The Michigan 1966 UFO Flap - Was it Swamp gas?

More reports from same time and area:

Archive

More police UFO witnesses from same time and area and possible photographs.


Another UFO Said Seen Near Holland

'Drawings by the mother of 12 year old Susan Merrill of Hillsdale who also reported UFOs in the same week'.

link

originally posted by: karl 12

Media Coverage:

Ufologie Newspaper articles


Lab Results - Environmental analysis:

www.ufoera.com...

New links:


Media Coverage:

Ufologie Newspaper articles


Lab Results - Environmental analysis:

www.skepticfiles.org...

UFO documents from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum (sourced by RealTVUFOs)

PDF File


"The original documents are located in Box D9, folder “Ford Press Releases - UFO, 1966” of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.”

Good vid - UFO case review:

50 years on Police Officer Nuel Schneider describes the UFO he witnessed (and sketched) - Sheriff Douglas Harvey also discusses the mysterious phone call from Washington a short time before the press conference which instructed Dr Hynek to employ the 'swamp gas debunk'.

When policemen spotted a "flying saucer" in 1966, an official investigation declared it was an optical illusion created by swamp gas. But some say that's just what the government wanted us to believe.

I wonder if the over-the-top government denials of the 1960s led to some kind of pushback, perceived or otherwise. And so the government changed their approach in the 1970s and started on the feeding of bad info to UFO groups and manipulation of the participants in such groups.

Another sighting from the 60s I have found interesting is Exeter (September 1965). IIRC, some USAF colonel attempted an absurd debunking of the sightings, claiming it was the lamps of a distant air force base. Those guys should have been issued tap dancing shoes for some of the "explanations" they came up with.

Cheers

Thanks for a refresher on this case. Michigan is still quite a hotbed of sightings, though they really don't receive the Press like they did back 50 years or even 25 years ago with sightings of UFOs caught on radar and spanning over 200 miles along the southwestern lake shore towards Chicago. Michigan not only being surrounded by 4 of the great Lakes but has so many fresh water inland lakes too.

My parents tell the story of my dad accelerating to try and crash the car into an UFO on the road ahead. This was an area of the swampy marshland/bogs just west of Kalamazoo in Bangor area. My mom was pregnant with me so she was not drinking during the holidays. My brothers were in the backseat. She was so thankful that as they got closer it just took off and disappeared. She said it was like a moon glowing. They did report it at the local police station, but we're not taken seriously.

Apparently, there are still lots of sightings to this day.

Michigan ranks ninth in the United States for UFO sighting reports, totaling 4,160 from 2001 to 2015. There was an average of 460 sighting reports per year during the six-year period covering 2010 to 2015.

The top five Michigan counties in the state for UFO sighting reports are: Wayne, 501; Oakland, 435; Macomb, 333; Kent, 233; and Genesee, 205.

The top 10 Michigan cities in the state for sighting reports are: Grand Rapid, 128; Detroit, 107; Lansing, 98; Flint, 72; Ann Arbor, 57; Kalamazoo, 51; Canton, 47; Holland, 44; Warren, 44; and Howell, 40.

The top five UFO shapes reported are: light in the sky, 542 or 11.58 percent; circle, 537 or 11.4 percent; triangle, 494 or 10.5 percent; sphere, 485 or 10.3 percent; and fireball, 383 or 8.1 percent.

Michigan ranks ninth for UFO sightings