by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”
In 1968, the Condon Committee was wrapping up the UFO study at the University of Colorado that was commissioned by the Air Force. Coming too late for inclusion in that study was an incident in Gleeson, Arizona, that involved reported landings and possible traces left behind. It was investigated by Jim and Coral Lorenzen of the Tucson, Arizona, based Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, and the witnesses filled out report forms for the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. There is no report in the APRO Bulletin on the case, or in NICAP’S publication, The UFO Investigator, but there is an article by Cecil James headlined “Gleeson UFO Leaves Traces” in the October 19, 1968, Tucson Daily Citizen.
James describes the main witness, Pearl Christiansen, as 71 years old, slender, with a kind smile and grey-blue eyes that “seemed to say ‘howdy stranger.’” According to him, she moved to Gleeson in 1922 to work as a teacher for the children of the 81 mining families that lived there and had seen many things: “floods, droughts, rattlesnakes, wildlife and meteorites – but never until this August a UFO.” He quotes her describing two objects she said she saw east of her ranch house on August 26, the first of which he describes as “a huge circular object” she saw sitting on the south side of Brown’s Peak at 7200 feet:
I had just lowered the chain gate on the road to my house when I saw it. I drove across the chain, sat in the car for five minutes and wondered what I should do. It looked as though there were a train of lights trailing from one side. Should I report it? No…I thought maybe it would disappear, so I drove on. But it remained. When I went through another gate, I saw a second object – very shiny and gold. It was also stationary and once in a while both would glow simultaneously.
James describes Christiansen at this point as sensing some doubt in her listeners and saying, “I don’t drink anything stronger than Orange Crush or 7-Up.” She went on to describe the second object as having a bright pink band and a red band around its perimeter. She said the red band turned wine-colored, then purple, then gold. She said that when she looked at the object through binoculars it was blurred and so bright that it hurt her eyes.
According to James, Christiansen got a blanket and a pillow and set herself up in a chair on her porch and watched the objects from 9:00 p.m. until just before midnight, which is when she said they disappeared. He asked her if they flew away and she said “No. They seemed to back into the valley behind the peak.”
James reports there was another witness, Mrs. Willard Mayfield, who ran the Gleeson museum with her husband, who said she saw a bright light on the peak the same night as Christiansen but thought it might have been a reflection in the glass of the door to her house and didn’t pay much attention to it. Even so, 48 hours later, she and Christiansen went up to the top of the peak in a pickup truck to take a look. Mayfield said that as they got to the top, they noticed a “queer acid-like” smell that “was nothing like our fuels smell – gasoline or diesel – or at least nothing like what we know of.” She also said that the rocks in the area were so hot that “you couldn’t hold your hands on them.”
James had reported earlier in the article that he brought photographer and “UFO buff” Dan Torterell along to help with the story and that they went up Brown’s Peak where they saw scorched grass and cacti. Jim Lorenzen is said to have come along and not to have been convinced that the burnt areas were connected to the UFOs. James later quotes Lorenzen as saying that the fire there “may have been set by hippies who live in the valley east of the peak. They are quite ritualistic.” Lorenzen added that there were fires reported on the peak during the afternoon before the sighting. James says “I doubt if ‘our mortal beings’ set the fires.”
According to James, Christiansen “filled out papers for the Army” at nearby Fort Huachuca and a spokesman there said that investigation was the responsibility of the Air Force.
Pearl Christiansen Report FormBesides filling out forms for the Army, Christiansen also filled out a sighting report form for NICAP. Mrs. Mayfield did as well, and Mr. Mayfield provided a description of the burned areas seen on the peak. While Mrs. Mayfield filled out her form neatly and provided all the details asked for, Christiansen had more to say than would fit and scrawled the details of her sighting wherever she could find room.
Mr. Mayfield’s report includes the information that on August 28, 1968, he, Christiansen and “a retired Army major” (we assume his wife was along based on James’s article, though he doesn’t mention her) drove up the peak as far as they could and then walked the remaining half mile to the top. According to him, they saw strips of burned cacti and grass that were about 40 feet long and 20-30 feet wide that alternated with strips of unburned areas. He describes the rocks as showing signs of being subjected to “intense heat” and being too hot to handle and an odor unlike anything he “could compare it with.”
While NICAP might have been interested in the case, that organization was focused, as were others in the UFO community, on the upcoming release of the Condon Report, which caused a furor when it came out in January 1969. At least James and Torterell were impressed.
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