News Reporter Threatened and UFO Photographs Stolen - The Wytheville UFO Flap, 1987.

Following a wave of police UFO sightings from Wytheville, Virginia in 1987 news reporter Danny Gordon describes below how calls flooded into his radio station from other witnesses in the area and the harassment he received after attempting to investigate the sightings - he also claims a series of negatives were stolen from his home after he managed to photograph the objects.

The TV series 'Unsolved Mysteries' also made a good report about the case featuring a pretty remarkable interview and there's just been a trailer released for an upcoming UFO documentary called 'Strange Country'.



Incident / Interview:

Unsolved Mysteries:

25 Years Later:

In 1987, in the community of Wytheville, Virginia, a series of UFO encounters would occur. The first sighting to be reported was made by three policeman.

On October 7, 1987, WYVE radio station news reporter Danny Gordon received a telephone call from the local Sheriff. This was a routine call that Gordon received to gather news each day.

However, this report was not your run-of-the-mill call. Gordon was shocked at what he was told - three Wythe County Sheriff deputies, all former military, had seen a UFO.

A report such as this was normally relegated to the end of Gordon's news cast, as a tongue-in-cheek report. This was the case with the UFO report, but it would not remain humorous long.

Almost immediately after the broadcast, telephone switchboards were overloaded with UFO reports. Obviously, the three deputies were not the only witnesses to UFOs.

On October 19, Gordon set up a call-in show for the UFO reports. Though the reports came in, Gordon felt that there must be a reasonable explanation. He made numerous calls to the military, but was assured that nothing from the military would explain the reports..

link

Harassment:

WYVE News Director and UFO witness Danny Gordon. Received countless late night phone calls, some of them threatening. His house was broken into, bogus reporters had visited his home, finally his UFO negatives from the photographs he took had disappeared

UFO Witness Harassment

Photographs:

On October 21, Danny and a friend, Roger Hall, drove to the area south of Wytheville, where most of the sightings were reported, but they were unable to see anything, but while they were driving back, Danny looked to his left and saw an unusual object on the horizon.
They parked and got out of the car and noticed the large craft flying by, that was dome-shaped and had a strobe light on top. Danny then saw a red ball that went towards the craft, and docked with it and the craft flew up in the sky. The two were shocked, but angered that they were unable to get any pictures of it. The next night, Danny and Roger went out to take pictures of the craft, and this time they were able to. A press conference was made for the next day, October 23, but the night before, Danny received an anonymous phone call and the person claimed that the CIA and federal government were interested in the UFO sightings. Other phone calls Danny received told him not to investigate the sightings because they had to do with the government..

Then, after the press conference, Danny returned home to find that his house had been broken into. Oddly, nothing was stolen, and Danny believes that somebody had broken into his home to take the UFO pictures.
Six weeks later, on December 2, Danny, his wife, and daughter were leaving the local mall when people began screaming and Danny saw a large object that broke into four smaller objects in the sky. When Danny took pictures of the objects, they disappeared from view. The pictures of the objects surprisingly showed that they changed their form several times, from teardrop shaped to round ball shaped, and then disc shape, and finally egg shape when they went out of sight. By the end of December, the UFO sightings had reached over 1,500 in the town of Wytheville. Patricia Akers claimed that she had 10 sightings from an area a few miles north of Wytheville, that she believed were of strange objects that looked like helicopters or airplanes but made no noise. Rita Marie Vaught claimed that she saw a UFO behind a ridge half a mile from her house, that she said was circle object in the sky with strange lights. Mary Jane Williamson had several sightings from her house in the center of Wytheville. She said the UFO was a large object with several lights around it and a red light in the middle. Danny later called the Pentagon and talked to the defense branch, and they claimed that the government confirms that UFOs exist, but that they do not pose a threat to Wythe County..

Full story

Links:

Wytheville UFO's 25 Years Later

Strange Country: A Different Type of UFO Documentary

reply to post by karl 12


Good info, will have to take some time to go over this since I haven't seen this one before. I will definitely be commenting when I finish reading up on it. But S&F for now.

reply to post by karl 12


Interesting case. I'm not familiar with this flap. I'll have to look into it. Unsolved Mysteries sure did an excellent job with some of their UFO-themed shows. The one on the Belgian wave was particularly enlightening.



Leslie Kean's book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record (an excerpt of which can be read here) also covers the Belgian flap quite well.

reply to post by karl 12
It seems like I remember this case. I used to watch unsolved mysteries all the time. I'll have to watch the video in a little while. See if it rings a bell. I was a kid when I watched all of those unsolved mysteries so even if I've seen it, it'll still be good to hear the info again. Nice one, S+F! Yep, you are the CaseMaster!
I'll post again after going through the video and link.
TXML

Good case, too bad he didn't think to record the calls to the military and pentagon. But then again, who at that time would think they would need that evidence. The cover-up was not known that well in the general populace back in the 80's though it was well known in the UFO community.

I think he did the right thing by backing out. I hold no ill will towards someone who is thrown into this without knowledge of all the hell it can play with your life not wanting to continue even though I hope he turned what records he had over to a reputable investigative community.

Though I saw nothing of that mentioned in any of the articles, it would be a shame to loose all the work he did.

reply to post by karl 12


Difficult to say what it was. Was the B2 stealth bomber still classified then? Just a thought, could be alien in nature no reason why not, but it could also be a classified aircraft they want to keep a lid on.

Danny's story seems pretty interesting, but a few of the other witnesses don't really provide very convincing reports. (IMO)

interesting case...thanks again....

Thanks for the replies and considering there were 'thousands' of individual witness reports, it's quite surprising the Wytheville UFO sightings aren't that well known about (I'd never heard of them anyway) - there's a good article below featuring some other witness testimony and it also counters the 'refueling B52 bomber' debunk.

“It is a compelling case because there were hundreds, if not thousands, of individual witnesses and a variety of craft over the course of several months,” said Valluzzo.

“The witnesses were reliable people,” he added. “In fact, the National Enquirer sent a reporter who decided not to run a story because the people were just not weird enough!”

Kotz said that the reigning opinion is that it was some kind of classified military project, but there are some details that just don’t match up.

“First of all, why Wytheville? If you are trying to hide something, the intersection of two major highways is not a good place to do it,” Kotz said. “Secondly, the B2 bomber and refueling exercise explanations don’t fit the facts. The majority of the unexplained reports feature noiseless, hovering, low-level craft.”

Wytheville focus of UFO documentary

Cheers.

Newspaper report from the Free Lance-Star:

Convery also came up with an explanation for the alleged harassment of local motorists by the flying machines which are said to have followed people with spotlights on them and even run drivers off the road.

"Imagine you're a bored fighter jock" Convery said. "To relieve the tedium, you chase a local around."

Newspaper Article

reply to post by karl 12


cool thread but those photographs - real or not - are terrible haha. Why go through so much effort to steal something that looks like.. well just a bunch of blurred lights.

“The witnesses were reliable people,” he added. “In fact, the National Enquirer sent a reporter who decided not to run a story because the people were just not weird enough!”

That's a definite plus. I'd say with all of the witnesses and the photos(even though they are a blur), it wasn't the B2. It doesn't really fit any of the descriptions given.
I know one thing for sure.....If I'm ever in contact with government officials,(which I have to doubt I ever will be) I will record the conversations. I guess back in the 80s it wasn't an issue. Like another poster said,"The cover-up was not known that well in the general populace" It's a different story now days.

By the end of December, the UFO sightings had reached over 1,500 in the town of Wytheville.

What ever was going on in that little town, a lot of folks saw it. At least 1500 witnesses, someone would've noticed it was a human aircraft, even if the stealth was classified, some one would have noticed the shape and would have described it as such.

WYVE News Director and UFO witness Danny Gordon. Received countless late night phone calls, some of them threatening. His house was broken into, bogus reporters had visited his home, finally his UFO negatives from the photographs he took had disappeared

If all of that is true.....
None of it surprises me, given the amount of witnesses and attention this phenomenon received. Its still hard to say what it was. The pictures are revealing in a way (if real) because the light formation resembles nothing I've seen to this day(except other UFO pictures.) Its a mystery, thats all I can say for sure

TXML

Originally posted by txMEGAlithic

“The witnesses were reliable people,” he added. “In fact, the National Enquirer sent a reporter who decided not to run a story because the people were just not weird enough!”

TxMEGAlithic, thanks for the reply mate and I have to say I found that comment interesting as well - Danny Gordon co-wrote a book about the Virginia sightings called 'Don't look up' and considering all the harassment he recieved that's probably a pretty apt title (can't seem to find it on free pdf format though ).

Paul Dellinger's years of reportorial skills allowed him to do a most excellent job detailing the UFO events in this book, events that were eventually aired on the TV Show UNSOLVED Mysteries. Paul is detailed oriented writer as is his partner Danny Gordon. I was one of the speakers at the public gathering in Rural Retreat, and they got the details of what I said with very little error. That alone is hard to do in this day and age of the soundbite. The events detailed in the book happened as outlined. The mystery of what really happened remains like all UFO events thus far-unsolved.

Cheers.

reply to post by karl 12

and there's also just been a trailer released for an upcoming UFO documentary called 'Strange Country'.

Another great case Karl...
Sean Kotz was just recently on BofA talking about the case and his upcoming documentary. I knew seeing this thread rang some kind of bell. Have a listen if you havent heard it already...
Binnall of America-Wytheville, Strange Country and Sean Kotz

Originally posted by Toxicsurf

Sean Kotz was just recently on BofA talking about the case and his upcoming documentary. I knew seeing this thread rang some kind of bell. Have a listen if you havent heard it already...

Binnall of America-Wytheville, Strange Country and Sean Kotz

Toxicsurf, excellent post mate and will be certainly be giving that one a listen.

The last sentence in this paragraph definitely sounds familiar.

Sean then discusses some of the pushback that happened to witnesses in the area after they reported their sighting, including the story of a construction worker who had his equipment defaced and was ridiculed for his experience. Sean muses about why this kind of negative response seems to happen to UFO witnesses. He then returns to the narrative to tell us about the press conference held by Danny Gordon where he unveiled his UFO information to the media and the government subsequently 'solved' the UFO flap. Sean explains how Gordon investigated the spurious 'solution' and how it did not hold water.We then learn about how the government explanation, despite being faulty, led to the media losing interest in the UFO flap.

Cheers!

Good thread, I know that there are indeed case where people are threatened and that UFO coverup is real, so I think this case did happen.

Originally posted by Imtor

I know that there are indeed case where people are threatened and that UFO coverup is real, so I think this case did happen.

There sure are mate -this guy even got his mailbox blown up.

"So this thing [UFO] fires a beam of light at the warhead, hits it and then it moves to the other side and fires another beam of light. And the warhead tumbles out of space. What message would I interpret from that? The UFOs were telling us] don't mess with nuclear warheads. Major Mannsman said, "You are never to speak of this again." After an article [about the incident years later], people would call and start screaming at me. One night somebody blew up my mailbox.

US Air Force Lieutenant, Professor Robert Jacobs

Cheers.

Sounds like a good publicity stunt for a Radio show. Kinda like the war of the worlds drama back in the day.

Originally posted by Orkojoker
reply to post by karl 12

 

Interesting case. I'm not familiar with this flap. I'll have to look into it. Unsolved Mysteries sure did an excellent job with some of their UFO-themed shows. The one on the Belgian wave was particularly enlightening.

The majority of Unsolved Mysteries shows have been removed from Youtube mate, here's a new link for the Belgium doc - great watch!

Unsolved Mysteries - Belgium UFO

Interesting documentary on a UFO sighted in Belgium. Lots of police interviews and the Head of the Belgian Air Force explaining how they scrambled F-16s to chase the UFO, radar tapes and gun camera footage fromt he Air Force. The UFOs acceleration would have killed a human.

So it's clear there was a UFO, and to this day it is still unidentified, what it was nobody knows.

Cheers.

reply to post by karl 12


When I saw him, he looked familiar, I knew he was that guy, not using this show as some ultimate source but one has to focus on what the people say, not the show itself and who is running it.

It really didn't become much clear other than the fact his whole family was threatened, I have no reason to doubt that. However, I wish he captured something better, still thanks for the more info you provided here.

a reply to: karl 12

Knew I'd find it again.
Excellent OP thanks.
Dunno why this one isn't so well known.
I'll be back.