THINK ABOUTIT UFO SIGHTING REPORT
Date: 1985
Sighting Time: About 2:30 a.m.
Day/Night: early morning
Location: Amherst, Ohio
Urban or Rural: Urban
Hynek Classification: NL (Nocturnal Light) Point or extended luminous source observed at night.
Duration: more than an hour.
No. of Object(s): 1
Height & Speed: Hovering / Speeding across the horizon (The witness Steve Horosz described it as “just hovering,” while Arthur Schindler described it “speeding across the horizon”).
Size of Object(s): Huge / Comparable to a small box truck (Schindler described it as a “huge spacecraft” and compared the superstructure to a “castle” or “pyramid”).
Distance to Object(s): Close Proximity (Schindler was able to view specific details like “two sets of yellow lights around the rim” through a spotting scope).
Shape of Object(s): “It looks like a huge dish with two sets of yellow lights around the rim. On top of the dish, it looks like a castle. Kind of like a pyramid. There are lights all over it. The blue and white beams shoot out from the front of it.”
Color of Object(s): Yellow, Blue, and White lights.
Number of Witnesses: At least 3 (Arthur Schindler, Eva Schindler, and Steve Horosz).
Source: Lorain Journal (Lorain, OH), June 13, 1985
Summary/Description: Arthur Schindler and his wife, Eva, had just returned from Lenten services at St. Paul Church, when he saw a light in the sky. He watched the object for more than an hour. “It looks like a huge dish with two sets of yellow lights around the rim. On top of the dish, it looks like a castle. Kind of like a pyramid. There are lights all over it. The blue and white beams shoot out from the front of it.”
Full Report
Story By Jode Vickerman
Photos By Craig Orosz
Of The Journal Staff Writer
AMHERST — “Do you believe in UFOs?” the old man asks with the fervor of a street preacher trying to make a new convert.
He’s seen UFOs before, and he continues to see them almost every clear night, and he believes they are real. Spend a few minutes listening to him, and soon, it becomes easy to visualize the huge spacecraft emanating blue and white spears of light as it speeds across the horizon. As he speaks, you can feel the urgency of purpose motivating the hidden beings within the craft.
“People may call me nuts or whatever,” says retiree Arthur Schindler of 235 South Lake St., “but I know what I saw, and they’re real.”
The first time he saw one of the UFOs was early this year. He and his wife, Eva, had just returned from Lenten services at St. Paul Church. Looking into the sky, he saw what appeared to be a bright star.
Making a closer examination however, he knew that he was seeing something much more unusual than just a star.
Schindler’s sighting coincides with that of another Amherst man, Steve Horosz, 885 Birch Lane.
Horosz was working overtime at his job as a material handler for U.S. Steel. About 2:30 a.m., he “took a breather” on a platform on the seventh story of the plant.
“At first, I thought it was a star, a real bright star,” he says, “but it didn’t move. I went back inside and came out again later, and the thing was still there. It was just hovering. I told myself, ‘this can’t be,’ and I went back inside. When I came out again, it was gone.
“I’m the kind of guy that doesn’t believe in something unless I can see it, but I really saw this thing.”
Schindler watched the object for more than an hour that night. Almost every night since then, providing the sky is clear, he searches the sky for UFOs through an old spotting scope salvaged from an abandoned tank during WWII.
He uses a small chalkboard to diagram the UFO.
“It looks like a huge dish with two sets of yellow lights around the rim,” he says, using a stubby piece of chalk as a pointer. “On top of the dish, it looks like a castle. Kind of like a pyramid. There are lights all over it. The blue and white beams shoot out from the front of it. All you have to do is take one look at it, and you can see, it ain’t no star.”
One night several months ago, he phoned the Amherst police. A patrolman came to Schindler’s home but was unable to decide if the object was a UFO or not. Police later gave Schindler a phone number for the hotline at the Center for UFO Studies in Glenview, 111.
Sherman Larsen, co-founder of the center, said he hasn’t received any recent UFO reports from northern Ohio, though several have come from Pennsylvania. He also said he has never heard a UFO description similar to Schindler’s.
“My first reaction is that he should get his eyes checked,” Larsen said with a chuckle. “But, the humorous aspects aside, you just never know with these things. Who’s to say what’s really there or not? The best thing to do is report them.”
Since his first UFO sighting, several more have also appeared and taken up vigilant positions around Amherst, said Schindler. None of the objects have been picked up on radar, said officials at the Oberlin Air Traffic Control Center. Schindler thinks this may just be part of a government effort to cover up the existence of UFO’s.
Adjusting his soiled baseball cap, Arthur Schindler leans forward intently, clasps his hands, and rests his elbows on his knees.
“Do you believe in UFOs?’ asks quietly.
Historical Comparison: The Pyramid and the Hudson Valley Wave
The description provided by Arthur Schindler—a huge dish topped with a pyramid-like structure emanating blue and white beams—is a rare but significant variation in mid-1980s ufology. While most reports from this era, particularly the famous Hudson Valley wave (1983–1986), focused on massive V-shaped or triangular “Silent Boomerangs,” the Amherst case suggests a different class of structured craft.
The “pyramid-on-a-dish” morphology shares similarities with reports of “City-Sized” motherships often described in high-strangeness cases where a primary circular body supports a complex geometric superstructure. Furthermore, the blue and white spears of light described by Schindler mirror reports from the Westchester County sightings, where witnesses often claimed the craft seemed to be “scanning” the ground with brilliant, non-diffusing beams of light. This suggests that the Amherst activity may have been an outlier of the larger Northeastern U.S. wave, indicating that these craft were operating far beyond the initial New York/Connecticut corridor.
Researcher’s Note: Radar Invisibility and Official Denial
A critical element of the Amherst case is the discrepancy between visual testimony and official monitoring. While Arthur Schindler reported multiple objects taking up “vigilant positions” over the town, officials at the Oberlin Air Traffic Control Center stated that nothing was picked up on radar. This “radar-visual paradox” is common in UAP reports, often attributed by researchers to stealth capabilities or the objects operating at altitudes and speeds that fall outside the filters of civilian secondary surveillance radar.
Schindler’s suspicion of a government cover-up reflects the growing public distrust in the mid-1980s following the closure of Project Blue Book and the perceived lack of transparency regarding military interest in domestic airspace intrusions. Furthermore, the dismissive reaction from Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) co-founder Sherman Larsen—suggesting a vision check despite the presence of multiple witnesses—highlights the internal struggle within civilian research groups to reconcile high-strangeness reports with traditional scientific skepticism.
The Amherst, Ohio sighting of 1985 remains a distinctive piece of the mid-80s UFO puzzle. Arthur Schindler’s detailed description of a geometric, castle-like superstructure provides researchers with a specific profile that challenges more common “saucer” or “boomerang” narratives of the time. While official radar data remained silent, the corroboration from Steve Horosz and the persistent presence of the objects over the town suggest a physical event that logic cannot easily dismiss.
As we preserve these records in 2026, cases like Amherst remind us that the most significant UAP events are often those witnessed by dedicated community members who refuse to stay silent. By documenting the visual spears of light and the technical skepticism of the era, this archive ensures that the mystery over South Lake Street continues to be studied by future generations of investigators.
