Blog by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
Amidst the many assorted descriptions of UFO-related entities, silver-suited humanoids, sometimes with antennas, show up in many reports. They are described repeatedly in the 1976 Center for UFO Studies publication by David Webb, 1973 – Year of the Humanoids, and there were several reports during the 1977 flap in what has been called “The Welsh Triangle” that we wrote about recently. In this week’s blog, we’ll look at a couple of cases from the Southern United States, the second of which became quite well-known.
In the January 4, 1981, issue of The Robesonian out of Lumberton, North Carolina, there is an article (page 7 of the pdf) by Tim Lewis headlined “Shining Silver Man Stalks Forest Acres Area.” According to Lewis, the previous Tuesday at around 10 p.m., a couple had just exited Barker Ten Mile Road when they saw a round flashing light near the turnoff at Bee Gee and McLeod. As they got closer, they were able to determine that the light was located in a vacant wooded lot.
They turned onto McLeod Street, and a shiny figure came out of the bushes waving its arms as if it was signaling them to stop. They thought better of it, sped up, and continued on.
Lewis tells the reader that he did some research after hearing the story and found an article in the Robesonian files that described multiple reports of the same sort of figure. There is a reprint of the article headlined “Area Residents Report Sighting UFO Sunday.”
According to the article, dated December 30, 1974, county dispatcher Fred Barnes said there were four calls from residents who said they saw an “object or subject wearing a silver and black suit and wearing some kind of helmet.” They all said that when they saw it, it jumped into the bushes at the intersection of Forest Road and Barker Ten Mile Road. There were also reports of a white object with bright lights over Forest Acres. Four deputies investigated and didn’t find anything.
Lewis notes that that the events reported in both instances occurred in the month of December around the time of a full moon in the same area. He then goes on to describe other strange reports received by the staff at the paper.
According to Lewis, there was a series of recent reports from residents living along a railroad track going through Forest acres involving loud wailing and voices speaking in a foreign language. About two weeks prior to Lewis’s article, a resident said she saw a figure run from her yard into the woods. When her husband went outside to investigate, he found a set of fence posts had been pulled out of the ground. Lewis has this to say about the effort involved: “Evidently, this had to have taken super-human strength to have pulled fence posts out of the ground bare-handed.”
During the “Year of the Humanoids,” on October 17, 1973, 26-year-old, recently-elected Falkville, Alabama, Chief of Police Jeff Greenhaw reported an encounter with a silver-suited humanoid and had four Polaroid photos to back it up. A comprehensive examination of the case can be found in the blog by Mark Russell Bell headlined “Detailed Report of Jeff Greenhaw’s Falkville Incident Alien Encounter Testimonial” posted on August 4, 2020, at metaphysicalarticles.org. Along with reproduced articles on the case from Official UFO Magazine, Bell includes one from the October 19, 1973, Birmingham News and one from the November 16, 1973, Decatur Daily. His source for those was the 1975 book by Ralph and Judy Blum, Beyond Earth: Man’s Contact With UFOs. The originals are available with a subscription at newspapers.com and the Decatur Daily website.
According to the Birmingham News article headlined “Falkville Chief Says ‘Howdy’ to Spaceman,” Greenhaw was at home when he received a call from a woman who told him, in the reporter’s words, “that a spaceship with flashing lights had landed in a field west of the city.” Because there had been “numerous reports” of UFOs in the area, Greenhaw took along a camera as he drove to the site.
As he was driving down a gravel road, he saw a human-shaped creature standing in the middle of it. The creature walked towards him, and Greenhaw took four photos. He said “I was scared stiff.” The creature was covered in a material like tin foil and had an antenna on top of its head. Greenhaw said, “It moved stiffly, like a robot, and didn’t make any sounds.”
Greenhaw turned on the blue flasher on top of his car, and the creature turned around and took off running down the road. Greenhaw said, “I jumped into my car and took after him, but I couldn’t even catch up with him in a patrol car. He was running faster than any human I ever saw.”
Greenhaw told the paper he received multiple calls the day after from people who said they had seen UFOs in the area during the time of his encounter. His wife is reported to have laughed the incident off, and Greenhaw commented, “She wouldn’t be laughing if she saw what I saw.”
There is a follow-up article in the November 16, 1973, Decatur Daily. Headlined “Falkville Police Chief Resigns Under Pressure,” it describes the unfortunate events in Greenhaw’s life following his encounter. Besides being asked to resign by the mayor, his car engine “blew up,” his wife divorced him, and his mobile home burned down. Greenhaw is quoted describing his situation:
“So now I’ve lost my car, my wife, my home, and my job, and I guess I’ll just have to go where ever I can to find another job. I had planned to stay in Falkville in spite of all of the problems I have been having, but now it doesn’t look like I can.”
The four photos made the rounds among UFO enthusiasts and were used on the cover of Beyond Earth.
Georgia-based NICAP Investigator Marion Webb looked into the case and a report is presented on the front page of the October 1974 UFO Investigator under the headline “Police Chief’s Nightmare: Real or Contrived.” According to the article “an official received word of a rumor that several firemen from a nearby community may have collaborated on a hoax which involved their ‘borrowing’ silver firefighting uniforms.”
Webb managed to acquire such a suit, added aluminum foil to the hood and feet, and had his picture taken wearing it. While there were similarities to Greenhaw’s photos, Webb found it difficult to move in the uniform, which contradicts Greenhaw’s claim that the creature outran his car. Webb speculated that Greenhaw had only gone a short distance before spinning out in the gravel, which is a detail that shows up in Bell’s blog.
Greenhaw stayed away from public exposure for most of the remainder of his life, but gave an interview in 2020 to Red Water Filmworks. In the recording posted on YouTube, he describes coming upon the creature and saying “something to the effect (of) ‘howdy stranger,’” and getting no response. He says he initially thought someone was “pulling a prank” but that “things just started that was so strange.” He said that the creature moved stiffly with “no bending of the arms and legs…” Describing its running after it turned away, he said it was “like it had springs on its feet or something.”
Greenhaw added that almost to the day, 10 years later, someone broke into his house and took the four photos, along with his service revolver and shotgun. He said he thought it was “really weird” that the only three things he had with him that night should turn up missing.