Two Cops, a UFO and an Alligator

reply to post by oldretiree
You're right about memory not being dependable. Not much and not often! The video is a classic and in some ways even more fitting in reverse...we don't accept there's a gorilla and focus on the ball-players for making sense.

However, I'm not inclined to point the finger at faulty memories in explaining this report along prosaic lines. A very large object some 100 odd feet away is not the same as forgetting what dress your wife was wearing last Saturday. Neither is it exactly like an angler's memory with his fish growing in size with each retelling.

200 feet wide was obviously a subjective estimate and yet if we err on the side of disbelief or caution, we can concede a 75% misperception and still have a 50' *something* in the air before them. This combined with sensations of heat and the terror that saw them flee down the road at high speed leaves it all open to speculation or head-scratching.

It's a bothersome case whether we pare off what we don't like or not.

You see, there's a difference in your and my perception as to how an inferior mirage would appear (if it were possible). Rather than imagining it to be "in the air", I had imagined it as appearing somewhere beneath the actual moon and slightly beneath the horizon so that the deputies would have had a background reference to judge its size.



It's been good talking to you and the best to you and everyone on this board.

reply to post by oldretiree
Hey no problems

I don't think we differ about what inferior mirages are or what they look like. They are what they are. Where we might disagree is in how we interpret their description of what they thought was an object. I don't think their description conforms to that of inferior mirages whereas you do.

There's nothing wrong with polite disagreement.

I hope you hang out and make a few posts around the site; you've got the manners and intelligence to be a good member.

Oh by the way, if it isn't too late will you *edit* your post and remove Mr McCoy's address please? We don't post personal details like that and I'd hate to see the guy get any attention he doesn't want. Thanks for tracing it, you had better luck than I ever did, but we avoid posting telephone numbers, private addresses and emails. If you can't I'll ask a staff member to snip it out. No harm done.

reply to post by Kandinsky


It's been edited Kandinsky, thanks.

As Bob Goode is my grandfather, I am quite familiar with the public and private details of this event. All in all, I think the author did a good job of capturing most of the public details. Well done.

reply to post by Heinroth


Is there any information you are able to add to what is available in the public domain ?

Unfortunately Billy McCoy died June 22, 2014 at the age of 86.

thefacts.com...

a reply to: oldretiree

Thank you for the update and link

By coincidence, I was just wondering about him the other day. His part in the story is the one that puzzled me the most and added weight to their accounts. Goode's experiences included all but the kitchen sink and yet McCoy was more sober and backed him up.

Now wouldn't it be something else if Billy McCoy left a letter adding more information or admitting a hoax?

You won't be surprised to know that I saved that address you posted last year. I was tempted more than once to write a letter and couldn't escape the feeling that to do so would be intruding. Now we'll probably never know.

It sometimes strikes me that those golden years of UFO sighting reports were like rains on an inland sea. Now those days are gone, each witness and claimant that passes is one less ripple to show that any of it really happened. It leaves me a little melancholic.

a reply to: Kandinsky

thefacts.com...

www.findagrave.com...

It's good to hear from you, Kandinsky. Like you, this story keeps popping into my head from time to time. When September comes around and we begin to get a few cool "northers" if we are lucky, I always remember the end of summers back then and what it must have been like that night on the highway. In fact, when I was back in that area a year or so ago I drove the route that the deputies drove that night. There is a lot more vegetation there now than there was 50 years ago so it's no longer much of a prairie. Needless to say, I didn't have a "eureka" moment.

I've included a couple more links that may be of interest. The deputies' boss, Sheriff Robert Gladney, had just been elected to the office that year. He continued in that position for as long as I remember and you can tell by the first link how much he maintained control. I never heard his name mentioned in any of the UFO reports and I have to wonder what his reaction was if he was in fact "blind-sided" by the story. ("You boys had better come up with a damn good reason why you was ridin' together that night") and thus the alligator story. However, you can bet that if he even suspected that a hoax was involved, the deputies would not have kept their jobs.

One thing keeps bothering me about McCoy's report. He said that the moon was above the object and even cast a shadow beneath it. He also said (if I am reading this correctly) that the object was about 150 feet away and 100 feet in the air. That can be illustrated by a right triangle with a base 1.5 times its height. The angle formed by the hypotenuse and the base of this triangle is where he would have been looking from. That angle is around 35 degrees which means that he must have been looking at something about 35 degrees above the horizon. Yet the report from Ellington AFB states that the moon at that time of the night was only 15 degrees above the horizon. The moon could not have been above the object and I keep wracking my brain for a plausible explanation.

Also like you, I would have liked to talk to Billy McCoy but wouldn't want to open what very well might have been an old wound.

a reply to: oldretiree

It's possible and even likely that Sheriff Robert Gladney asked them to be quiet about the account. After all, sightings reports were popular, but still attracted a lot of ridicule and rough-housing. If they'd come out and said they'd been joking at the expense of 'UFO nuts,' it would have been a poor reflection on the Sheriff's office. Similarly, if they'd continued to assert that the encounter was accurately described, they and their colleagues would attract criticism and/or ridicule. Perhaps he shied away from firing them and told them to shut up?

I've just noticed that the last interview with McCoy no longer exists on-line - the site has gone. Luckily I saved it to a pdf and uploaded it here > sheriff sheriffs goode and mccoy ceii ufo encounter - damon, texas 1965 articles & images

As for the position of the moon? I'll take your word for the disparity as I haven't checked it for myself and can't recall if I did so in 2011. These reports have lost their fascination for me for a number of reasons; one of which being the lack of resolution. In this case, I'm no further forward than 3 years ago when it seemed either a hoax or something peculiar.

When I look at the images of Goode and McCoy in the countryside, I envy your experience of driving their route. It'd be good to sit in that spot and listen to McCoy's radio interview.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Both people who could give us a first-hand account of this incident are now gone, but we are fortunate to have Heinroth on this board whose maternal grandfather was Bob Goode. Although he was not yet born when this sighting took place, Heinroth was probably in his teens when Bob Goode passed on so he very well may have had the story told to him directly by his grandfather. Or Bob may have related the story to Heinroth's siblings. His mother, uncle and aunt are still alive and must have a vivid memory of that time. It is Heinroth's prerogative to shed any light that he might have on this subject and it is totally understandable if he chooses not to.

Don't be mislead concerning Bob Goode's competence and character. He was the epitome of a Texas lawman and if you needed help he was the one to turn to.

This story continues to fascinate me for a reason that may be totally unrelated. About five years after this incident took place, a friend of mine and his wife left our house in West Columbia around midnight to return to their home in Damon. It was about the same time of year with the same type of weather (cool and clear) as Goode and McCoy had. I was surprised when he called about ten minuted later and was already home having driven the 13 or 14 miles in that amount of time. He was obviously distraught and said that about half way home (around Goode and McCoy's sighting) three lights of different colors had appeared behind them. When he increased his speed the lights stayed behind him in varying configurations until they were going in excess of 100 MPH. As they approached Damon the lights disappeared. This friend had been away in the Air Force at the time of the sighting in 1965 and knew nothing about it.

I would like to say that I immediately jumped into my car to investigate his report, but the truth is I was afraid and hardly stepped out of my house.

Bump for later reading.

To add new information to this story is almost impossible but I will try to share some of my memories on this subject with everyone. As someone pointed out earlier, I was 22 when my grandfather passed away but was old enough to hear about the incident once or twice from him before he passed away.

My grandfather was well into his sixties by the time my siblings and I were born. My mom used to take us over to his house as kids and he'd tell us about different experiences he'd had in life - his days as a boxer in the US Army, encountering big cats on hunting trips, etc. He probably had dozens of these stories and we probably heard them dozens of times growing up and we loved hearing them. From what i can remember, The UFO story wasn't something I remember hearing too much about as a kid - I was probably 18 when I first heard the story from my grandfather himself and that was only after an article was published in the newspaper about it around 1995. Up until then, i was aware of the story mostly hearing about it from my mom, aunt and uncle's perspectives as teenagers.

In any case, my grandfather recounted all the things you've mentioned in the article that have been supported by Mr McCoy's later interviews: the bright lights, the alligator bites and the MIB. As I mentioned earlier, my grandfather enjoyed telling his grand kids stories but i remember the tone of this account seemed more serious to me. He always laughed and made jokes throughout these stories but not this time. I guess he probably had experienced enough good/bad natured joking about it through the years but there has never been any doubt in my mind what he told us that day was real. My mom, aunt and uncle have never wavered in their beliefs. I have no reason to either.

To my knowledge, my grandfather didn't speak about the incident much after it happened. As I mentioned, I only heard the story from him in private once or twice (and only after I was much older). I recall my family having some misgivings about Mr McCoy speaking with reporters through the years - but I think it's because my grandfather had his reasons for not doing so himself. My mom, aunt and uncle were probably teenagers or about when the incident took place - I'm sure there was some teasing thst happened.

Before he passed away, my mom asked my grandfather to create a journal of his life's stories for us to share with our kids - including this one. Ill see if I can't get a copy from my brother to see if there is anything else to this story. But I think you have it covered - I thought I would add what little I could to it from my perspective.

a reply to: Heinroth

Thanks for adding your recollections, they're much appreciated

I have a notion that the memory of these experiences becomes uncertain over time. If so, it would be interesting to know if your grandfather remained committed to the events as they were described at the time? I don't mean that he wasn't faithful to the details in their retelling, rather it'd be a point of interest to know if he remained *convinced* of the details in his own mind.


Your post is quite coincidental as I was thinking about this incident yesterday when it hasn't crossed my mind since about Old Retiree's posts. I was thinking about his claim of 'mystery aircraft' and how that would have been one of the earliest reports of unusual conventional craft associated with a UFO sighting. Unfortunately, I can't find the article that mentions it right now and so it might have been bolted on by someone else much later.

It's a pity the other two guys who claimed to have seen the same thing on the same night never made an official report.

Before he passed away, my mom asked my grandfather to create a journal of his life's stories for us to share with our kids - including this one. Ill see if I can't get a copy from my brother to see if there is anything else to this story. But I think you have it covered - I thought I would add what little I could to it from my perspective.

Post anything you want to about this subject or your grandfather. It's cool to remember that people who report sightings aren't just names in the books, they are (and were) people with lives like anyone else.

Thank you for adding what you have.

I think the reason people believe this is from aliens is because they make a lot of assumptions - who (if anything) was driving the craft, that the healing was deliberate, that the MIB had foreknowledge...

And also think that on ATS, the police are to be trusted at no time except when they agree with your belief in aliens! Then they are suddenly trustworthy.

Consider the possibility that this was all human done - do you really think there arent military projects they dont wish your average person to know about? That in the civilian world we dont already have electromagnetic healing to some degree? If the 'reporters' were involved and wanted to witnesses to believe in aliens - wouldnt they act just as they did? Psychological warfare. After all they said

we would have been greeted by beings much like we are

Much like we are means: human.

a reply to: Ridhya

Hello Ridhya, personally I do believe the officers related what they saw as best as they could and we'll likely never know what it all was.

The OP doesn't suggest 'aliens' and neither do other posters. Much of the thread was taken up by the worst explain-away seen on ATS - a quiet helicopter and temporary hearing loss by the witnesses who'd simultaneously lost their ability to recall what a heli looked like.

Maybe it was a psyop, but isn't that still explaining one mystery by invoking another? How would they orchestrate it? What purpose? Why a one-off?

Before writing the OP, I'd spent a lot of effort looking to debunk or rule out individual elements of the narrative. The bite, for example, seemed too contrived and I assumed it would have been added later by a reporter or dishonest researcher. However, it was confirmed by Tim Beckley, Gerry Clark and Billy McCoy - men who where there at the time.

Several of my UFO threads from 2010/11 were specifically written to highlight that some of the reports were extraordinary and not prone to conventional explanations. None of them invoked aliens as a solution and they encouraged speculation. In fact, most of the best cases call for a high tolerance for ambiguity and can only take people so far before they jump the shark or suspend judgement. I coined the phrase 'Folk from Elsewhere' as it's multi-layered and ambiguous - a placeholder for anyone choosing to await further information.

Recent years have seen a rise in the psyops solution, but it's no more a panacea than the other stock explanations from the 1940s to the 1990s. Saying that, there are[ reports that lend themselves to Intel/military mischief. Nick Redfern is about to release a book that points a finger in that direction and might even explain the Hills case. Big news indeed and liable to be highly controversial. If the Hills fall to MKULTRA misdeeds, a review of Wilcox, Zamora and similar cases from the 60s will be inevitable. It makes me smile/grimace as we might have the answers for US reports of the 60s and still have the mid-50s French wave to account for.

BTW - I hope you did well at Uni, I recall you telling me about it many moons ago

a reply to: Kandinsky
I know you're not one to jump the gun and you didn't state aliens and all, it's just this instant insinuation on most people's minds... well it is a conspiracy site after all. But like you said we equally dont know what it was or wasnt, and its rather fruitless to speculate. Skeptics and believers can be equally absurd.

I dont see them as being particularly incredible either, especially because they did not make absurd claims. As I said above there is electromagnetic healing and there is electromagnetic flight also - to what degree I dont know. But its perfectly within human capabilities.

If it wasnt a psyop, it creates the exact same questions: Who were they? What were they doing? Why follow two random officers? Why tell them that they would have been taken on a ride? The standard practice of MIB, according to alien believers, is to show up after a sighting and deny deny deny, OR, threaten into silence. And here is some open admittance of something, and phony employees. Lets say the ship was alien and the MIB were governent - why wouldnt the reporters simply tell the police it was a secret air force project and they werent to speak of it? Im SURE they would agree out of patriotism. If both were alien - what is the point of taunting them with vague information at the restaurant they would certainly be ridiculed for? Why not expose the craft to the entire police force? Why are they (theoretically) wasting all that time/energy/fuel? hovering there just to heal one guys hand that would have healed on its own?

I fully accept that people have seen things in the sky as early as the 40s-50s - however I dont believe for a second they were aliens or alien technology. Remember that even in the 50s here in CANADA we had flying saucers, so imagine what the Americans and Soviets had, that WASNT exposed. There has to be a long term development history to it as well. If we found the top secret Nazi stealth bomber, imagine what crazy above top secret projects of theirs we dont know about, in the facilities that were flooded or destroyed...!!

a reply to: Kandinsky

He says he saw a big black triangle....

Eerily reminiscent of Astr0's thread... I find myself pointing others towards his thread lately...

weird

a reply to: Ridhya

You're erring on the side of the 'secret technology' explanation. In that context, what the sheriffs saw would be some type of secret weapon or aircraft. It's more likely than 'aliens' insofar as we have no convincing evidence that 'aliens' have visited here and know for a fact that all nations have R&D for secret technology.

On the other hand, we're 50 years down the road from that report and what do we have that is similar? The US has been at war for all of those 5 decades and never used a large weapon or low-altitude craft that can move silently and at a great speed. All those 'disc-shaped' craft reports seem notably absent from the current spread of aircraft used by the West.

Beyond the aliens, MiBs, secret tech and hoax explanations, there's another strand that asks whether these objects existed anywhere outside of the perception of the witnesses? It goes some way to explaining why these huge objects can be reported in populated areas and nobody else sees them...not even local radar. Of course, there have been cases of radar reports so we have a physical versus psychic/imaginary juxtaposition right away.

I remember seeing Frank Mannor being upset at accusations of 'hullaballucinations' and it isn't clear that what people think they saw ever happened in consensus reality. This is why these accounts tend to remain unsolved. They conform to elements of several explanations without ever being thoroughly explained.

Sometimes the answers are obvious and sometimes it pays to keep your counsel and keep it ambiguous.

a reply to: Kandinsky
Mhm, well if my doctor friend were here she would say "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not unicorns"...

And you're right, we know humans exist, we know psyops exist, we know denied air force projects exist, we know that a certain conspiracy-favourite family was behind the push to convince people that aliens existed... we know that tese technologies and/or sciences have been within human capability for decades, and perhaps even longer.

We dont know if aliens exist, we dont know if they would have evolved in some manner that we would be able to comprehend and perceive as life, we dont know if they would have technology or science enabling them to travel the distance here, or what their possible motivations would even be. This theory requires a lot of assumptions...

The other explanation that is intriguing is the time traveler theory, and would corroborate the (Rendlesham was it?) theory...

You're assuming though that the idea is to use secret projects to dominate the battlefield? The American military hasnt really needed it. Every enemy they've fought has been far inferior. But maybe they'll be necessary against China or Russia? And who's to say they havent already used them in secret, with plausible deniability?

A lot of my arguments for psyops would just be repeating things I said in this thread
www.abovetopsecret.com...
read through it if you are interested. There would be a lot of benefits to having a secret transportation - and think about it. Every conspiracy in the world is based around power. And oil/gas are the main way to power. If you released vehicles that "flew" via the earths magnetic field, required no fuel, I mean think about how much harder it would be to control the population... think about that documentary showing how hard they suppressed the electric car. And thats on a far lower level