A 1976 UFO Encounter in Kentucky: THE INVESTIGATION

By Charles Lear

In last week’s blog, we looked at a UFO encounter in Kentucky reported by three women, Louise Smith, Mona Stafford, and Elaine Thomas. According to them, they saw a craft that shone a blue light into their car and seemingly took control of it. They felt pain down through the tops of their heads and in their eyes, felt the car being pulled backwards and then suddenly found themselves almost eight miles away in what seemed like an instant. The UFO was gone. They continued on to Liberty, Kentucky and stopped at the trailer home of Smith, who had been the driver. They became aware that they all had a number of physical ailments, including burning and tearing eyes, skin that burned when in contact with water and one-inch-by-three-inch marks on the backs of their necks. There was also about 80 minutes they couldn’t account for. Smith looked to see if any of her neighbors were awake and she saw a light on in the trailer next-door belonging to Lowell Lee. The women went over to his house and Lee listened to their story. He looked at the marks on their necks, and then had them go to separate areas and draw what they said they saw.  The drawings were almost identical. The story found its way into the press and it wasn’t long before interested UFO investigators approached the women to look into the case. Read more

A 1976 UFO Encounter in Kentucky

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.

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Metal From the UFO

By Charles Lear

From the days of the earliest citizen UFO investigators, metals associated with UFO reports have been held up as evidence for extraterrestrial visitation. Labs have been employed in testing and claims have been made that the results support a non-earthly origin for the material in question. While some of these claims have been dismissed, others continue to be debated.

The first modern UFO era citizen investigator was Kenneth Arnold, who was also the first modern era UFO witness. Arnold had seen a fleet of UFOs while flying near Mt. Rainier on June 24, 1947. Arnold was offered an assignment by publisher, Ray Palmer, who was looking for a good story for the premier issue of his new venture, Fate magazine. Palmer had received a letter describing a sighting near Maury Island, off the coast of Tacoma, Washington. Six donut-shaped craft were reported, one of which seemed to be having difficulties. It discharged hot material that allegedly injured the witness’s son and killed his dog. Palmer asked Arnold to look into the story, and Arnold asked for $200. Palmer wired him the money and Arnold became the world’s first privately funded UFO investigator. Read more