by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
Reports of UFOs by truckers are common enough that an entire book could be devoted to this subject alone. Reports range from two drivers (a married couple) being chased by a bubble-shaped craft full of bird-like creatures, to an entire tractor-trailer being sucked up into a UFO, along with the trucker who was driving it. In 1972, a trucker in South Carolina claimed not only to have seen a UFO, but that it was following him on a nightly basis.
According to the article (page 4 of the pdf) headlined “Truck Driver Believes ‘Saucer’ follows Him,” in the January 26, 1973, Gaffney, South Carolina, Ledger, a driver for Charlotte-based Akers Motor Lines, Gerald Summey, reported that he had been followed for three months by “an oval-shaped object, which glows like a fluorescent light.” “At least a dozen of Summey’s trucker friends” are reported to have seen it as well. One sighting is described where Summey, along with another Charlotte-based truck driver, watched the object through binoculars as it landed in a field. It’s described as “oval, with a black base and holes all around the base area.” The personnel manager at Akers is reported to have had “no qualms” regarding Summey’s character and it is said that Summey “reportedly neither drinks, smokes, nor ‘pops pills’ to stay awake.”
Franklin Photo
It’s unusual (although not unique) for a witness to claim be followed by a UFO on a regular basis, and this presented the possibility that an unbiased observer could follow Summey during a run and verify his story. Edith Low, a reporter for The Charlotte News, was assigned to do just that, and she, along with a photographer, Tommy Franklin, followed Summey during a 500-mile trip to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This is reported at the end of the Ledger article, which refers to the January 23, 1973, edition of The Charlotte News as its source.
Low tells the story of their journey in the article (page 6 of pdf) headlined “Staffers See Object Three Times.” According to Low, Franklin was not very enthusiastic, and thought the idea of trying to get a picture of a flying saucer was “ridiculous,” while she was looking forward to the assignment. She describes herself as being “overwhelmed,” after talking to Summey and his fellow truckers, by “the magnitude of what might be out there,” but adds that she was not a believer.
According to Low, after they loaded Franklin’s photo equipment into the car, Franklin said goodbye to his wife and three children, who were watching, and they headed for the Akers terminal where they met up with Summey and his partner, Douglas Pye. She says the truck and the car were equipped with two-way radios that had a range of about a mile.
According to Low, just before reaching Concord, the truck pulled over, and Summey came running towards them pointing to the right saying, “There it is, there it is.” She describes Franklin getting out of the car with his camera and unable to see what Summey was pointing at until Summey calmed down and pointed out what Low says “looked like a low, bright star” that moved toward Charlotte and then stopped. She says it was too far away for Franklin to photograph but that she was looking at it through binoculars, and she describes it this way:
I could see an oval-shaped blur of bright greenish white light with a rosy glow near the center.
“It is something oval and it is bright,” I told the others.
The object began to dance up and down so rapidly that the lights formed an erratic pattern in the sky, much like the pattern of the heartbeat of a dying person on a scanner in an operating room.
Franklin is described as being “affected,” and Summey is described as being “excited,” and is said to have run down a slope into a muddy field saying “It may come into me if I go out there,” with no result other than getting his feet wet. He is quoted as saying, “It’ll come closer. It’ll come right in before the night is over.” Low reports that the object stayed with them as they continued on and that Summey ran into a field once more along the way “to no avail.”
While they all took a break at a truck stop in Rustburg, Franklin is said to have observed the object through binoculars and to have described it as being “like a tire spinning with the treads toward us. According to Low, Summey and Pye were in the restaurant telling people what they’d been seeing, and no one came out when they were invited to see for themselves.
Low describes the group leaving “in high spirits.” She says Summey suggested that Pye ride along in the car while he went on ahead by himself to see if the object would come closer. She says that when they went to leave, they waited at the entrance for Summey to pass them and take the lead, and when he didn’t, Pye speculated that he might have gone out another way.
According to Low, they couldn’t raise Summey on the radio and assumed he’d be waiting for them at a gas station in Lychburg. When they didn’t find him there, they drove back towards the truck stop, and as they did, Pye spotted the object behind them. He said that they would find Summey in that direction as the object always stayed with him. They turned around and found Summey five miles beyond where they’d first doubled back.
According to Low, they continued their trip and, as of 4:00 a.m., they had yet to get any pictures of the object. They decided to continue on until “broad daylight” and then get a hotel room where they could rest. She then describes Summey stopping the truck at 6:40 a.m. as the sun was coming up. She says Summey pointed out the object and Franklin started to take pictures. She describes the object as she saw it through binoculars this way:
The same sparkly oval was there. It was almost like a ferris wheel spinning, its lights a blur of rosy red, greenish white. It was lower and closer than it had been all night, but still not close enough to distinguish from a star with the human eye.
According to Low, the object moved up out of sight as the sun rose. She closes the article saying, “Tommy looked at me and expressed my unspoken thoughts . . . ‘I’m a believer,’ he said.” A photo of Franklin’s showing a blob of light is included in the article.