McDonald County, Missouri - 1977

UFO Wave McDonald County, Missouri, 1977

Once again I thought I might bring a story to light that occured way back... and in my neck of the woods.
Once again, this is brought to you by the late, great Bob Pratt... www.mufon.com...

This flap, or wave, lasted for THREE MONTHS, and had local residents stunned. To this day, I have spoken with 'paranormal investigators' who swore this was a ghostly experience often referred to as "spook lights" until I told them some particulars of the story, they follow...

Van Knabel

"We saw a big orange glow off in the timber...It looked like a big forest fire and it was coming down off the ridge. It was enough of a red glow that you could see the dead leaves and limbs between us and the timber.

Suddenly, the glow and everything went out like you turned a light switch. There were six of us and we got into two cars and went over there, but there was no sign of a fire, no smoke, no glow or nothing. I've seen timber fires before and they just don't go out that quick."

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From February into April of 1977 HUNDREDS of McDonald County residents saw UFOs on a daily basis. It got to the point that people would come across state lines from Arkansas to the South and Oklahoma to the West to get in on the action. In the end, they had constructed a posse, of sorts, communicating by CB radio to see who was spotting the "lights" while everyone had taken up stations on hilltops. This was a MASSIVE event.
In fact, in one evening people counted more than 125 cars at a local general store gearing up to go on patrol. (note that McDonald county is a very small "county" consisting of literally NO large townships, especially in '77... 125 cars is, in fact, a "posse")

The police didn't keep a record of the calls but Mrs. Virgil Hottinger, did, at least in the beginning. An officer of the Southwest Missouri REACT team, she monitored the emergency CB channel on many nights when UFOs were being seen. (REACT is the acronym for Radio Emergency Associated Citizens Team, which monitors CB emergency band Channel 9 on a twenty four-hour basis.)

“The first night they were reported – that was February 12, at ten forty two p.m. – I had the CB on Channel 9 and I get this call for help," Mrs. Hottinger said. "This man says, 'Lady, you better get somebody over here in a hurry!'

“I said, 'What’s wrong?' He seemed frightened. He said, 'I don't know what it is but it's coming down out of the sky and it's coming right over my car and almost hit me and it's landed out here in a field.'

“Well, I thought he had been drinking. It was a Saturday night. Within fifteen minutes or so, two more calls came in and somebody said, 'I think it's helicopters stealing cattle.' We had had that a few years back.” (makes a special note of 'helicopters stealing cattle'... this was in '77, mind you)

Anyhow, it goes on that by 1 in the morning or so people were getting pretty freaked out and were cursing on the CB stations... lots of them.

Most of the stories that night and in the next couple of weeks were simply glowing balls of lights, often appearing as brush fires.
But there were exceptions...

March 5, 1977 - Lonnie and Debbie Stites

At about 11:30pm on the evening of March 5th Lonnie and Debbie were to deliver a load of wood to a turkey house north of McNatt, Missouri. They never made it.

According to the witnesses, they were headed to the farm and noticed some peculiar red lights in the distance. Coming closer, the lights rose in the air directly in front of their truck and proceeded to shine lights on their truck. Meanwhile, a "man" dressed in green coveralls ran down the hill towards the highway waving his arm at the two...until he was eventually standing right beside the highway.
Mind you this is nearly midnight and according to the witnesses this man in coveralls is waving at them in SUNGLASSES. The witnesses couldn't tell how the sunglasses adhered to his face as he appeared to have no ears! And oh yeah, he was wearing a skull-cap (pulled so tight that there wasn't a wrinkle in it.)
Anyhow, they drove past where they were going in a state of shock. In all they went about 20 miles out of their way to avoid the object and refused to go back.

Nobody is on record seeing this object other than the two mentioned above, but there were some others who saw some weird happenings in the same general area.


Lawrence McCool's Close Encounter

February 9th is when things started in McDonald county and apparently, on the 16th Lawrence decided to go look for a UFO himself - he found one.
His story relates how he and a buddy went up to a hilltop to look for some objects while his buddy got a call from his wife over the CB radio (I love how the Ozarkians actually use CB radios to communicate in areas that are basically devoid of civilization) that there was an object near their house. Well, Lawrence urged his neighbor to run home and that he would stay where he was, waiting for him to return (phantom was his handle).

So Lawrence sits there for an hour watching this orb wax and wane until it finally disappears (this is apparently the same orb phantom went to chase at his house). Then Ron decides to leave and go home. He makes it four miles until his CB starts acting up. ... Then everything in his truck shuts down. EVERYTHING. He thinks that maybe he is startled so badly that he hit the brakes hard enough to stop instantly, but he isn't sure.
He found himself face to face with what he assumes was the same object he was watching from afar moments ago. Only now, he is terrified. He likens it to watching a tiger in a cage and then coming face to face with the same tiger in a back alley. He says he felt like he was under a microscope.

The interesting part about McCools account is that he was on CB the entire time. Until he encountered the object. The Sherriff says he was out of contact for 20 minutes. McCool thought it was only about 1 minute...

Another instance of high-weirdness with CB radio occured that very same night with Mr. Ronald Cargile.
Hearing a lot of commotion on the radio about sightings, Mr. Cargile hopped into his truck near Sim's Store and took off East. He made it half a mile before seeing something...
He recalls walking up to an iron gate and being startled to see that a UFO jumped up out of the hollar in front of him shaped like a sombrero. Round on the bottom, oval on top. He fled to his truck and tried to radio the boys that he had seen something, only to find out his radio was fried.

.........

From here the story goes on about another object that zoomed up a valley and was witnessed by independent people three states apart.

The story is fascinating and once again, occured in 1977.

Three decades removed and considering the circumstances of these last two threads I have written up, I'd say, if nothing else, I'm further away from any real understanding of what these are.

Once again folks, I urge you to read Bob Pratt's files... www.mufon.com...

[edit on 31-8-2009 by JayinAR]

[edit on 31-8-2009 by JayinAR]

Star, and flag for the OP. Good investigation. Okay, so they saw flaming balls, and orbs, or all flaming balls? I saw they also saw the traditional saucer UFOs.

reply to post by sanchoearlyjones


Yes sir they did.
They also saw men in green coveralls without ears wearing sunglasses at midnight and skullcaps pulled tight over their featureless faces.

Just sayin.

There are multiple accounts to these things.

Damn, I suppose that will be the last time I spend hours bringing something to this board.


I knew there was a reason I kept away from it in the first place.
Two nights in a row, about 7 hours worth of copying work from months worth of research...
Neary a thing in response, except for a few.

Back to talking about the next big hoax!

Any pics Jay? A picture is worth a thousand. Sorry to be so blunt, but this is the way the world is. Old news without a picture just doesn't get very many excited I'm afraid.

okay,

so it was around 3:30 am I was out in the Northwestern sticks. I was dozing off to sleep, and a flash caught my eye. It reflected off the corner of the room opposite from the windows.

I looked out, and four little fire like balls were literally floating down from the sky into the tree line; about 500m out. They literally looked as though they should have been moving faster as they had almost undulating comet type tails, but were moving slow.

No! no drugs, or alcohol. Any ways it freaked me out. They all floated down into the trees in the distance, and that was it.

I kept watching beyond the meadow into the tree line....of course for ET to come storming out in stormtrooper gear, but nothing. I stayed up until dawn, and nothing.

that's the my tale

reply to post by skepticantiseptic


From '77.
Nope.
If I find them I'll put them with my pics of Roswell and mail them to you first class.

Sound good?

reply to post by sanchoearlyjones


Wow!
I've seen a few things, but never anything that dramatic!

Originally posted by JayinAR
reply to post by skepticantiseptic

 

From '77.
Nope.
If I find them I'll put them with my pics of Roswell and mail them to you first class.

Sound good?

Your preaching to the choir boudroe. Notice my moniker? It sounds good, but again, the pics or video are the only real proof that matters to most people.

reply to post by skepticantiseptic


Yeah, I have noticed that.
I can post a video on this very site that I have created from the very seat I am at and it will get tons of noteriety... until it is proven a fraud.

Something like this thread however, is on public record and is confirmed by multiple sources... in fact hundreds.
No pictures, just public record.

Nothing.

Like I said, when I find photos, I'll send them to you. Along with the pics of the four dead aliens at Roswell.

reply to post by JayinAR


Like I said, it freaked me out. I've seen some oddities for sure. Many "blips" all night long; many nights. I've heard People call those satellites, but I haven't seen any proof of that.

For a few days in June there was a huge bright star; a literal bright star that flew across the sky, and looked to curve, and go down over the next mountain ridge over.........not over the horizon, but closer.

It was anywhere between 9:45 to 10:30 at night. I didn't have a video camera to get it good, but I did see it.

I've heard the Inland Northwest, or Western Montana mountains are a hot spot, and I agree now

This is a great classic case that I have read about

I think I might ask my grandmother about this. My family has always resided in Newton County which is Macs neighbor. Perhaps she might be able to give a little more information. After all, she's a one-armed, red afro-rockin, 60 somethin yea old. thanks for the post. Never realised UFO sightings happened that close to home.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by UFOTracker66


Yeah, '77 was a big year. Mass sightings all over the world.
Did you catch this thread
www.abovetopsecret.com... took place around the same time just a few minutes drive down the road in Arkansas and a few months later.

reply to post by JayinAR


Yet another great thread on a incident I did not know about. Thank you for your recent contribution to the UFO forum, they are not unappreciated

PS: Don't worry about threads not getting recognition, sometime even good ones like this get overlooked by the masses for whatever reasons. It really doesn't matter now that we have the ATS chronology, which this is going into, like your other one.


Keep up the good work!

[edit on 9/1/2009 by jkrog08]

reply to post by jkrog08


Thanks man.
I had to look long and hard to find some that I didn't think were already covered to hell and gone on these forums. There are a few more.

I just wanted to do a writeup on the ones that were close to my home. Mainly because I can add *some* insight into the cases.

reply to post by JayinAR

Great thread, Jay! And very good job on connecting these two flaps we've been discussing.

I noticed in one of the reports a "big orange glow" was mentioned. Orange and Orbs always catch my attention. Especially when the words pulsating or plasma are used because of my own sighting.

How prevalent this color is in reports through time. "Fiery globes" and "Molten Metal" descriptions. John Dee encountered the fiery globe in a vision..

Very interesting that they developed a C.B. radio ufo reporting system! How cool. Missouri really is the "show me" state! Then there's high-strangeness and Men in Green! Is "waxing and waning," in the following case the same as "pulsating" I wonder?

According to the witnesses, they were headed to the farm and noticed some peculiar red lights in the distance. Coming closer, the lights rose in the air directly in front of their truck and proceeded to shine lights on their truck. Meanwhile, a "man" dressed in green coveralls ran down the hill towards the highway waving his arm at the two...until he was eventually standing right beside the highway.

Mind you this is nearly midnight and according to the witnesses this man in coveralls is waving at them in SUNGLASSES. The witnesses couldn't tell how the sunglasses adhered to his face as he appeared to have no ears! And oh yeah, he was wearing a skull-cap (pulled so tight that there wasn't a wrinkle in it.)

So Lawrence sits there for an hour watching this orb wax and wane until it finally disappears (this is apparently the same orb phantom went to chase at his house).[/quote]

Great find Jay!
I really love the old country tales of encounters
They always seem so genuine and freaky
S&F for you
Peace
FreeFalling

reply to post by The GUT


Thanks GUT!

To be honest, I had forgotten all about this thread until you wrote your brilliant Project Identification thread!

Sure seems to me that the times, locations, reports, and well, everything line up for a direct match!
Seems as if the anomaly, whatever it is, started out in Piedmont, stayed there for YEARS, then just left town and headed for McDonald County (the southwestern most county in Missouri). Interestingly enough, around the same time there was another wave that occured in my home county of Carroll County, Arkansas which is only two counties southeast of McDonald County. Well, not really a "wave" per se, but a mass sighting that lasted over two hours.

I still think a neat project would be to track all of these waves for that 10 year span I mentioned in your thread. '67 to '77. Maybe I will get on that one of these days.

Thanks for the thread bump too, man. Always cool to see an old thread resurrected.

Peace

ETA: I definitely get the impression of a strobing light when I read that description. Sounds a lot like the encounter you had, only a different color.