked in public freeway traffic, we seemed to be confused right here and not later, when we followed the object along an isolated road.
After I had looked at my photographs, She and I were standing by the car. The object was now perhaps one to three miles west or northwest of us. It began to circle. The diameter of the circle was perhaps one mile and it appeared to make a perfect geometrical counterclockwise circle each time in exactly the same place. It was too distant for us to see individual squares. Its circling followed a regular pattern. When it moved in a south to north semicircle, it moved slowly and blinked its light on twice at about from (0 degrees = north to 360 degrees = north in a clockwise circle) approximately 150 to 120 degrees and 60 to 30 degrees. When it appeared to be at the northern most part of each circle, it would turn on its lights and travel in a 360- to 180-degree semicircle incomprehensibly fast. It was almost too fast to see and I vaguely remember each time afterward that it had flashed past. I was afraid each time it made this fast pass because it could have just gone anywhere in a fraction of a second. I have never seen such speed. Its lights seemed more intense when it made this fast past, but it might have looked this way because the object was moving toward me and, thus, would have subtended a larger angular displacement as it was approaching me (from 270 to 180 degrees) and also there might have been a Doppler effect. The object may have been circling something. At that time, we thought it was circling the airport. We stood watching it and comparing observations. During the time we watched it, we hadn���t heard sounds from it, although occasionally we heard sounds from the airplanes in the area. As it circled, several times we heard loud booming sounds like a jet engine revving, or like a sonic boom.
We discussed this and decided that the noise might have been from a jet preparing to leave the airport. (In 1987, however, Joe Nyman of Massachusetts told me that there were no jet airplanes at Norwood airport.) The noise frightened me. I cannot recall whether or not I heard the booms each time the object traveled fast, but the sounds occurred while it was circling. I wondered if they might have been associated with the circling, in other words, if it had been making sonic booms during the rapid part of its circular flight pattern. It was certainly going more rapidly than the speed of sound.
As we had watched the object, we also watched other aircraft flying in the area. The object stayed lower than the other aircraft. It seemed that airplanes were not landing there, while the object circled. We could see several airplanes as they circled high above the, airport.
We didn���t know which direction we should take, when we returned to the car. Our car was headed south. We were unfamiliar with the roads in the area and didn���t know which direction the object might take when it stopped circling. We decided to turn our car around at the next intersection. When we pulled on to the freeway the truck driver we had seen earlier pulled in right behind us. He rode our bumper (it seemed like five to 10 feet behind us) and beamed his bright lights into my rear view mirror. I was blinded.
At first, I thought he was trying to signal us and almost started to pull over to ask what he was doing, but I changed my mind. For some reason I thought of the green light that had been in the car and looked back to see if our car was lit up again. I thought the truck driver might have seen the light and decided to look more closely, or was looking for something in our car. Then I got scared and floored it. I was going about 80 mph.
Whenever I switched lanes, he switched lanes. I was afraid he might intend to run us off the road or cause an accident. I don���t know what intersection it was, but we agreed to swerve off the road at the next intersection from the left-hand lane so he wouldn���t suspect that we were leaving the freeway. This was very hazardous, because we couldn���t see if any cars were overtaking the truck in the right-hand lane. I said a final goodbye to my sister (she may have not been aware that I was blinded and not realized the danger we were in). Luckily, we survived and lost the truck driver. The truck trailer might have been gray or silver and about the size and shape of a large U-Haul. We didn���t pay attention to the truck or take its license number and when he began following us, it was too late to do anything but get away.
We returned to Route 95 traveling north, while the object was still circling. My notes say that I thought the object circled for around 20 minutes. Then the object began to travel approximately northwest. We saw the object that changed colors again in the same position. The inside of the car lit up in green, again. The light seemed to be a hazy, diffused green and, as before, stayed in the car for a while as we drove along. I didn���t see a source for the light. I believe that the flying object was in view this time, when the car lit up in green. l didn���t see the green when we were near the possible UFO, only when we were near the light that changed colors. But I saw this object only when the possible UFO was near. I saw it when we first approached the possible UFO and when we were leaving the area with the object in sight. I didn���t see it the next time we passed the area. We didn���t have time to stop and look at the light; the object was low and we needed to keep right up with it to follow it.
We continued to follow the object, which was heading northwest. It was clearly distinguishable from everything else because it was low, bright, and blinking. We traveled up Route 95, then northwest on Route 128. Next, we took a highway west; I believe this was Route 9, but it may have been Route 20. We wanted to get a good look at the object. Since it was traveling northwest, we then needed to head north. By this time it was always too distant to see the separate lighted squares.
We turned north on the next road, a pothole-filled gravel road, with houses far apart and hidden by trees. I tried to keep us at around 30 to 40 mph with the object, but felt that I was tearing up my car trying to travel over the bumps. Unable to get any closer, we quit following it. We turned around and decided to look for motels again. We drove just off the freeway two or three times but didn���t stop because there were no-vacancy signs at the motels.
On the way back, we were apprehensive and kept looking for the object. She thought that possibly the object was visible only to us and seemed surprised that no one else noticed it. In fact, I had paid attention to it only at her insistence.
We stopped once for a very brief time on the way back to Madison, New Jersey to take a picture. This was in NY. There was little traffic and we breezed through New York without stopping on Sunday morning. We arrived at Drew University at 6:00 A.M. The speed limit in 1968 was 70 mph. An l974 atlas shows the driving distance between Boston and New York as 209 miles. We don���t know if we were missing any time.
She was interviewed by Budd Hopkins and ���Kathie Davis������ in Indianapolis on November l, 1984. Hopkins tried unsuccessfully to hypnotize me on October 27, 1985. In the future, we may again try ways to enhance our recall.
Although several people have made the comment that she and I were probably watching an advertising airplane, because the writing under the wings of an advertising airplane when viewed from an angle can look somewhat like this, this is not what we saw. These panels were very square, very well defined, and very bright. There are numerous examples of fuzzy or roundish windows on UFOs, but few examples of very definite squares. I have seen flying advertisement airplanes from many angles and they look nothing like this. I���ve also seen and filmed many blimps including ones with lighting on the sides. This was nothing like a blimp.
Also it seemed strange that when I had stopped the car and saw it close-up, that I first saw a meteor right before I saw it and in the same place. I���ve since read about other sightings in that area, and it seemed that some others saw this type of thing too.
I had at least two cameras and both color and black and white film. The black and white film was high speed and allowed me to photograph at night (someone had just given me the film and I had it in my trunk).
Massachusetts Photograph (Continuation of Massachusetts Sighting)
The following is from IUR 9/10 1990: During the time when my sister and I observed the unidentified object, I took one photograph of the object. The camera was a Polaroid model 250, with a 3-element, 114 mm, f/8.8 lens and a shutter speed controlled by an electronic eye. The film was 3000 ASA black and white film. I took five photographs of the object, but only one (#2) showed it. (I don���t know why only one photograph came out, perhaps I didn���t focus the camera properly in the dark.) When I took the photograph, we were watching an object lighted with blinking squares having the appearance shown in Fig. 1. Its blinking pattern was such that some or all of the squares would be lighted for a period of time and then for another period of time none of the squares would be lighted, making a blinking pattern. At the time I took the photograph, the object was at such a distance that the individual squares were beyond our visual resolution. Therefore, as the object moved and blinked, it should have presented the appearance shown in Fig. 2, which shows a point source moving from right to left (East to West) and blinking twice. However, the photographic trace (which is enlarged here) appeared as in Fig. 3. (The following analysis was also presented at the AAAS 154 Annual Meeting, Absts., 1988.)
I am quite sure this photograph was of the object, because I didn���t take pictures when traffic lights showed in my viewfinder. Also, the blinks on the photograph were approximately where I expected them to be vertically and horizontally. I believe that I controlled the shutter time manually, rather than use the camera���s electronic eye. (I had experience using this camera with nighttime star photography and could roughly estimate the time needed for a time exposure. Since the light from the moving object was brighter than that of stars, I did not believe my shutter would respond quickly enough for me to take several photographs.)
Fig 3, the actual photograph of the two blinks, did not look like fig. 2, the appearance that I expected the photograph to have. One reason for this is that fig. 3 shows a vertical undulating movement during the two blinks; whereas, the trace in fig. 2 is straight. This difference is easy to explain: when I made the photograph, I didn���t have time to stabilize the camera and, thus, made hand held time exposures. The vertical oscillating motion in fig. 3 is the result of small hand movements during a time exposure. The object did not move up and down.
However, another difference appears between fig. 2 and fig. 3. That is each of the blinks in fig. 3 is composed of a double trace; whereas, the blinks in fig. 2 are single lines. This difference is more difficult to understand, because we only saw one light, not two (as shown in the photograph). The vertical oscillation in each blink provides information about these double traces in that the oscillation pattern of the dimmer trace in each blink is moved a little to the right of the brighter one. For example in blink 4 a the brighter blink starts on the right and then makes a dip and a rise, followed by second dip with a slower rise and finishing with a very rapid dip and rise, a bright spot at the end a brief period of being turned off and then a small point of light. This pattern is repeated in the dimmer blink, which (although to the right) turns on at approximately the beginning of the second rise, then follows the sharp dip and rise, and then extends in a very shallow dip and rise (where the first light has turned off). What this means is that although we could see only one light source blinking off and on, the camera had photographed the light from two blinking sources, a bright one and a dimmer one.
In order to investigate why I had photographed a light source that neither of us had seen, I questioned the Polaroid company. They said that my camera system is sensitive to a 230 nanometer, nm, wavelength in the ultraviolet, uv, spectrum. The lowest light frequency that the human eye can detect, however, is around 400 nms. Thus if there had been a light source on the object emitting light at a frequency between 400 nm and 230 nm, the camera would photograph it, but we would not have seen it. Therefore, a light source radiating in the uv spectrum below the range of sensitivity of the human eye, would explain why there were the two traces on the photograph: the object apparently had a light that was not in the visible spectrum. (I obtained the information that airplane lights are all supposed to be within the visible range, except for military aircraft with lasers. I don���t know whether military aircraft were equipped with lasers in 1968.)
The brighter photographic trace seemed to blink on and off suddenly each time; whereas the dimmer one appeared to come on gradually. Since the blinking pattern that we observed was one of a light blinking on and off suddenly, the brighter photographic trace probably represents the visible light. The dimmer one was probably the emission that was out of our visual range. In addition, the object was at a distance where we were unable to visually resolve the separate squares. However, the dimmer light appeared to be to the right (behind) what we thought was the body of the object. Thus, the dimmer light may have been on an extension behind the object. It may have been quite a long distance behind the object, because the width of the bright trace represents the width of all the windows of the object together. The dim light source is approximately nine times this width.
Other inferences can be drawn from the photograph: 1. The lights were bright, because they appeared bright visually and because my camera system would take a little time to make time exposures of first magnitude stars. 2. The blinking pattern of the bright light during the two blinks was different, because (even after taking into account that the oscillations of fig. 4 a are deeper than those in 4 b) it appears that b is longer than a. Also, at the far left of a, the light appears to have turned off than quickly flashed on and off again, because of the small spot to the left of the long trace. 3. The object continued in the same direction and probably did not rotate, because the two light sources are the same distance apart during both blinks; 4. The blinking pattern of the bright light differed from that of the dimmer light, because the dimmer light both switched on and off later than did the brighter light. It also appeared to gradually increase in intensity, in 4 a. Also in 4 a, the two ends (beginning and end) of the bright trace seem to be wider than the rest of the trace, as if the light had brightened right after it came on and right before it turned off. This pattern wasn���t apparent in the dimmer light. The left half of the bright light in 4 a appears somewhat brighter than the right half (perhaps more squares were lit here). 5. The object appears to be descending in 4 b. The dim light, however, appears to be at the same elevation as the bright. Thus, the object descended with both ends at the same elevation, rather than lowering its front section during the descent.
Since the dim light appeared to be able to smoothly increase in brightness, this variation might result from 1. an increase in intensity, such as in a light controlled by a rheostat or 2. perhaps have resulted from a gradual change into a photographable frequency, such as might happen with a laser changing a variable wavelength emission. My sister reported that when we first sighted the object (from our parked car), a blue light shown down on us, which lit up the interior of the car. Although she was uncertain, she thought that the light came from an end of the object. Perhaps her observation was of the light source that I photographed. In addition, I saw the interior of the car light up with green light twice during our observation. I don���t know if these observations were related with the object. However, because other UFO reports sometimes include instances of a car or a room filled with light or other unusual appearances or phenomena, I might mention that visible light can be emitted after particles are excited by electrical activity, for example during the aura borealis. Light that behaves in strange ways might result from electrical forces, with visible light being only a by-product. Two additional facts that might be relevant are: 1. if the object had one light that was not in the visible range, it could have had others and 2. Lasers can be used to make holograms.
I wish also to mention another incident that might be of interest in comparison with other observations of this nature. Within approximately 30 hrs. after our observation several other unusual events occurred, however, as with the rest of this account, I don���t know whether the events were unusual, or just an odd combination of normal circumstances. We arrived at my sister���s dorm at 6:00 am July 14, and slept until noon. Right after we got up, we called our parents and told them about the sighting. We also told my sister���s friends in the dorm. They joked and didn���t believe us. I wanted to leave then to get an early start for the drive back to Washington D.C., but waited to hear from my coworkers who were expecting a ride back. I left at around 1800 and arrived at my Washington D.C. apartment around 2300. As I unpacked, I noticed that my toothbrush was missing. I scoured the apartment searching for it (I had recently moved and had only a mattress and a chair). I retired around midnight. Soon I began to hear sounds as if someone were walking in my bedroom. The sounds would start, go a few steps, and then stop. I was used to hearing neighbors and heard the usual apartment noises. Later I checked, and nothing unusual had happened that night.
Although I was afraid, I soon went to sleep. My alarm (which had been set at around 0600) rang. I got up and began to cook breakfast, but I noticed that it was dark. The clock said 0130. I reset it for morning. I believe that I continued to hear walking sounds, but went back to sleep. My alarm roused me again and I got up. It had been set at 0230. I checked that the windows were locked and put my chair against the door. The alarm rang again at 0330, 0430, and possibly at 0530. I couldn���t understand this, because if I were setting the alarm, I would need to turn on a light. The light was a 100 watt bulb, by my mattress. This much light should have awakened me. Also, the knob used for setting the alarm was broken off. I normally set it with pliers. I was surprised that each time it had been set at exactly 30 minutes after the hour. I thought my fingers should have been sore from twisting the broken knob with sufficient pressure to set the clock precisely. Although I was extremely frightened, I believe I went to sleep each time after the alarm.
That morning, I was frightened and worried about losing my job if I had just gone crazy (I had high security clearances and would expect to lose the position immediately if I had a mental disorder). (I was unaware of possible UFO after effect phenomena.) At around 0600 (daylight), I was rehearsing ways to disguise insanity at work, when my toothbrush suddenly flew across the room (about 7 ft.) and hit the wall in front of me about 4 ft. up. It came from behind, but only a wall was behind me.
The following Monday, the coworkers, who had traveled with me, were put out. They had tried to call me many times Sunday for the return trip, but been unable to reach me. (Whenever we left, we had asked people in my sister���s dorm to take a message if we received a phone call). The coworkers knew our names, the college and dorm name and location, and the telephone number. I had taken a picture of them standing in front of her dorm talking to us. They finally took a train and cabs back, which was quite expensive. So, I don���t know why they couldn���t reach us.
We did not anticipate the observation, had no ���oz-factor��� experience, and did not experience the events as dream-like. Our environment seemed normal except for the object. Neither of us recall having had a hallucination. We were used to being out of doors, have excellent night vision. I had extensive training in photo interpretation, and in aircraft identification from my work.
Joe Nyman said that the airport closes at 11:00. We did not see the object land; it continued traveling to the Northeast. Since we watched this after 11:00 p.m., we saw no evidence that the object was from that airport. Walter Web said that an advertising airplanes used to use Norwood Airport. We were unable to confirm that one was flown on that date. However, we had both seen ad planes previously, and had watched this object closely. It had nothing in common with an ad airplane. For example when an ad plane is mistaken for a UFO people see the lit-up message swinging under the wings. This gives the appearance of the rotation of indistinct lights. In this case, the lit areas on this object were on the sides, and were in the form of distinct squares with right angle corners the entire time we observed it. The lights showed no evidence of rotation. In addition, it traveled toward the front of the squares. If it had been an ad plane, it would have been going perpendicular to the message board i.e., forward if one were located straight in front of the wings.
As further confirmation, many years later we found a letter my mother had written to her brother a few days after our sighting, describing it.
Since I wrote the previous description, I have read more about UFO phenomena. This has caused me to wonder if the strange man might have been a type of MIB sighting. It has been reported that the MIB are often interested in confiscating UFO photographs (The Complete Book of UFOs) or other material evidence. In this case, the man prevented me from taking the picture when the object was close. In addition, because the truck had been right under the UFO when it passed over the road, I also wondered if the whole event with the conversation with the truck driver and his later chasing us, might have been projected into our minds by the object.