1978: Metallic, saucer seen over Michigan farm

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THINK ABOUTIT SIGHTING REPORT

Date: June 15, 1978

Sighting Time:

Day/Night: Night

Location: Mancelona, Michigan

Urban or Rural: -Rural

Hynek Classification: NL (Nocturnal Light) Point or extended luminous source observed at night.

Duration:  10 minutes

No. of Object(s): 

Height & Speed: 200 to 300 feet in the air.

Size of Object(s):

Distance to Object(s): 250 yards away

Shape of Object(s):  Disc

Color of Object(s): metallic and all along the rim it exhibited colors changing from red-orange-white-blue.

Number of Witnesses:  Multiple

Source: NUFORC (National UFO Reporting Center), Peter Davenport, Director

Summary/Description:  From the witness: “I looked up and saw the object, hovering, over the field behind our house. I estimate it was no farther than 250 yards away from me, hovering about 200 to 300 feet in the air. It was metallic and disk-shaped…and all along the rim it exhibited colors changing from red-orange-white-blue… it was [making] a loud-vibrating-humming low pitched tone…” 

Full Report

We lived in a farmhouse on the edge of a rural town of about 1,000 people. Our backyard was actually 80 acres of grass field, former farmland left unfarmed for many years. There was an old two-track road which extended from our driveway out into the “back 80″… past the barn and out into the grass field. It was a warm early-summer evening, the skies were clear, and we were inside watching TV.

Our foster-daughter burst into the back door. “Come Look! Quick! There is SOMETHING in the SKY out in the back field!” We kind of laughed at her, thinking she was being melodramatic, or attempting an attention-getting move or perhaps even hoaxing us… but when she repeated what she had said, the second time more insistent than the first… well, we saw something in her eyes that said there might be something wrong… if you are a parent, you know the feeling! (It seems that she and her boyfriend were unknown to us at the time, “parking” on the two-track dirt road which ran through the grass field behind our house. The radio went out on their car as soon as they saw the object… then they both made it back to the house to let us know about the UFO…thats when she ran in the door!).

So we went out the backdoor and into the yard, listening to our foster-daughter babble about, “it went down this way and then up twice as far this way, like a pattern…” when I looked up and saw the object, hovering, over the field behind our house. I estimate it was no farther than 250 yards away from me, hovering about 200 to 300 feet in the air. It was metallic and disk-shaped…and all along the rim it exhibited colors changing from red-orange-white-blue (there were four of us there in all, 2 people also saw a greenish tint). But, what made me stand there slack-jawed was the SOUND the darn thing was making… it was a loud-vibrating-humming low pitched tone… and it vibrated into and through everything! I was standing adjacent to an old out-building in the backyard, and the siding on the building was actually rattling/humming from the noise! I reached out my hand and touched the building and it literally was vibrating! (I have since estimated the “humming/vibrating” to have been very near 39 to 40 Hertz).

And, as unbelievable as this sounds, and it makes me realize why there aren’t more good-quality pictures/videos taken of UFOs… I had a brand new Nikon F camera in my house and didn’t even THINK of going in and getting it. The four of us stood there, slack-jawed… me, my wife, my foster-daughter, and her boyfriend… and none of us said a word for 10 minutes. We just stared, transfixed at this “thing” in the backyard that just sat there humming. It finally, about 10 minutes later very slowly (maybe 20 MPH?) drifted off to the southeast, toward a very sparsely populated rural area of our county. I lost sight of it in the street lights when it went across the sky. We all went inside and recounted to each other what we saw, felt, and heard. And I really think that is when we all just shut up about it and none of us has said a word to anyone (except very good friends) until now.

The time has come for an explanation from someone… from our government, or whoever the powers-that-be are in this country. What the hell did we see in the sky behind my house? I have had several college-level astronomy courses. I know the difference between an anomaly and an ordinary occurrence. I did not see “Venus, Swamp Gas, or a Weather Balloon”. I used to be a UFO skeptic… and I have purposefully left the term “extraterrestrial” out of the account as I saw no evidence of “life” or “intelligent maneuvering of the object”. BUT, I can say with 100% assuredness that there was something “unexplained” in the skies over Mancelona, Michigan in the summer of 1978.