by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
In the January 28, 1974, Jacksonville Journal out of Florida, there is an article (pages 5 and 9 of the pdf) by Lloyd Brown headlined “Did a Creature From UFO Land Here?” that tells the story of a Jacksonville man’s report of a UFO and creature encounter in 1972. He is said to have delayed in reporting it because he was afraid of being called, in his words, “some kind of nut.” According to the account, he decided to come forward after attending a lecture at Florida Junior College by the director of the UFO Research Institute, Stanton Friedman.
According to Brown, two years ago, 62-year-old Norman R. Chastain “of 2507 Kershaw Drive” found a plant growing in his yard that looked like “a devil’s head,” brought it to the paper, and a picture of him holding it was published in the Journal. That picture is presented in the 1974 article as well. Chastain is said to have not mentioned an incident prior to finding the plant and that he decided to talk about it now.
According to the account, late at night on January 26, 1972, Chastain, an electrician for the Seaboard Coast Railroad Company, was fishing near the eastern tip of Blount Island in the St. Johns River. At around 3:00 a.m., he noticed, in his words, “several orange and blue lights from over the St. Johns Bluff Monument.” He thought they were from a police or mosquito control helicopter, but he heard no sound. He said, “After a few minutes, the lights came directly towards my boat, and I could make out the outline of something like a half of a ball with lights flashing and changing colors about every minute.”
Chastain said he turned off the lights of his boat and put out the Coleman lantern he had burning, and the object moved off slowly back to the bluff. He said his boat had run aground at this point and that he went ashore to find something he could use as a lever to get his boat loose. After finding a two-by-six, he stopped to rest 75 feet away from his boat.
Chastain said that at this point, “I raised my spotlight to see if my boat was still in the muck, and in the edges of the bushes, I saw the darndest human-like creature one could ever imagine.” At this point, it is said that he was hit by a bright white light that made him dizzy, causing him to lay down in the grass.
According to Brown, Chastain said his arms and legs were tingling and that he stayed where he was and prayed until daybreak. He then crawled inland where he stayed until he regained his strength at around noon. His boat had drifted about 50 feet offshore, and after swimming out there he noticed, in his words, “an overpowering stench” in his hair and clothes that wasn’t there before he met the “devil-looking creature.” He said he washed and threw his clothes away before going home, where his wife commented that he didn’t look right, and he told her he’d gotten seasick.
According to Brown, three nights later, Chastain was dreaming that he was on another planet when he was awaked by a thunder clap and saw that it was raining. He noticed the same smell and stayed awake for the rest of the night holding a gun. He is quoted describing what he found in his yard after going outside the next morning: “There in the grass directly behind my boat at the same distance the creature was positioned on Blount Island was a cluster of several flesh-colored heads looking at me and they looked so much like that devil-looking creature I saw on the island that my first thought was the UFO was over my house that night looking for me.” He went looking for witnesses among his neighbors, but they were all away, and then he, in Brown’s words, “dug up the plants and brought one to the journal.”
Chastain is said to have described the plant as having teeth, big eyes, a wide mouth, pointed ears, and blood coming from it. He said that each plant shriveled up into a ball within six hours of being dug up and that no more have grown since.
According Brown, the Journal contacted the botany department of the University of Florida and was informed that the plant in question was a type of mushroom known as a stinkhorn.
While this case seems like a silly one-off that didn’t get beyond the local news, blogger Alleen Garoutta shared a report about the case on her blogspot.com site, UFOexperiences, saying, “The following article is my favorite UFO story. It ran in UFO Report about 15 years ago. I don’t have the exact date of the magazine because the pages have been torn out. I know you will find it as intriguing as I do…”
The article by B. Ann Slate is headlined “The Alien of Blount Island.” It starts off with Slate describing 600 people being turned away from a packed auditorium at Florida Junior College full of people waiting to hear “nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman” give his lecture, “Flying Saucers ARE Real.” Chastain is said to have been there and afterwards, to have written a letter to Friedman at the UFO Research Center in California. According to Slate, “The contents of that letter and the subsequent scientific research now being conducted as a result may make Norman Chastain’s encounter the most unique and conclusive in UFO history.”
After this, Chastain’s encounter is described, and there are more details about his boat, said to be a Sea Camper with lighting features he built himself, and there are more details about the creature. According to Slate, the creature was wearing “a tight-fitting suit that the witness compared to old-fashioned men’s underwear,” except that it shone slightly and was dark silver-grey. The creature is described as around five to five-and-a-half feet tall, with small arms, a large head, eyes that protruded and “resembled glass reflecting light,” pointed ears, “and a slightly angular chin.” A glowing disc is said to have been on top of its head.
According to Slate, Chastain and the “alien” looked at each other, and then, the creature suddenly “raised his left hand which held a flat device about three inches across.” She says there was a blinding flash, and “then the numbness started, a slow paralysis that began in his neck and moved throughout his body.”
The rest of the account is similar to that in the Journal, but there are these additional details regarding Chastain’s dreams: “Chastain began to experience vivid dreams of another planet with strange-looking beings, remarkably huge flowers, and assembly lines which put out saucer-shaped craft.”
The creatures reported in the 1955 Kelly-Hopkinsville Incident are brought up as being similar to Chastain’s creature. Although the description of the creature is scant in the Journal, a picture of one of the K-H creatures said to have been drawn by the Air Force is presented in that article and at the end of the caption it says, “Chastain wonders if this could be the same type creature he saw.”
The rest of the UFO Report article describes Chastain’s state of fear and excitement upon discovering the “heads” and explains that they were stinkhorns, but Slate questions whether the prosaic explanation for the “heads” eliminates “any connection between the alien on the island and the peculiar growths in Chastain’s backyard.”