1957: Cigar-shaped UFO with Occupants Viewable

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THINK ABOUTIT SIGHTING REPORT

Date: December 16, 1957

Sighting Time: between two and three

Day/Night: Night

Location: Old-Saybrook, Connecticut

Urban or Rural: Rural

Hynek Classification: CE-III (Close Encounter III) Close observation with animate beings associated with the object.

Duration:

No. of Object(s):  1

Size of Object(s): 20 to 30 feet

Distance to Object(s): ten feet

Shape of Object(s): Cigar

Color of Object(s): dull grayish-blue

Number of Witnesses: Single

Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon)

Summary/Description: I saw that it was a cigar-shaped object, brightly lit and with square portholes, hovering just above my clothesline. I could see men inside. . .” The object was approximately 20 to 30 feet long and dark grey or black in color. It hovered motionless about five feet above the ground. Through its lighted windows Mrs. Starr saw two figures that passed each other, walking in opposite directions.

Full Report

A reported sighting of a UFO with occupants seen through its windows, having a number of similarities to both the Squyres and the Knight cases, occurred in Connecticut, five years later, on December 16, 1957. It was investigated by Richard Hall, former Assistant Director of NICAP and currently NICAP’s Research Consultant, and Isabel Davis, currently of the NICAP staff.

Mrs. Mary M. Starr, a resident of Old Saybrook and a former teacher with a Master’s Degree from Yale, told the NICAP investigators that she had been alone in her home on the night of December 15.

“I went to bed early,” she said, “about 10:00 o’clock. Some time between two and three in the morning, I was awakened by a bright light in my room. I looked out the window and there was what I first thought was a crippled airplane in my back garden. But when I got my eyes really open, I saw that it was a cigar-shaped object, brightly lit and with square portholes, hovering just above my clothesline. I could see men inside. . .”

The object, no more than ten feet from the north side of Mrs. Starr’s home, was approximately 20 to 30 feet long and dark grey or black in color. It hovered motionless about five feet above the ground, between the house and the tool shed. She saw no wings, fins, or other appendages. Through its lighted windows Mrs. Starr saw two figures that passed each other, walking in opposite directions.

“I could see that it [the object] was so shallow that the men could not have been more than three and a half or four feet tall,” she told the investigators. The occupants’ right arms were raised but no hands were visible. They wore a kind of jacket that “flared out” at the base, and their heads were unusual – square or rectangular, red-orange in color, and with a brighter red “bulb” in the center. She thought they might possibly be wearing some kind of helmets. The lower portions of their bodies were below Mrs. Starr’s sightlines. She saw nothing else in the object, such as chairs or instruments.

A third being came into view from the left. As Mrs. Starr leaned forward to see more clearly, the portholes faded and the entire shell of the object began glowing brightly (compare with Mrs. Knight’s report). From the top end closest to the witness there arose a kind of six-inch “antenna” that oscillated and sparkled. After five minutes of glowing steadily, the antenna was retracted and the craft began to move. It retraced its original path, gliding smoothly in the direction from which it had apparently arrived. It then made a very sharp right-angle turn, appearing oval in shape. The hull had turned a dull grayish-blue and small, circular lights now outlined the entire rim. The UFO dipped and undulated, following the contours of a small depression to the north of the witness’ house, then tilted sharply and shot up into the sky at terrific speed, in total silence.

Since most of the other houses in her neighborhood were unoccupied at that time of year, Mrs. Starr was the sole witness to this strange appearance, although there had been previous reports during the preceding weeks of objects sighted in the area. Because of her background, and because she had no conceivable reason to invent or embellish such a story, neither Miss Davis nor Mr. Hall could find any reason to dismiss her report out of hand.

Near Landing At Old Saybrook, 12/15-16/57, Mary Starr

Source: Civilian Saucer Intelligence of NY (Credit: MUFON Connecticut) Original Source

Introduction

One of the most famous Connecticut close encounters (CE-III) is the Mary Starr case from 1959. This document presents the most complete published account of the case. The material is taken verbatim (via Optical Character Recognition) from the July 15, 1959 issue of the CSI (Civilian Saucer Intelligence of NY – no longer exists) newsletter (publication #25). The maps and sketches accompanied the article. Text in the map was replaced for clarity.

The Near Landing At Old Saybrook
“To the growing list of types of ‘little men’ in UFOs must now be added another, appearing in a report from an unusually reliable source. Mrs. Mary M. Starr, long a resident of Old Saybrook and holder of two degrees from Yale University, has for some years spent all but two or three winter months in a cottage (actually a well built two-story house) situated only a few hundred feet from Long Island Sound. At the beginning and end of the season hers is the only occupied building in the vicinity; the nearest houses are some distance away to the north across marshy ground that surrounds her property on three sides (see [map below]).

“On the night of December 15-16, 1957 she was awakened from a sound sleep sometime between 2 and 3 a.m. by bright lights passing her bedroom window which faces north. Looking out she saw just coming to a stop ten feet from the house and parallel to it, a huge machine 20 or 30 feet long, dark gray or black with brilliantly lighted square portholes. Her first thought was, a troop carrier off course and about to crash west of her garden. But the object was now motionless hovering five feet above the ground. It had no wings, fins, or other external structures.

“Behind the lighted ‘windows’ were two forms that passed each other walking in opposite directions, Their arms were upraised (apparently the right am of each and no hands were seen. They wore a kind of jacket, and she thought they were stewards, carrying trays – except that their heads were unusual. They were square or rectangular, of a reddish-orange, with a brighter red ‘bulb’ in each (The witness suggested the possibility of some kind of helmet.) The feet were out of view below the portholes. Then a third man entered from the left., and Mrs. Starr leaned forward to try to see his face more clearly than the others.

“As she did so, the portholes faded and the entire shell of the object began to glow with scintillating brilliance. Immediately, there rose from the nearer end a kind of ‘antenna’ About six inches long, It oscillated and sparkled Mrs, Starr thought it must be signaling for direction. (Both the square windows and the sparks recall sharply the landing at Marignane Airport in France on October 27th 1952, described in Michel’s ‘The Truth About Flying Saucers’, pages 151-60; in that case, however no ‘men’ were seen, and there are other differences from the present report.) For almost five minutes the glow and the sparkling continued; then the antenna lowered and the craft began to move. Mrs. Starr expected it to circle the toolshed to get away; but it seemed to be a double-ender, and moved to the right, back in the direction from which it had come. It made a very sharp right-angle turn – Mrs. Starr thought it would hit her blue spruce, but it did not; ‘they had a good navigator,’ she says. It had turned a dull bluish-gray, and instead of portholes, small circular lights outlined the entire rim. Its shape now appeared to be oval, and as it dipped, or ‘undulated,’ to follow the contour of a shallow depression just beyond the garden, she saw that it was very shallow in depth. Over the marsh it tilted steeply, and shot up into the sky at the speed of a jet take-off, but in complete silence, as throughout the entire affair.

“Except for the ‘men’, Mrs Starr had seen nothing inside the craft (such as chairs, instruments, or the like), And it was not until she began to consider the dimensions of the object that she fully realized how strange its occupants were. For it had been above her clothesline, which is four and a half feet above the ground., yet she had clearly seen, across and beyond it, the white door and eaves of the toolshed. The craft being so shallow, how tall were the “men”? They could not have been more than four feet high at the most.

“Although Mrs. Starr did not see the object until it was under her window, she thinks it may have approached the house from Long Island Sound, on a south to north course (see map [above]), because there had been other reports of objects seen over the Sound. (Three weeks before her own experience, for example, the local paper carried a report of a hotel caretaker who had seen about 40 oblong reddish objects, brighter than stars, with one seeming larger then the others, scattered over a wide area of sky and moving north to south until they disappeared after five minutes, into a cloud bank.)

“Knowing that at that time of year all the other cottages near her were unoccupied, Mrs. Starr did not expect any corroborating witnesses, and until September 1958, when she made a report to NICAP, she told no one about the sighting. Because of her background, and because she has no conceivable reason to invent or embellish such a story, CSI places it in the authentic category.”