Prologue by Martin Willis: Charles Lear suggested that I repost this blog in honor of the loss of dear friend, and iconic UFO researcher, Lee Speigel last week. I titled it according to what Lee told me his response was to J. Allen Hynek’s request. Hynek asked him to travel to North Carolina to meet with police officers experiencing a repeating encounter with a triangle UFO. Lee’s response was; “You want me to go to North Carolina to check out a flying Dorito? Of course I will, I am in!”
by Charles Lear (re-post)
It is often the case with UFO investigators that once they get to an area where a UFO has been reported, the UFO is long gone, and all they can do is interview witnesses. This is important as a means of creating a record of the case that can be referred to by future investigators and researchers. But, occasionally an investigator gets the chance to be a witness and actually observe what had been reported. This happened to investigator Lee Speigel who was looking into a series of sightings by as many as thirty police officers and 50 civilians in Lumberton, North Carolina in 1975. Spiegel submitted a report on the case to the director of the Center for UFO Studies and former Project Blue Book scientific consultant, J. Allen Hynek. The case file resides in the archives housed by David Marler in New Mexico.
Along with Speigel’s report and contemporary newspaper clippings, there is also a series of paper slips in the file folder containing call information, presumably filled out at a CUFOS UFO call center. (If anyone can confirm this, please comment.) According to Speigel’s report, a violent thunderstorm in the area ended at 1:35 a.m. on April 3, 1975. A “call slip” in the case file has the information that at 1:45 a.m., Sheriff Ronn Thompson was monitoring the radio while working as the dispatcher at the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office in Lumberton when the first report of a strange object came in. It was seen by Robeson County Officer Phil Stanton and then by two officers from St. Paul. All three described the object as v-shaped with red, blue, and clear lights. A slip with 5:15 a.m., filled in for the time has the information that two Sampson County officers saw a similar object that put a spotlight on them as it moved off. One of the officers “clocked it” at 200 mph. It appears that there was a full fledge flap after 10:00 p.m. that night because a slip with 10:15-10:30 p.m. filled in for the time has information on the back that officers from four different police departments and 50 “citizens” reported seeing something.
Call SlipAccording to Speigel’s report, Thompson called CUFOS to let them know about the sightings. Thompson said that he didn’t share the descriptions of the object with any other officers and was “amazed” by the similarities between all the reports. On the evening of April 3, a report was sent out over the UPI news wire which caught the attention of someone at the National Star. Speigel was asked if he would be willing to fly to Lumberton with one of their reporters and “cover the situation first hand.” Speigel discussed the matter with Hynek and then headed for Lumberton “seriously wondering what it was that made so many law enforcement people begin to believe in UFOs”
Speigel wrote that he surveyed the area from the air as he was landing and saw it consisted of forests, swamps, lakes, canals, and that the Atlantic Ocean was to the east. He was determined to find a logical explanation for what were reports from “credible and reliable” witnesses. He got to the Robeson County Sheriff’s office on April 4, at 9:15 p.m., and there were reports coming into the dispatcher at that time from citizens and police officers.
Call Slip 2A statement on the title page of the report informs the reader that material is “taken directly from taped interviews of witnesses involved,” and there are witness reports in quotes throughout. A common description was of a bright light in the front of the object that would light up the area underneath it, and one witness said it got so bright that he had to look away. One report was of the object lighting “up the woods like they were on fire” and then rising up to 300 feet and taking off to the east “real fast.” Spiegel investigated the area and saw no evidence of a landing.
All of the witnesses described hearing no noise from the object except one who said it made a “SHHHHHHH type of noise” when it turned. Descriptions of the object’s size rage from the size of an average car to a twin engine Cessna. It reportedly hovered for periods of up to 45 minutes.
On several occasions, officers pursued the object. Ronn Thompson reported that he was off-duty but out on alert on Friday night after 9:00 p.m. when he spotted a craft and then chased it. He caught up with it and it hovered above him. He got out of his car, reached into it and blinked his headlights twice. According to him, the craft blinked it’s “headlight” twice in response. In addition to the light up front, Thompson noticed a light on the back as well. The craft moved off and Thompson continued his pursuit until he lost it behind some trees. He said he got to within 100 yards of it and that it was unlike any conventional man-made aircraft.
Meanwhile, Speigel was told by Robeson County Sheriff’s Office Director of Communications J. Freeman that an FAA official at Grannis Field in Fayetteville had offered the suggestion that the sightings on Thursday had been of a Boeing 737 during a series of training flights. As for the sightings on Friday, once the reports started coming in, no one had been able to contact the FAA official who had made the suggestion.
Speigel met up with Thompson in the hopes of seeing the object for himself. It was 10:00 p.m., and they drove through areas where sightings had been reported. They heard reports from other officers over the radio and moved towards the area. Then, at 11:54 p.m., they saw a large light that seemed to be approaching them as it increased in brightness. They stopped the car and heard no noise, but Speigel notes that they were about 500 yards from it and might not have heard noise even if it was an aircraft. The light then turned red and started pulsating. Then Speigel saw another red light on the other side of the road moving in the same direction and pulsating at the same rate. Speigel wrote that he “still wasn’t impressed or convinced.”
Then, at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, as they were driving near Pembroke, they got a call over the radio that a v-shaped craft was headed in their direction. They soon saw a bright white light moving slowly 15-20 feet above the trees 500-600 feet away from them. They stopped and watched as the object moved slowly to the north, stopping and starting, never going more than 20 mph. Freeman and reporter Paul Dougherty joined them and verified that they were seeing the same thing.
The cars’ engines and lights were off. The craft stopped and its light became intensely bright, reminding Speigel of a magnesium flare. It hovered silently for over a minute. A car with three deputies had got to a good vantage point and radioed that they too were observing the craft.
Then the craft turned completely red “in the flash of an eye” and began to pulsate. It moved slowly and haltingly to the south and the observers watched it for around six minutes until it was gone from view. There were more sightings and more pursuits after that. In his report, Speigel says he concluded “that the object could not have been any type of airplane . . . it was very strange indeed.”
Despite the large number of police witnesses and civilian witnesses, this case has not received a great deal of attention. It lives in the memory of Ronn Thompson, Lee Spiegel, the many other witnesses, and in a file cabinet in New Mexico waiting for researchers to tell its story.