by Charles Lear
In our last blog, we looked at a case involving three women in Kentucky who experienced actinic conjunctivitis after a UFO encounter. Since the blog was about multiple UFO-related conjunctivitis cases, we focused on that aspect of the encounter, but there was more to their story – a lot more.
According to the October 1976 APRO Bulletin (date from February 12, 1976 Kentucky Casey County Press) on January 6, 1976, Louise Smith, Mona Stafford, and Elaine Thomas were all sitting in the front seat of Smith’s 1967 Chevy, which she had bought the day before. Smith was driving and they were on their way back to Liberty, Kentucky, where they all lived, after having had dinner at the Redwoods restaurant 29 miles away, five miles north of Stanford, Kentucky. They had gone there to celebrate Stafford’s birthday (they reportedly didn’t drink any alcohol) and left at 11:15 p.m.
They were about one mile south of Stanford when they spotted a large metallic disc-shaped object with a glowing white dome. There were “three or four” lights on the underside that were red and yellow, and “a bluish beam of light issued from the bottom.” The object descended from their right to left and then hovered at tree level over the road in front of them. At this point, they were able to estimate its size. Smith said it was “as big as a football field,” and Stafford said it was about the size of two houses. It gently rocked back and forth for a couple of seconds and then moved off to their left.
Smith continued driving and then the women noticed a blue light coming from behind that lit up the inside of the car. At first, the women thought the light was coming from a police car but they quickly realized that it was coming from the object, which had circled around and come up behind them. At this point, the car started pulling to the left, and Smith yelled to Stafford to help her control it.
The car accelerated to 85 mph and Stafford and Thomas yelled at Smith to slow down. Smith responded by holding up her foot to show them that it wasn’t her doing the accelerating. Stafford grabbed the steering wheel and tried to help Smith regain control, and at this point, the women felt a burning sensation in their eyes and a pain that seemed to come down from the tops of their heads.
Suddenly, it seemed as if the car was being pulled backwards and that they were going over some speed bumps. The women then saw a strange lit-up road in front of them that went on for as far as they could see. Stafford noted that a red light was lit on the instrument panel that indicated the engine had stalled, but they still seemed to be moving at a high speed. Then, in what seemed to be an instant, the women found themselves coming into Hustonville, which was eight miles away from where they’d encountered the object.
They continued on into Liberty and arrived there at 1:25 a.m., whereas they should have arrived at around midnight. They seemed to have lost over one-and-a-half hours.
They all went into Smith’s trailer home and Smith went into the bathroom. She splashed water on her face and felt a burning sensation in her hands and face. She had taken off her watch and put it on the sink and she noticed that its hands were moving faster than normal, with the minute hand moving at the speed of a second hand.
All three women had marks like fresh burns on the backs of their necks. Stafford’s was on the left just behind her ear, and Smith’s and Thomas’s were centered. Their eyes were burning and tearing with what seemed to be conjunctivitis, and Stafford was later moved to seek medical attention.
The women went next door to their neighbor, Lowell Lee, and told him about their experience. He suggested that they all go into separate rooms and make sketches of the object. When they were done, Lee looked at the drawings and found them to be quite similar.
According to an article headlined “’IT’ is still a mystery – Trip home longer than usual.” In the February 12, 1976 Casey County Press, the women reported their experience to “Kentucky state troopers and the armed forces.”
An article about the case appeared in the February 1, 1976 Kentucky Advocate. APRO Field Investigator Bill Terry sent the article to Jim and Coral Lorenzen at APRO headquarters in Tucson,F Arizona. He followed up with a phone call and asked if they thought the case warranted him driving 60 miles to investigate. Coral told him she thought it did.
After Terry’s investigation, he called the Lorenzens and said that he thought the case involved abduction. The Lorenzens contacted APRO Psychiatric Consultant Dr. Leo Sprinkle, and arranged for his travel, at APRO’s expense, to interview the women and possibly conduct hypnosis sessions with them. Unfortunately, two other groups, the Mutual UFO Network and the Center for UFO Studies, had gotten involved and were less than welcoming upon encountering Sprinkle.
Next week: the investigation.