1956: Driver Describes “Big Flying Saucer” Over South Dakota

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THINK ABOUTIT UFO SIGHTING REPORT

Date: November 16, 1956

Sighting Time: 1:15 am

Day/Night: Nighttime

Location: Redfield, South Dakota

Urban or Rural: Rural

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

Duration: five hours

No. of Object(s):  1

Size of Object(s): square block

Distance to Object(s): half mile

Shape of Object(s): round

Color of Object(s): slate gray, It would change colors from a blue-white to orange to red.

Number of Witnesses: four

Source: The Bismarck Tribune; Friday, November 16, 1956.

Summary/Description: “I thought my eyes were playing tricks with me. I stopped, turned off the lights and got out of the truck to stretch my legs. As I rounded the back of the truck, this thing swooped down about a half mile to the east of me and stopped about 1,000 feet up. “I was very frightened — I was terrified.

Full Report

REDFIELD, S.D. — A young truck driver who said he “never held any stock in flying saucer stories” told Wednesday of seeing a huge object in the sky that changed colors and moved with tremendous speed.

Others, including three newspapermen, also reported seeing the object at great distance.

Marlen Hewitt, driver for a dairy here, told this story of watching the object as he drove a tank truck from Pelican Rapids, Minn., to Redfield: “It was about 1:15 when I first spotted it as I drove along. At first I thought it was a star, I’ve never seen a star that bright. There were other stars out at the time, and only a few high clouds in the sky. “As I went on down the road toward Graceville, it changed colors a couple of times. Near Graceville, it changed colors four times.

“I thought my eyes were playing tricks with me. I stopped, turned off the lights and got out of the truck to stretch my legs. As I rounded the back of the truck, this thing swooped down about a half mile to the east of me and stopped about 1,000 feet up. “I was very frightened — I was terrified. “If it had been on the ground, it would have covered about a square block. It looked to be about 12 feet thick. It was a slate gray color, and from the distance looked like it was metal. It was round, and at the base was an opening about 1/10th the size of the object from which a very brilliant light was shining. “It would tilt around and back and forth, gaining maybe 3,000 or 4,000 feet in the flick of any eye.

“Around the edge of this thing was a lighted outline. I couldn’t tell if there were windows in the lighted part or if there was exhaust coming out all around it. “It would change colors from a blue-white to orange to red. I wanted to get out of there, so I jumped back into the truck and turned on the lights. “When my lights went on, the thing turned a bright cherry red and shot up into the high clouds. It moved faster than anything I ever saw. “As I drove toward Ortonville, it dropped down and went to the southwest at a tremendous rate of speed. Then it stopped and hovered.

“I could still see the light in the cloud when I got to Ortonville, and some editors who were going hunting came out of an eating place and watched it with me. “After I got to Big Stone City, it came down out of the clouds again, further away but still changing colors.”

Hewitt said the object disappeared about five hours after he had first spotted the bright light in the sky. He had traveled about 150 miles in the meantime. He said the roads were “very deserted” at the time and that as far as he knew the only others to see the object were those at Ortonville. Hewitt said the object made no noise. He added there was a little wind at the time the object was at its lowest level and it seemed to move into and away from the wind with equal speed. Among the hunters who saw the object at Ortonville were three newspapermen, Lem Kaercher of the Ortonville Independent and Don and Dick Olson of the Marshall Messenger.

published by NICAP, Copyright 1964

By Michael Goodspeed