by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
Pictures of UFOs have played a large part throughout the history of investigations into the mystery. The first organization to present them on a regular basis in its publication was the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, which, in 1956, upgraded from using mimeograph and started printing the APRO Bulletin, enabling the reproduction of photos with a reasonable degree of quality. While some cases, such as the one involving a series of photos taken by Rex Heflin in Tustin, California in 1965, stirred up a great deal of enduring interest, others just came and went with little fanfare. An example of the latter is a case from 1977 involving six photos taken by a young boy in Indiana which was first reported in the March 20, 1977, Indianapolis Star. In the April 1977 APRO Bulletin, the photos were reported to have been examined by APRO’s staff and two consultants and “considered to be genuine.”
The Star article, headlined “Boy Says He Saw UFO; His Camera Offers Proof,” begins with the report that at 4:00 p.m. on March 10, 13-year-old Ricky Brandenburg of 3153 Norwich Court saw what he thought was a UFO and ran into his house to grab his Instamatic ™ camera. He is said to have taken six photos before the UFO, in his words, “just seemed to disappear into the clouds.”
According to the article, Brandenburg told his parents he had spotted, in the reporter’s words, “a silver disc-shaped object with a clear plastic-like dome circling the neighborhood as he walked home from school 108” and took pictures that would prove “he wasn’t joking.”
Ricky’s father, Morce, reportedly believed his son’s story was the product of “the imagination of a younghster [sic] who dreamed of outer space.” It is added that he said he didn’t see a report in the March 11, morning edition of the Star that several people called police the previous night saying they had seen a UFO on the north and west sides of Indianapolis. The Indiana State Police are reported to have said that the callers had seen “a meteorite shower which was visible from Cincinnati, Ohio, to St. Louis, Mo.”
Ricky, after being questioned by his father, is said to have not been sure what he saw but to have, in the reporter’s words, believed it was a real flying saucer.” He is quoted as saying, “I wouldn’t know what a fake one looked like and this one sure looked real to me.” Morce, “an employe [sic] of Trans World Airlines,” is said to “have laughed a little” when his son said the object was not making any noise even though it was spinning extremely fast.
According to the article, when they got word from the drugstore that the pictures had been developed, Ricky and his father went to pick them up. His father is said to have “laughed just a little” as his son opened up the package. Ricky reportedly said, “See, dad, I told you.” The article ends with, “Morce Brandenburg isn’t laughing anymore.”
The APRO Bulletin tells a similar story with more details from a report by APRO Field Investigator Fritz Klemm. Ricky is said to have spotted the UFO “coming out of the north at low altitude,” and to have thought it was an airplane, except that it was an odd shape and silent. He reportedly called out to his mother and a neighbor who were in the yard, “Look, a UFO,” got no response, and then ran into the house to get his camera that was loaded with film in preparation for a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry.
According to the article, he took nine pictures as the UFO made a complete circle of the neighborhood. Out of these, numbers six, seven, and eight are said to clearly show the object, described as “a disc-shaped object with what appears to be a transparent dome.” Although the pictures are printed in black and white, Number eight is said to be the clearest with an “orangish hue” seen just above the rim.
Weather conditions are reported as 65 ° with a 13-knot wind out of the SSW, scattered clouds, and a steady barometric pressure of 29.145. Klemm is said to not have been “able to accurately check the air traffic because he could not pinpoint the time of the sighting.”
As for the photos, they are said to have been examined by APRO’s consultant in optics, Dr. Roy Frieden, and APRO’s consultant in astronomy, Dr. Daniel Harris, “as well as other members of the APRO staff and are considered to be genuine.”
It is recommended at the end of the article that readers check out the next issue of the Bulletin which will contain photos from Mexico said to be “the most clear UFO photos that have ever been taken.” Young Ricky barely got his fifteen minutes and APRO is already moving on.