THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP ENCOUNTER REPORT

1953: The Al Como Sighting — Near Warren, Ohio

Al Como thought he was running toward a plane crash. What he found in a clearing outside Warren, Ohio was a black, bell-shaped craft hovering just above the ground, lit from within by violet light, shadows moving behind a glass enclosure — and an invisible wall he couldn’t push through no matter how close he tried to get. Twice that night, his car vanished from the road and reappeared. He watched the craft for the better part of half an hour before it silently rose above the trees and was gone.

Date: December 20, 1953

Sighting Time: Night

Day/Night: Night

Location: Near Warren, Ohio

Urban or Rural: Rural (wooded clearing near a road)

No. of Entity(‘s): Unknown — moving shadows were visible inside the object, but no distinct entity was clearly seen or described

Entity Type: Unknown

Entity Description: Not clearly discernible — only moving shadows behind the object’s illuminated glass enclosure

Hynek Classification: CE-II (Close Encounter, Second Kind — physical trace/effect; an invisible force field and vehicle interference)

Duration: Total observation approximately 25-30 minutes across two separate viewing periods

No. of Object(s): 1

Description of the Object(s): A black, bell-shaped craft hovering just above the ground, with three ball-shaped protrusions on its underside and a rectangular, glass-like enclosure between them, illuminated by violet light from within

Shape/Size/Color of Object(s): Bell-shaped, black exterior, violet interior illumination; precise size not specified

Distance to Object(s): The witness could not approach closer than approximately 20 ft due to an invisible barrier surrounding the object

Height & Speed: Hovered just above the ground throughout the sighting; on departure, tilted upward and vanished silently above the treeline

Number of Witnesses: 1 (Al Como)

Special Features/Characteristics: An invisible “wall of force” prevented the witness from approaching within 20 ft of the object; his car disappeared from the road twice during the encounter and reappeared each time — once after roughly 10 minutes, having been left facing back toward Warren, and again after he returned from fetching his brother-in-law; shadows moved inside the illuminated enclosure but were never clearly identifiable as any specific form; the object departed silently, tilting upward before vanishing above the trees

Case Status: Unresolved — a detailed single-witness account with multiple specific, checkable claims (the vehicle disappearances in particular), published in a period UFO-focused magazine

Source: Tom Comella Jr., Mystic magazine, April 1955

Summary/Description: On the night of December 20, 1953, Al Como was driving near Warren, Ohio when he saw a glowing ball come down about 500 yards away. Believing it to be a burning plane, he ran to the spot and found, hovering just above the ground in a clearing, a black, bell-shaped craft with three ball-shaped protrusions on its underside and a violet-lit, glass-like enclosure between them, inside which shadows moved. An invisible “wall of force” kept him from approaching closer than 20 ft. After about 10 minutes he returned to the road to find his car gone; he went back and observed the craft another 15 minutes, then found his car back on the road, now facing toward Warren. He drove to fetch his brother-in-law, but by the time they returned, the craft had risen above the trees, tilted upward, and vanished silently.

Related Cases: None known

Detailed Report

Al Como was driving away from Warren, Ohio on the night of December 20, 1953, when something caught his attention: a glowing ball descending to the ground roughly 500 yards off the road. His first assumption was practical rather than extraordinary — a plane on fire, going down. He stopped and ran toward the spot to help.

What he found instead, hovering just above the ground in a wooded clearing, was a black, bell-shaped craft. Three ball-shaped protrusions studded its underside, and between them sat a rectangular, glass-like enclosure, lit from within by a violet glow. Inside, shadows moved — figures or shapes he couldn’t clearly make out, obscured by the light and the distance.

He tried to get closer. He couldn’t. Something he described only as an invisible “wall of force” surrounded the object, stopping him at roughly twenty feet no matter how he approached. He stayed there, watching, for about ten minutes before giving up on getting any closer and heading back to the road.

His car was gone. Not damaged, not moved to the shoulder — simply absent from where he’d left it. Rather than panic, Como went back to the clearing and kept watching the craft for another fifteen minutes. When he returned to the road a second time, the car was back — but now facing the opposite direction, toward Warren, rather than the way he’d been driving.

Shaken enough to want a second witness, Como drove into Warren to get his brother-in-law. By the time the two of them made it back to the site, the craft was already airborne, hovering above the treeline. It tilted upward and vanished into the sky without a sound.

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

The Como Sighting — 1953 and the Value of Specific, Checkable Claims

The car’s disappearance is the case’s strongest and strangest element: A vehicle vanishing and reappearing — twice, with a change in orientation the second time — is a specific, falsifiable claim of the kind rarely found in this era’s UFO literature. It’s also the detail hardest to explain away as simple misperception, which cuts both ways: either it’s a remarkably bold detail to fabricate, or it’s genuinely one of the more unusual physical claims in this archive’s 1953 record.
An invisible barrier as a recurring motif: A force field preventing close approach appears in various forms across UFO literature of this era; this case is a comparatively early and detailed instance of it, worth noting as part of a broader pattern without treating the pattern itself as corroboration.
A witness who sought corroboration: Como’s decision to drive back into town specifically to bring his brother-in-law back with him is a notable, verifiable-seeming detail — the action of someone trying to get a second witness, even though the timing meant the craft was already departing by the time they returned.
Published in a contemporary period magazine: Mystic, publishing Tom Comella Jr.’s account in April 1955, places this case’s public documentation only about sixteen months after the alleged event — closer to contemporary reporting than many of this archive’s later-recalled or decades-delayed cases.
No description of any clear entity: Despite the visible shadows inside the craft, this case never resolves into a described humanoid or specific being — the entities, if any, remain genuinely unknown, which is itself worth preserving honestly rather than filling in with assumption.

This case stands out for the specificity of its physical claims — particularly the car’s disappearance and reorientation — which are unusually concrete compared to the more atmospheric or purely visual accounts common elsewhere in this archive. It remains, as always, a single uncorroborated witness, but the level of checkable, falsifiable detail here is genuinely higher than average.