+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| [On This Day]                                                         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Encounters with Aliens on this Day                                   |
|                                                                       |
|  April 18                                                             |
|                                                                       |
| 1897 - A cigar-shaped UFO hovered over the town of Sisterville, West  |
| Virginia at 8:30 p.m.. It directed brilliant searchlights down toward |
| the ground. It appeared to have large fins or wings, and flashing     |
| red, white and green lights on the sides and on each end. Several     |
| witnesses estimated the length of the object to be 180 feet long.     |
| (Source: Gordon I.R. Lore, Jr. and Harold Dennault, Jr., Mysteries of |
| the Skies: UFOs in Perspective, p. 21).                               |
|                                                                       |
| 1945 - There were two radar-visual UFO reports on this day from the   |
| Far East near Iwo Jima. At three o'clock in the morning ground        |
| control radar made radar contact with an unknown radar target over    |
| the Pacific Ocean at a distance of 18 to 8 miles from the island. The |
| gunner in a P-61B "Black Widow" aircraft attached to the 549th NFS    |
| squadron saw a yellow, star-like light approach and lose altitude.    |
| Radar contact was then lost. The gunner saw a second light, but no    |
| radar contact was made with it. At 4:15 a.m. Ground control again     |
| made radar contact with a target. The gunner of a P-61B plane saw a   |
| reddish, round light. Contact on the radar screen showed two blips    |
| engaging in evasive action, which soon outdistanced the P-61, one of  |
| the fastest propeller driven aircraft of its time. (Source: Jan       |
| Aldrich, Project 1947 website).                                       |
|                                                                       |
| 1950 - At 10:30 a.m. three observers in Pullman, Washington saw two   |
| dark delta-shaped objects fly to the north; they joined a             |
| saucer-shaped object and circled a hill. The saucer then flew off to  |
| the north, while the "kites" flew off to the south. (Source: Larry    |
| Hatch, U computer database, case # 1691; newspaper clipping dated     |
| April 21, 1950).                                                      |
|                                                                       |
| 1950 - CAA observers in Clarendon, Texas saw an unidentified object   |
| to the southeast, while observers in Childress, Texas about 50 miles  |
| to the SE saw the object to the northwest, and triangulated the       |
| stationary object about midway between, near Memphis, Texas. The      |
| sighting began around 9 a.m. and the object was on radar for four     |
| hours. This radar-visual case involved the crew of an F-61C as it was |
| flying over Memphis around 11:00 a.m. as well as separate ground      |
| radars. A silver sphere that tilted was seen, and it did not move     |
| significantly despite winds aloft. Northrop engineering test pilot    |
| Max Stanley and observers Lloyd Balsam and Sam F. West were asked to  |
| intercept the object when they took off in their F-61C (AF 8357) from |
| Amarillo on an MX-775 test of a Navaho missile celestial guidance     |
| test. A B-36 was also scrambled and took off from Fort Worth to       |
| intercept. On the same day at 10:50 a.m. two military wives in        |
| Sherman, Texas saw 18-20 flat silent silver discs race to the north,  |
| then maneuver for 4-5 minutes. (Sources: Loren E. Gross, UFOs: A      |
| History. 1950: April-July, pp. 26-27; Jan Aldrich).                   |
|                                                                       |
| 1952 - 50 miles northwest of Kyushu, Japan (129.85 E, 34.32 N). Radar |
| tracked an unidentified target for one minute flying at 2,700 mph.    |
| (Sources: US Air Force Project Blue Book files counted in official    |
| statistics; Don Berliner, Project Bluebook UFO Unknowns).             |
|                                                                       |
| 1952 - At 4:00 a.m. in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Canada Mr. C.      |
| Hamilton, a janitor, saw a yellow-gold colored spherical object make  |
| a sharp turn in the sky. It left a short, dark trail for one minute.  |
| Eighteen hours later at 10:10 p.m. a newspaper reporter, Chic Shave,  |
| sighted the same round, yellow-gold object as it flew to the south    |
| and then returned. His sighting lasted 90 seconds. (Sources: Quebec   |
| Chronicle-Telegraph, April 19, 1952; Don Berliner, Project Bluebook   |
| UFO Unknowns).                                                        |
|                                                                       |
| 1952 - In Bethesda, Maryland at 11:30 a.m. Mr. R. Poerstal and three  |
| other men sighted seven to nine circular, orange-yellow lights in a   |
| 40-degree V or U-formation as they flew overhead silently for eight   |
| seconds at a high speed, from south to north. (Sources: US Air Force  |
| Project Blue Book files counted in official statistics, case 1128;    |
| Don Berliner, Project Bluebook UFO Unknowns).                         |
|                                                                       |
| 1952 - On this day in Yuma, Arizona two Army weather observation      |
| students sighted a flat-white circular object flying in a very        |
| erratic manner. The sighting lasted approximately 10 seconds.         |
| (Source: Don Berliner, Project Bluebook UFO Unknowns).                |
|                                                                       |
| 1953 - A huge cigar-shaped UFO flew over Wilmington, Delaware at      |
| 11:15 a.m. and was sighted by a Ground Observer Corps observer. It    |
| was flashing as it passed over the city, heading northwest. (Sources: |
| Wilmington News, July 9, 1954; Donald Keyhoe, Flying Saucer           |
| Conspiracy, p. 186).                                                  |
|                                                                       |
| 1960 - At 9:00 p.m. Mr. Arnold saw a round, fiery red flying object   |
| approach at high speed from the south in Lacamp, Louisiana. It        |
| touched the ground about 300 meters away with a loud explosion heard  |
| by many people, and a flame. It bounced in an easterly direction for  |
| about 300 meters, then rose again, turned west and disappeared. The   |
| ground was scarred in nine places, and a substance resembling         |
| metallic paint was found. (Source: Jacques Vallee, Passport to        |
| Magonia: A Century of Landings, case 503).                            |
|                                                                       |
| 1961 - Mr. Paul Simonton, a Chicken farmer in Eagle River, Wisconsin  |
| saw a disc-shaped carft land vertically on his farm. A hatch opened,  |
| and when he approached he saw three human-looking men inside. They    |
| asked him for some water. They appeared to be cooking pancakes on a   |
| griddle, and in exchange for the water they gave him four of the      |
| pancakes from griddle. The men were described as five feet tall with  |
| dark hair. They wore blue knit outfits and helmets. The newspapers    |
| had a field day with this report, but private UFO investigators who   |
| interviewed Mr. Simonton found him to be sincere and his story        |
| uncomplicated. (Sources: Allen Utke case files, case 6; Milwaukee     |
| Journal, April 23, 1961; George D. Fawcett, Flying Saucers, May 1963, |
| p. 34; NICAP UFO Investigator, May 1961, p. 8; Jacques Vallee,        |
| Passport to Magonia, p. 23).                                          |
| 1962 - According to Lt. Colonel Herbert Rolph, on this evening at     |
| 7:20 p.m. NORAD tracked a UFO across the entire continental United    |
| States. (Source: Larry Hatch, U computer database, case 6174).        |
|                                                                       |
| 1966 - On this evening there were four good UFO reports made in the   |
| northeastern United States in Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio. At   |
| 7:15 p.m. an elongated oval-shaped UFO with reddish green flashing    |
| lights on each end hovered over Peabody, Massachusetts, zipped        |
| around, and maneuvered to the horizon and back three times. The       |
| perimeter of the object glowed blue. A dense light was seen hovering  |
| only three feet above a roadway in Albany, New York. A blinding       |
| bright object with intense red lights landed on a road in Lancaster,  |
| Ohio and then flew off through a corn field. The witness, Mr. P.      |
| Friend, had sore and bloodshot eyes after his sighting from looking   |
| at the object. At 9:45 p.m. a UFO responded to a searchlight directed |
| at it in Cohasset, Massachusetts by zigzagging, turning off its       |
| lights, and shooting straight up into the sky. (Sources: Raymond E.   |
| Fowler, UFOs: Interplanetary Visitors, p. 338; Richard Bonenfant,     |
| Proceedings of the 1976 CUFOS Conference, p. 48, citing the Albany    |
| Knickerbocker; NICAP UFO Investigator, June 1966, p. 7; Walter N.     |
| Webb case investigation files, case 60).                              |
|                                                                       |
| 1967 - At 8:05 p.m. in Athens, Ohio a college professor and four      |
| others watched an unidentified light source that alternated between   |
| yellow and pink as it moved over a wide arc of sky at moderate speed. |
| Their sighting lasted 10 minutes. At 8:30 p.m. the wife of the Ohio   |
| University director of the center for social science education saw a  |
| dull white oval for ten seconds. (Source: NICAP report forms,         |
| www.nicap.org).                                                       |
|                                                                       |
| 1967 - At 8:00 p.m. in Point Pleasant, West Virginia a pilot and      |
| ground observers saw an anomalous "light bearing object" in the sky.  |
| The pilot attempted to close with the object and flashed his landing  |
| lights to get its attention, but there was no response and the object |
| disappeared. (Source: West Virginia Register, April 1967; NICAP       |
| files).                                                               |
|                                                                       |
| 1972 - In the afternoon two British tourists in Pokhara, Nepal took a |
| photograph of a swarm of white dots that merged into discs, and then  |
| made fantastic maneuvers, flying off to the west. (Source: FSR, July  |
| 1973, p. 3).                                                          |
|                                                                       |
| 1975 - A luminous disc came out from behind a house in Piano Chiesa,  |
| Italy at 7:50 p.m. and shot up into the sky. (Source: Maurizio Verga, |
| ITACAT: Italian UFO Catalogue).                                       |
|                                                                       |
| 1976 - On this night in 1976 Ms. Larson was abducted out of her bedroom in   |
| Fargo, North Dakota to a UFO some distance away from her house.       |
| Inside the UFO she was put on a slab and hooked up to a complex of    |
| wires. She was levitated back to her house at dawn. She saw a small   |
| metallic cube zigzag and land on her lawn on the return trip.         |
| (Source: David F. Webb and Ted Bloecher, HUMCAT: Catalogue of         |
| Humanoid Reports, case A1467, citing Jerome Clark).                   |
|                                                                       |
| 1977 - At 1:20 a.m. a Mr. O'Connor reported seeing occupants inside a |
| UFO from the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tucson, Arizona. Mr. |
| Thrupp and Mr. Mancor, two weathermen in Vancouver, British Columbia  |
| watched an orange and blue cigar-shaped UFO with black portholes pass |
| over the city in the predawn sky. It flashed as it went from south to |
| north. (Sources: Center for UFO Studies case files, June 1977,        |
| International UFO Reporter, August 1977, p. 2).                       |
|                                                                       |
| 1984 - A rectangular UFO hovered only 100 feet above the side of a    |
| road near the RAF Lakenheath Air Base in England. It had red, green   |
| and white lights, and was silent. (Source: International UFO          |
| Reporter, March 1986, p. 5).                                          |
|                                                                       |
| 1989 - On this night a terminally ill patient staying in the          |
| cardiology ward of the Kirv hospital located in the Crimea, Russia    |
| suddenly felt a strong wind penetrate her room, even though the doors |
| were closed. A dazzling white light and a man dressed in white then   |
| appeared. The man's eyes radiated a brilliant light. The witness      |
| asked where he was from and she was told "the tenth dimension." She   |
| was then told that she would soon be able to walk. After that the man |
| and the light disappeared. The next day other witnesses saw strange   |
| white and red lights moving slowly along the body of the terminally   |
| ill patient, who then heard a loud clear voice telling her to "get up |
| and leave." She was able to do so and was apparently cured, but there |
| is no report on the current health of the woman. (Source: Albert S.   |
| Rosales, Humanoid Contact Database 1989, case 121, citing Sergei      |
| Bulantsev, UFO Universe, October-November 1991).                      |
|                                                                       |
| 1990 - A man driving in Milton, Florida at 11:00 p.m. saw a spherical |
| UFO approximately 1,000 feet away. The object, about 20-45 feet in    |
| diameter, first hovered, then appeared to pace his automobile. It     |
| appeared to change shape. It was last seen descending below the       |
| Escambia Bay Bridge. (Source: MUFON field investigation files, case   |
| 900818).                                                              |
|                                                                       |
| 1993 - A UFO hovered in the broad daylight on this afternoon in New   |
| Port Ritchie, Florida. It then rose up into the sky until it was gone |
| from view. (Source: Paul Ferrughelli, Computer Catalog of UFO         |
| Reports, 1988-1994, case 1511).                                       |
|                                                                       |
| 1997 - Sitting on their porch at 12:45 a.m. in La Grange, California  |
| the witnesses first thought they saw a flock of birds, but soon it    |
| became apparent they were looking at a UFO that was slowly flying     |
| over the Kroger store on Commerce Avenue. It then came toward them.   |
| When directly overhead the object "sped up and rapidly disappeared."  |
| (Source: MUFON field investigation files, case 970418E).              |
|                                                                       |
| 1998 - At seven p.m. a group of witnesses in Kamloops, British        |
| Columbia observed a silver disc hovering nearby. A second object      |
| appeared and circled the first one, then both UFOs shot straight up   |
| into the sky. (Source: UFO Research Manitoba, 1998 Canadian UFO       |
| Survey, case 19).                                                     |
|                                                                       |
| 2003 - A man was returning home from work at 1:00 a.m. in Calgary,    |
| Alberta, Canada and as he came out of an alley he saw a dwarfish      |
| figure run across the street between two cars. It was about four feet |
| tall, humanoid shaped, and running on two legs. When the figure       |
| disappeared the witness ran to the place where it had last been seen, |
| and had the feeling he was being watched. The witness could only      |
| describe the figure as having brown legs, and as it ran it seemed to  |
| be hunched over like it was trying not to be seen. (Source: Albert S. |
| Rosales, Humanoid Contact Database 2003, citing Peter Davenport,      |
| National UFO Reporting Center, Seattle).                              |
|                                                                       |
| 2003 - Kaliningrad, Russia - At 6:17 p.m. the entire Russian Baltic    |
| Fleet and a large number of local residents watched in awe as a       |
| flying wing shaped UFO flew rapidly over Kaliningrad Harbor and       |
| plunged into the water. The event was captured on video by a local    |
| RTR Russian State Television news crew, who happened to be present on |
| the huge naval base filming a documentary. The UFO had two elongated  |
| dome-like protrusions on top, and three similar structures            |
| underneath. It passed directly over the Baltic Fleet, which lay at    |
| anchor in Kaliningrad Harbor. According to a Russian Naval Commander, |
| who wished to remain anonymous, the craft was apparently caught       |
| within the sweep patterns of ship-borne radars, which automatically   |
| tracked its progress. This may have caused some a malfunction on      |
| board the craft that resulted in the crash. "It was traveling at a    |
| tremendous rate of speed" he said to the reporters on the scene. "It  |
| was very low, not more than 1500 meters above the surface of the      |
| water. When the radars came on, it simply winged over and dove into   |
| the water, as if had lost either power or control."                   |
|                                                                       |
| The light gray craft had no apparent seams or rivet patterns and was  |
| estimated to be about the size of a small airliner. It was estimated  |
| to be traveling at speeds in excess of Mach 2 and was absolutely      |
| silent as it flew. However, it made a tremendous noise when it hit    |
| the water, causing a geyser of steam and water. ,It appeared to one   |
| civilian observer that whoever was in control of the craft made a     |
| deliberate effort to steer it away from the naval ships and the       |
| shoreline before it went into the harbor. One Sovremini Class         |
| Destroyer was slightly damaged by flying debris, but no injuries were |
| reported. Radiation levels at the site were "higher than normal."     |
| Debris recovered was small, less than a meter in diameter. Most       |
| debris recovered appeared to be "skin material" of an unknown alloy,  |
| and interior bracing and piping composed of a very high grade         |
| aluminum. The Navy cordoned off the area. In spite of the high speed  |
| at which the craft and it's very low altitude there was no sonic boom |
| heard. (Source: Albert S. Rosales, Humanoid Contact Database 2003,    |
| citing UFO Casebook Forum, Russian Newspaper Sources).                |
|                                                                       |
| 2006 - Two couples observed a disc-shaped object skimming over a lake |
| in Christiana Lake, Ontario, Canada at 10:45 p.m. The object was      |
| increasing and lowering its altitude, and seemed to be internally     |
| lit. It also had a line of bright blue lights in a marquee pattern.   |
| (Source: Geoff Dittman, 2006 Canadian UFO Survey Report, case # 143,  |
| citing www.ufoinfo.com)                                               |
|                                                                       |
| Written by Donald A. Johnson, Ph.D. (Revised 18 April 2014)           |
|                                                                       |
| Compiled from the UFOCAT computer database.                           |
|                                                                       |
| Themes: abrupt sharp turns; cigar-shaped                              |
| UFOs; crashes of UFOs and a retrieval of a UFO; discs; erratic motion |
| ; human-looking UFO occupants, multicolored UFOs; multi-year UFO repo |
| rts from Florida and Russia; physiological effects: sore eyes; radar  |
| tracking of UFOs; red UFOs; short humanoid; silent UFOs; spherical UF |
| Os; trace residue resembling metallic paint; V-shaped UFOs or V-shape |
| d formation of UFOs; vertical ascent; white UFOs; yellow-orange UFOs. |
|                                                                       |
| © Donald A. Johnson                                                   |
|                                                                       |
|  < Calendar | Home                                                    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
