UFOs Over Wytheville, Virginia

by Charles Lear

Beginning in October 1987, there was a UFO flap in Wytheville, Virginia. Thousands of people in the area reported seeing extraordinary things in the sky, but the most commonly told story that came out of the flap centers around a single witness who, it seems, was singled out for harassment by some unknown entity or organization.

On October 7, 1987, reporter Danny Gordon of radio station WYVE called the county sheriff, as he regularly did, to see if the sheriff had any news for him that day. The sheriff told Gordon that three deputies, all ex-military, had reported seeing a UFO that day. According to Gordon in the course of his appearance in a segment devoted to the Wytheville flap in Season 4, Episode 18 of Unsolved Mysteries, the story was used as what he calls a “ha-ha” piece at the end of that day’s newscast.

After the newscast, the station’s switchboard was jammed with callers who reported seeing UFOs themselves. This went on until Gordon felt compelled to devote the evening of October 19^th to a call-in show for UFO witnesses.

Gordon describes himself as “a brass-tacks journalist,” and he investigated thinking he would find a prosaic explanation. His first thought was that there was some military craft out of Langley AFB being tested in the area, but he was told repeatedly that there was no testing being done in the area as he called various military agencies and inquired.

As more and more people reported strange sightings, an explanation came out that they were seeing planes refueling. According to the witness reports, if this was the case, the planes were refueling at low altitudes over populated areas. Gordon says he spoke with an Air Force general at the Pentagon who told him that if the refueling was being done below 13,000 feet “somebody’s butt’s in a sling.”

Gordon says he told military people he spoke with that if what witnesses were seeing was military, he would back off because he is a patriot. Each time he said this, he was assured by military personnel that “it’s not us.”

On October 21, Gordon and a friend, Danny Hall, drove to the area where most of the reported UFOs were said to have been seen, which was south of Wytheville. They had two cameras with them: a 35 mm still camera and a video camera. After seeing nothing unusual during a two-hour skywatch, they headed home at about 8:45 p.m. As they were approaching Wytheville on Route 21 South, Gordon, who was driving, spotted something strange off to his left.

Gordon pulled over and both men got out of the car. Gordon describes seeing a large craft coming towards him that had no wings, a dome on top, and a multi-colored strobe light on its right side. Danny Hall, a former commercial pilot, estimates that it was 1000 feet away from them at an altitude of 1000 feet and that its diameter was at least two football fields. Hall says that there were what looked like three huge picture windows lit from inside on the back of the craft.

According to Gordon, a red ball of light approached the craft from the left and “docked with the craft” as the craft disappeared into some clouds. He compares what he witnessed to watching images in a video game.

After the craft was out of sight, both men realized that neither one of them had managed to get footage of the object. The next night, however, they did manage to get pictures, and with the pictures not yet developed, organized a press conference.

The conference was held on October 23, 1987, and Gordon says that during the night before, he received a phone call from someone who told him that the CIA was very interested in the UFOs being reported in Wythe County. He says he continued to receive anonymous calls from people discouraging him from continuing his investigation and telling him it wasn’t his place to be interfering with “defense matters.”

Gordon reported that his house had been broken into after the press conference and he suspected that someone had been looking for the photos, which when developed, showed indeterminate streaks of light. He then got a chance to take some better pictures on December 2, when he, his wife, and daughter were walking to the family car in a mall parking lot. A large object came into view in front of several witnesses and a school bus full of kids, and Gordon grabbed his camera. According to Gordon, the single object became four “flying disk shapes” that disappeared as soon as they were photographed. Four photos that Gordon presents show four distinct shapes going from teardrop to ball to flying disk to egg-shape.

By the end of December there were over 1500 sightings reports. Reports include multicolored carousel-like objects and objects that seemed like a cross between a helicopter and a plane with no noise.

Gordon says he called the Pentagon and talked with a defense spokesman who told him: “We do not deny UFOs exist. The government confirms they exist, but we deny they pose a threat to the populace of Wythe County.” Gordon says he asked how they knew there was no threat and was told, “I can’t tell you, but there is no threat to you.”

While it seems the UFOs may not have posed a threat to the general populace of Wythe County, it seems someone posed a threat to Gordon specifically. Gordon reported that on March 18, 1988, as he was preparing to leave for a broadcaster’s conference where he would be speaking about the Wythe County UFOs, he received a phone call from “a retired military intelligence officer.” The man told him that he should tape the conversation they were about to have so that if something were to happen to him, there’d be proof he’d been warned.

On a tape provided by Gordon, a man is heard telling Gordon that, because of his own investigations into UFOs, “they” had given his son leukemia, which proved to be fatal. The man said that he had information that the government was not happy with Gordon’s investigation and that they might use “skin contact chemicals” to cause harm to him or his family.

In spite of the warning, Gordon went and spoke at the conference. He says that, although there had been an outbreak of hepatitis while he was there, he came back without contracting it. He asserts that had he contracted it, he and others would have believed that he had been gotten to.

Gordon reported that less than two months later, two men showed up at his door. They gave their names, said they were from the Richmond Gazette, and said they wanted to ask him questions about the Wythe County UFO sightings. Gordon let them in, and one man asked questions while the other walked around and took pictures. They stayed for about 45 minutes, and as they left they said they’d send Gordon a copy of the article. Gordon never received anything from the paper and when he called to inquire he was told that the men never worked for the paper.

Weeks later, as Gordon was organizing his photos, he found that the negatives from the mall photos were missing. He and some friends examined the developed photos and could not determine why anyone would have wanted to steal those particular negatives.

Two months later, Gordon collapsed and was taken to the hospital where he was diagnosed with severe exhaustion. He was advised to cease his UFO investigation and he followed that advice. According to him, he wouldn’t report his sighting if he was given another chance. His segment ends with him saying, “Don’t look up, because once you look up, and you tell somebody what you saw, your life is changed forever.”

Because Gordon’s story involved threatening phone calls and mysterious visitors, it’s now included in collections of Men in Black tales. What’s been neglected is that his UFO story is just one of many that came out of Wythe County at that time. For those interested in exploring further, links have been included below.

Flying Saucer Digest Winter 87, pg. 18

 

Bristol Herald Courier

 

Denver Michaels

 

David Halperin