by Charles Lear
Starting in the 1960’s, UFOs began to interact with witnesses in a most unpleasant manner. In part one of this series, we looked at cases where people were injured by UFOs, specifically by being burned. One case involved an eight-year-old boy in Hobbs, New Mexico in 1964. This week we’ll look at another episode from 1968 that has a lot of similarities. Two other cases will be examined as well. One comes from New York, and the other is a famous case from Canada. All are unexplained and may make one think twice before approaching anything unusual floating in the sky.
The first case comes from a report in the May-June 1966 APRO Bulletin. On April 24, 1966, in Fleming, New York, 45-year-old Viola Smartwood was in the passenger seat, riding in a car with her husband. A glowing ball appeared out of the rain and hovered close by. They heard a “loud snap,” and a shock went through Mrs. Smartwood’s right side. She was paralyzed on that side and was taken to the hospital where she slowly regained motor control. As it was raining, ball lightning seems like a plausible explanation. The trouble is, it has not been scientifically confirmed that ball lightning actually exists, despite hundreds of years of reports.
Next up is a well-covered classic, but it’s interesting to consider it within this larger context. On May 20, 1967, a celebrated incident occurred near Falcon Lake in Manitoba, Canada. Stefan Michalak was an amateur geologist and was prospecting in the area when he sighted two disc-shaped craft descending in the southwest. He described them as looking like they had been milled out of a solid piece of steel. As he watched, one of the discs stopped and hovered 15 feet above him. The other one ascended and moved away towards the southwest changing colors from red to orange to grey until it disappeared from sight. In the meantime, the remaining object landed about 160 feet away from him and was also changing colors from red to iridescent steel. Michalek got out a pad of paper and sketched the object while looking at it for nearly 30 minutes. He described it as being 40 feet in diameter and 10 feet thick.
Starting in 1947, UFOs seemed to be engaging humanity in a step-by-step process. In the first few years, only the UFOs were reported. Then, there were accounts of occupants showing themselves during what has become known as the 1954 French Wave. An intimate encounter was described by Brazilian farmer, 
There is a classic Project Blue Book case known as, 
In 1961, Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe, USMC (Ret.) was the director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. That year, he and his organization were making life difficult for the Air Force with criticism of their UFO investigation, Project Blue Book. This was nothing new, but now they were close to getting open hearings in Congress to address their criticisms.
It was recently announced that the radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the world’s largest until 2016, is beyond repair and will be demolished. It is an icon of modern astronomy on par with the Very Large Array (seen in the movie “Contact”) located in New Mexico, and the news has stirred an emotional response among many. For UFOlogists, the Arecibo telescope holds a special significance. It was from this telescope on November 16, 1974, that the first, scientist approved message intended for extraterrestrial intelligence was sent. It consists of a series of binary numbers that code for a graphic giving basic information about the chemistry of life on earth, human DNA, human form, and the telescope itself. The message was designed by Cornell astronomy professor Dr. Frank Drake, with input from others including Dr. Carl Sagan. If anyone ever responds, there are many out there listening, from radio astronomers to those specifically searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. But, there are those who believe the call has already been returned.
On Aug. 15, 1977, a strong intermittent signal was picked up by the Big Ear telescope in Delaware, Ohio. It lasted for 72 seconds and stood out in sharp contrast to the background noise. The signal was powerful and unusual and prompted astronomer Jerry Ehman to write “Wow!” next to the signal on a printout. The team focused on the area of the signal’s origin, but it never returned. Observatory Director John Krauss wrote to Carl Sagan that the “signal is highly suggestive of extraterrestrial intelligent origin, but little more can be said until it returns for further study.”