UFOs and Conjunctivitis

by Charles Lear

For researchers, UFO trace cases make up a welcome, science-friendly aspect of a phenomenon that often eludes scientific study. Researcher Ted Phillips specialized in trace cases starting in the mid-1960s on the advice of Project Blue Book scientific consultant J. Allen Hynek. In the course of his investigations, Phillips was able to note commonalities, one of those being that soil samples taken from alleged UFO landing sites were unable to absorb water. While UFOs have been reported to leave physical traces on the environment, they’ve also been reported to leave physical traces on witnesses. A common report of this sort is what is medically known as “actinic conjunctivitis” or “klieg conjunctivitis.” This is a painful condition where the eyes become red and intensely irritated due to exposure to ultraviolet light.

UFO-related klieg conjunctivitis is perhaps most prominently featured in John Keel’s 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies. In Chapter 2, section IV, Keel tells the reader that he knew a witness was telling the truth “because her eyes were reddened, watery, and almost swollen shut.” He goes on to say that people who have close encounters with UFOs are exposed to “actinic rays … ultraviolet rays … which can cause ‘eyeburn,’ medically known as klieg conjunctivitis.” Klieg conjunctivitis got its name from a specific form of actinic conjunctivitis experienced by early 20^th century film actors who worked in front of carbon arc lights called “klieg lights” after the inventors John and Anton Kliegl.

Keel brings up another case, which involved a young couple who had an encounter with “a big ball of bluish fire” while engaged in amorous activity in the back seat of a car. According to Keel, both of them were “sunburned from head to foot,” and the young man’s eyes were swollen the next morning.

In the July 7, 1975 Kansas Russell Daily News, there is an article headlined, “Russell Women Blinded by UFO.” According to the article, Mrs. Frederick Boxberger and her aunt, Kathryn Black, were in Boxberger’s car on their way to a wedding. Boxberger described seeing a “dazzlingly bright” object “like shining aluminum.” It was shaped like a funnel on its side, as big or bigger than the car, and moving from west to east. It flew over the car and was so close that the women though it was going to hit them. Boxberger stopped the car, the object went straight up, and was gone.

The car didn’t stall, as is often reported with UFO encounters, but the air-conditioning system quit and still wasn’t working at the time of Boxberger’s interview. Boxberger said that after the encounter “our eyes hurt and were blurry all day.”

In Kentucky, on January 6, 1976, Mona Stafford, Louise Smith, and Elaine Thomas were on their way back after having dinner at a restaurant to celebrate Stafford’s birthday. Smith was driving on highway 78 towards Hustonville. According to the October 1976 APRO Bulletin, about one mile south of Stanford, they saw a “huge disc-shaped object which was metallic grey with a white glowing dome.” According to Smith it was “bigger than two houses.” She estimated its size as it stopped and hovered over the road in front of them. After a couple of seconds of rocking back and forth, the object moved off to the left.

Thinking the object was gone, Smith kept driving. Then, a blue light, that the women assumed was from a police car, appeared behind their car. As they realized that the light was actually coming from the object, which had circled around behind them, control of the car seemed to have been taken from Smith. As the car accelerated to 85 mph, Stafford, who was in the passenger seat, grabbed the steering wheel and tried to help Smith gain control. At this point the women began to feel a burning sensation in their eyes. All three women experienced tearing and irritation of their eyes afterwards, and Stafford’s was so severe that she was moved to seek medical attention. There are many other bizarre aspects to this case, which we’ll explore next week.

Two well-known cases involving conjunctivitis are the 1979 case from Minnesota where Sheriff’s Deputy Val Johnson reported a collision with a UFO while in his patrol car, and the 1980 Cash-Landrum case from Texas where two women and a young boy witnessed a UFO and afterwards experienced not only burning eyes but a host of symptoms usually associated with radiation sickness.

Keel came up with a theory that could explain this aspect of the phenomenon in his 1970 book, Operation Trojan Horse:

Let us assume that UFOs exist at frequencies beyond visible light but that they can adjust their frequency and descend the electromagnetic spectrum just as you can turn the dial of your radio and move a variable condenser up and down the scale of radio frequencies.

When a UFO’s frequency nears that of visible light, it would first appear as a purplish blob of violet. As it moves farther down the scale, it would seem to change to blue, and then to cyan (bluish green). In our chapter on meteors we note that they most often appear as bluish-green objects.

If there is anything to Keel’s theory, UFOs would pass through ultraviolet on their way through the spectrum and this would be when they could cause conjunctivitis. Perhaps the best thing to take away from all this is that it might be wise to avoid staring at purple or blue UFOs.