Latest / UFOS & PARANORMAL WITH PRESTON DENNETT / The Forgotten UFO Wave -- Wytheville, Virginia (1987-1988)

Transcript

The Forgotten UFO Wave -- Wytheville, Virginia (1987-1988) · UFOS & PARANORMAL WITH PRESTON DENNETT

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello everyone. My name is Preston Dennett, and welcome to
0:03
Speaker 1: a new episode of UFOs and the Paranormal. Thank you
0:07
Speaker 1: for joining me. I truly appreciate it. Today I'm going
0:10
Speaker 1: to be doing something a little different, something I've only
0:13
Speaker 1: done I think once before, which is talking about a
0:16
Speaker 1: major and very intense UFO wave. So the title of
0:20
Speaker 1: today's episode is called the Forgotten UFO Wave. Withville, Virginia
0:26
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven to nineteen eighty eight. Withville, Virginia is
0:31
Speaker 1: a small and very beautiful little town of about eight
0:35
Speaker 1: thousand residents, nestled directly in the vast Blue Ridge mountain range,
0:41
Speaker 1: so it's surrounded by mountains, forests, streams rivers. It's an
0:45
Speaker 1: extraordinarily beautiful place. Withville does have an interesting history. It
0:52
Speaker 1: turns out that the town is named after George with
0:55
Speaker 1: who is one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
0:58
Speaker 1: It's also produced a few really famous people, including William Gibson,
1:03
Speaker 1: a very famous science fiction writer, and Edith Wilson, who
1:08
Speaker 1: was the wife of President Woodrow Wilson. She was often
1:13
Speaker 1: called the secret President because apparently she took over the
1:16
Speaker 1: presidential duties when Woodrill Wilson was inapacitated during his term
1:23
Speaker 1: in office. Another interesting fact about Withville is that it
1:28
Speaker 1: has a very famous lookout point where you can see
1:31
Speaker 1: five states all at once, including of course Virginia, but
1:35
Speaker 1: also West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. But what
1:43
Speaker 1: really put Withville on the map was a huge and
1:47
Speaker 1: very intense UFO wave which began in October of nineteen
1:52
Speaker 1: eighty seven and raged through the rest of that year
1:55
Speaker 1: and into nineteen eighty eight, probably about till June or
1:59
Speaker 1: Jill Live, but maybe even longer. This wave really put
2:04
Speaker 1: with vill on the UFO map, generated national headlines and
2:09
Speaker 1: became a matter of huge controversy as citizens tried to
2:13
Speaker 1: figure out what they were seeing, whether this was extraterrestrial
2:17
Speaker 1: or secret military craft. So that is what I'm going
2:22
Speaker 1: to be talking about today. In the first segment I'm
2:25
Speaker 1: going to be talking about I call the Wave Begins,
2:29
Speaker 1: and this is going to focus largely on Danny Gordon,
2:34
Speaker 1: a newsman who we really owe a huge debt of
2:37
Speaker 1: gratitude to because it was his efforts that really put
2:43
Speaker 1: Withville's UFO wave on the map. It was he who
2:48
Speaker 1: handled the investigation almost single handedly, So let's get to it.
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Speaker 1: Before October seventh, nineteen eighty seven, Danny Gordon, the news
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Speaker 1: director of w why v E Radio in Whitville, Virginia,
3:03
Speaker 1: had never really given much thought to UFOs. He had
3:07
Speaker 1: worked at the radio station for three years, and prior
3:10
Speaker 1: to this, was the news and sports editor of the
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Speaker 1: Southwest Virginia Enterprise newspaper of Withville, where he worked forirst
3:18
Speaker 1: seven years. In nineteen eighty seven, Danny Gordon won all
3:22
Speaker 1: the news and Broadcasting awards given by the Virginia United
3:26
Speaker 1: Press International Group largely because of this wave, and he
3:30
Speaker 1: was named Newsman of the Year in his radio division.
3:34
Speaker 1: But at the time this wave began, UFOs were the
3:37
Speaker 1: farthest thing from his mind. But on October seventh, nineteen
3:42
Speaker 1: eighty seven, all that changed. It began when Danny Gordon
3:46
Speaker 1: was talking with with County Sheriff Wayne Pike, and he
3:50
Speaker 1: was getting some news items about a recent local vandalism.
3:54
Speaker 1: When Sheriff Pike told him, quote, I do have one
3:58
Speaker 1: more news item you might be in interested in. Five
4:01
Speaker 1: police officers, including one of my men, spotted a UFO
4:05
Speaker 1: over Withville last night. They said the craft made no
4:08
Speaker 1: noise they were certain what they saw were not airplanes
4:12
Speaker 1: or helicopters. Now coming from such a reputable source, Danny
4:17
Speaker 1: was excited about this report. Fearing ridiculed, the officers refused
4:22
Speaker 1: to go public. Nevertheless, Danny aired a sixty second story
4:26
Speaker 1: about it the next day on the WYVE station. He
4:30
Speaker 1: thought it would be accepted with a chuckle and that
4:32
Speaker 1: the story would quickly fade away, but of course that's
4:35
Speaker 1: not what happened. Instead, the story was picked up by
4:39
Speaker 1: other news media, and interest in the story quickly grew.
4:43
Speaker 1: One Washington based newspaper called Sheriff Pike and asked him,
4:47
Speaker 1: what are your deputies drinking? Naturally, Sheriff Pike was not amused,
4:52
Speaker 1: but most newspapers took the account seriously, and the story
4:55
Speaker 1: began to gain traction. As Danny says, it started slowly. First,
5:01
Speaker 1: I began getting comments over the phone from with county
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Speaker 1: citizens who claimed to have seen a similar UFO. Then
5:08
Speaker 1: the state's news media joined the flood of calls. Even
5:11
Speaker 1: at the first day of the phone constantly ringing off
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Speaker 1: the hook, I truly believed it would end as quickly
5:17
Speaker 1: as it began. Little did Danny know he had grabbed
5:21
Speaker 1: the tiger by the tail, and despite calls continuing to
5:25
Speaker 1: flood the station, Danny left the story alone, thinking that
5:29
Speaker 1: the hubbub and excitement would die down. It didn't. A
5:32
Speaker 1: few days later, Sheriff Pike called Danny with another news
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Speaker 1: report from one of his deputies who took the testimony
5:39
Speaker 1: of a family from Ohio visiting the area. As Sheriff
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Speaker 1: Pike says, they told the deputy a round, low flying
5:47
Speaker 1: object came at their car, forcing it off the road.
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Speaker 1: According to this report, the object was gray and had
5:52
Speaker 1: blinking lights, and after forcing the family off the road,
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Speaker 1: it hovered silently and sped away. Danny wanted to enter
6:00
Speaker 1: view the family first hand and get them to use
6:02
Speaker 1: their names, but they refused and insisted upon anonymity. But
6:06
Speaker 1: after talking to Sheriff Pike, who assured him that the
6:09
Speaker 1: witnesses were credible, Danny released the story. Not surprisingly, more
6:14
Speaker 1: witnesses began to step forward. State Police dispatcher Brooks. Coleman
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Speaker 1: told Danny Gordon that he had been east of Withville
6:22
Speaker 1: off Interstate eighty one, Dash seventy seven when he received
6:26
Speaker 1: a call from a resident about a UFO. Dispatcher Coleman
6:30
Speaker 1: checked it out and to his surprise, there was the UFO.
6:34
Speaker 1: As Brooks Coleman says in his own words, what I
6:37
Speaker 1: saw was two big green lights, one on top of another.
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Speaker 1: It was not moving, just kind of hung there up
6:44
Speaker 1: in the sky. Now he was convinced it wasn't a
6:47
Speaker 1: plane or a helicopter. Danny Gordon, convinced that Brooks saw
6:51
Speaker 1: something unusual, ran the story. Still, he himself wasn't fully
6:56
Speaker 1: convinced that UFOs were visiting Withville. Nevertheless, as a newsman,
7:01
Speaker 1: he thought it was his duty to follow the evidence
7:03
Speaker 1: wherever it led. As Danny says, I still refused to
7:08
Speaker 1: look up at night, retaining my objectivity to report the
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Speaker 1: UFO story without bias. I have to admit I was
7:15
Speaker 1: totally skeptical. As inquiries came in at Wyvee. I soon
7:21
Speaker 1: became the center for UFO information in with County. Little
7:25
Speaker 1: did I know it was to be just the tip
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Speaker 1: of the iceberg. What's really interesting and unique about the
7:32
Speaker 1: Withville waves that it started so abruptly and very quickly
7:36
Speaker 1: became incredibly intense, with hundreds of people seeing UFOs day
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Speaker 1: after day after day. So this next segment I'm going
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Speaker 1: to focus on some of the first hand eyewitness reports.
7:49
Speaker 1: I call this next segment the witnesses speak. Ten days
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Speaker 1: after the first report came in, on October seventeen, nineteen
7:57
Speaker 1: eighty seven, Danny set up a call in show on
8:00
Speaker 1: Wyve so that people could call in their sightings anonymously.
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Speaker 1: To Danny's shock, the lines lit up with people wanting
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Speaker 1: to report their sighting. The sightings came not only from
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Speaker 1: the eight thousand residents of Wyville, but from all over
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Speaker 1: With County, which contains about twenty six thousand people. One
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Speaker 1: woman called and said that she and her husband were
8:21
Speaker 1: driving with their children when a UFO flew at low
8:24
Speaker 1: level right over their car. As she said, it just
8:28
Speaker 1: seemed like it came out of nowhere. This object appeared.
8:32
Speaker 1: My husband said, Oh my goodness, that's a UFO. Another
8:35
Speaker 1: report came from a lady who said that she and
8:37
Speaker 1: her boyfriend were parked at Rural Retreat Lake when her
8:41
Speaker 1: boyfriend said, look up, and as the caller said, it
8:45
Speaker 1: was right over the top of us, and it looked
8:47
Speaker 1: like a flying saucer. It had all different color lights
8:51
Speaker 1: going around the bottom of it. It just flew across us.
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Speaker 1: It didn't stop her anything. The witness said the craft
8:57
Speaker 1: made no sound. She did not notice any odor because,
9:01
Speaker 1: as she says, I was two petrified. A third caller
9:05
Speaker 1: said that he was at his home at Rural Retreat.
9:07
Speaker 1: This is not far from Witthville, and he said, quote,
9:12
Speaker 1: when I was in bed, I was looking out the
9:14
Speaker 1: window and I saw something round going across. There were
9:17
Speaker 1: lights going around and two lights shining on the ground.
9:21
Speaker 1: Another witness called to say that one night earlier, he
9:24
Speaker 1: and his friend were sitting in his truck at Rural Retreat.
9:28
Speaker 1: They were talking about the recent sightings and he told
9:31
Speaker 1: his friend that he'd like to see a UFO. When
9:34
Speaker 1: lo and behold, one appeared. As the witness says, I
9:38
Speaker 1: saw an object. It had lights flashing in a triangular
9:41
Speaker 1: shape on the bottom of it. It looked to me
9:43
Speaker 1: like it was in oval shape, and the lights on
9:45
Speaker 1: the bottom of it were red, blue, and white. I
9:49
Speaker 1: first thought it was an airplane, but when it got
9:51
Speaker 1: over the top, I noticed it wasn't flying or moving
9:54
Speaker 1: fast enough to be an airplane. What really did scare
9:57
Speaker 1: me was that there were two lights in front of it,
10:00
Speaker 1: and the first one in front of it was rather large.
10:02
Speaker 1: It looked to me like it was a glass ball
10:04
Speaker 1: with a light in the middle of it, and these
10:06
Speaker 1: calls just kept coming in. One lady called from Ivanhoe
10:10
Speaker 1: on the southern border of With County and reported that
10:13
Speaker 1: just the night before she saw one of the objects
10:16
Speaker 1: apparently land as she said, it went down and it
10:19
Speaker 1: went back up. It landed and it went back up.
10:23
Speaker 1: It looked a little like an old jet but made
10:26
Speaker 1: no noise. It had a round shape with blinking red
10:29
Speaker 1: and green lights. Another woman said that on both October
10:33
Speaker 1: twelve and thirteen, she saw it. She described as a
10:36
Speaker 1: square shaped object with green, red, and amber lights quote
10:40
Speaker 1: all over the thing. She didn't think it was a
10:43
Speaker 1: plane and wondered what it was. She was in the
10:46
Speaker 1: area of Speedwell in Wyck County. Another witness described her
10:50
Speaker 1: sighting on October fourteen. She was watching TV when her
10:54
Speaker 1: attention was diverted outside because she saw strange multicolored lights
10:58
Speaker 1: in the sky and she also saw a larger craft.
11:01
Speaker 1: As she said, it looked like it had two big headlights,
11:05
Speaker 1: white lights with a little red flickering light underneath it. It
11:09
Speaker 1: was just beautiful, just fascinating. I'm sure there's an explanation.
11:14
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's an answer, but it was more interesting
11:17
Speaker 1: than TV. I'll tell you that. Another witness who did
11:20
Speaker 1: allow her name to be used was Patricia Aker, and
11:23
Speaker 1: she said that she and her husband and their kids
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Speaker 1: were in Fort Chiswell, this is just east of Whiddville
11:29
Speaker 1: one week earlier when they had their sighting, and as
11:32
Speaker 1: Patricia said, it just seemed like out of nowhere, this
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Speaker 1: big object appeared, was very low and we couldn't hear anything.
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Speaker 1: So my husband said, oh, my goodness, that's a UFO.
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Speaker 1: I thought the same thing, and my kids started crying.
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Speaker 1: It was a real large aircraft. I've never seen anything
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Speaker 1: like it before. And then two of them showed up. Now.
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Speaker 1: Patricia said that the objects were moving very slow and
11:59
Speaker 1: appeared to be army green in color. She said they
12:02
Speaker 1: were no more than three hundred feet high. Her husband
12:05
Speaker 1: said that's something to do with the army. She said
12:09
Speaker 1: that a total of nine people in three cars saw
12:12
Speaker 1: this and said, quote, we all agreed on one thing.
12:16
Speaker 1: Nobody had ever seen anything like this before. Later, Patricia
12:21
Speaker 1: told her father in law, and he said that he
12:23
Speaker 1: had seen three of them earlier while driving down Highway
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Speaker 1: fifty two towards Hillsville. She also learned that a friend
12:30
Speaker 1: of her neighbor had seen them two weeks earlier and
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Speaker 1: described it as quote a large flat plane. So a
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Speaker 1: lot of sightings. Near Another Judy Hall called in to
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Speaker 1: say that she and her husband saw a UFO again
12:44
Speaker 1: just the night before. They described a very bright starlike
12:48
Speaker 1: object low on the horizon, hovering with red, green and
12:52
Speaker 1: white lights. And although plains do have red, green and
12:55
Speaker 1: white lights, Judy insists it was not a plane. And
12:59
Speaker 1: she says, no, no way. It wasn't moving. Was just
13:03
Speaker 1: sort of going up and down, up and down, and
13:06
Speaker 1: it did not appear to be a helicopter. We called
13:08
Speaker 1: the neighbors and he said, I don't know what it is,
13:12
Speaker 1: but it was interesting. Another caller in said, quote five
13:16
Speaker 1: of us our family saw it was over Sand Mountain
13:20
Speaker 1: on the wid Ville side, kind of circled on this
13:23
Speaker 1: side of the mountain and then came towards town and
13:26
Speaker 1: it kind of circled about it twice it stopped and hovered.
13:30
Speaker 1: So many sightings. Yet another man called in and described
13:34
Speaker 1: his sighting as he says, ah, boy, it was pretty.
13:37
Speaker 1: It kind of looked something about an egg shape. He
13:40
Speaker 1: said it had blue and white lights. He said one
13:43
Speaker 1: of the lights actually separated from the object, and he
13:46
Speaker 1: insisted that what he saw were definitely not planes. One
13:50
Speaker 1: of the objects circled overhead for about ninety minutes, and
13:54
Speaker 1: he said it was perfectly silent. Now, this Collin show
13:58
Speaker 1: was not live, but when it was aired shortly later,
14:01
Speaker 1: calls started coming into the station by the hundreds, so
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Speaker 1: this wave was now in full force. One witness reported
14:09
Speaker 1: seeing numerous strange craft that he guessed were military, but
14:13
Speaker 1: on October eighth, nineteen eighty seven, he saw something different
14:16
Speaker 1: that he doesn't think was a military as he says
14:20
Speaker 1: it was a semi large, bright white object sitting dead
14:24
Speaker 1: still lower than an airplane. What really sat me down
14:28
Speaker 1: was what was going on around it. Five to six
14:31
Speaker 1: separate red singular lights were darting around and away, and
14:35
Speaker 1: some even merged with the object. Another witness, Edward L. Martin,
14:41
Speaker 1: reports that about a week before the wave went public,
14:44
Speaker 1: he was driving into Lansburg near Withville at night when
14:47
Speaker 1: he saw quote a translucent pink sphere which looked to
14:52
Speaker 1: me about twenty feet tall, moving slowly over the road
14:55
Speaker 1: in front of me. When I heard the story about
14:57
Speaker 1: the UFOs in Withville, with the mother sh and a
15:00
Speaker 1: smaller lit sphere docking with it. It sounded like what
15:04
Speaker 1: I had seen. Another witness was Edwina Stowers, her fiance
15:09
Speaker 1: Jeff Lowe, his mother, and father, and sister all saw
15:13
Speaker 1: UFOs from Jackson Street in Widthville on October fifth. They
15:17
Speaker 1: described the object or objects as quote, a bunch of
15:21
Speaker 1: lights flying very fast in circles along the sand mountain ridge.
15:25
Speaker 1: They said the objects came so close at one point
15:27
Speaker 1: they could hear a hum coming from it. How amazing
15:31
Speaker 1: is that, so many sightings happening so quickly, just day
15:35
Speaker 1: after day. When really interesting feature about the with Ville
15:39
Speaker 1: UFO waves is the huge variety of craft that people
15:42
Speaker 1: are describing. So we have orbs, we have saucer shaped craft,
15:47
Speaker 1: we have cigar shaped craft, weird military type craft, so
15:51
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of stuff people are seeing, very hard
15:55
Speaker 1: to explain. Danny Gordon again found himself pretty much the
16:01
Speaker 1: only investigator who was willing to look into all of
16:05
Speaker 1: this stuff, and he had a very difficult time with it,
16:10
Speaker 1: and it wasn't long before he himself started seeing UFOs.
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Speaker 1: So that's what this next segment is about. I call
16:18
Speaker 1: it the investigation and It's all about Danny Gordon's efforts
16:21
Speaker 1: to try to figure out what's going on here, what
16:24
Speaker 1: people are seeing. Is this extraterrestrial or is this secret
16:28
Speaker 1: military craft. After hearing and documenting all of these reports,
16:33
Speaker 1: Danny Gordon was still not convinced that people were seeing
16:36
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial craft, nor were some of the witnesses themselves. In fact,
16:41
Speaker 1: the prevailing opinion was that the craft were secret military craft.
16:46
Speaker 1: So Danny began making calls to the military. Everyone he
16:50
Speaker 1: called denied having any military craft over with Veil or
16:54
Speaker 1: with County. The Air Force in the federal government told
16:58
Speaker 1: him quote that they were no longer in the UFO
17:01
Speaker 1: investigation field. He contacted representatives of all branches of the services,
17:06
Speaker 1: and all of them denied having any craft in the area,
17:10
Speaker 1: so he continued making calls. Danny contacted doctor John A. Adams,
17:15
Speaker 1: professor of mathematics at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia,
17:20
Speaker 1: who told him that most people who report UFOs are
17:23
Speaker 1: not trained observers and are probably misreporting normal aircraft or
17:28
Speaker 1: planets such as Venus. Well, Danny knew that that wasn't
17:32
Speaker 1: the case. Attempts to get help from national UFO groups were,
17:36
Speaker 1: as Danny said in his own words, fruitless. Then he
17:40
Speaker 1: received a call from UFO researcher Barbara Finney, who actually
17:44
Speaker 1: agreed to come over and assist with the investigation. She did.
17:49
Speaker 1: Word of the activity was spreading and more people called
17:51
Speaker 1: to help. Professional photographer John Stember called and he also
17:56
Speaker 1: agreed to visit Withville in hopes of seeing the UFOs himself.
18:00
Speaker 1: A call came from computer analyst Andrew Convery, who also
18:05
Speaker 1: wanted to come to Withville and help Danny with his
18:08
Speaker 1: investigation and also hopefully see the UFOs. On October twenty second,
18:12
Speaker 1: Danny Gordon and his friend Roger Hall armed themselves with
18:16
Speaker 1: cameras and drove around town hoping to see the UFOs.
18:21
Speaker 1: They were driving up Route twenty one, about five miles
18:24
Speaker 1: south of Wville, when sure enough a UFO appeared. They
18:28
Speaker 1: stopped the car, got out and watched. As Danny says,
18:32
Speaker 1: what we saw was an extremely large aircraft. It made
18:37
Speaker 1: no noise as it passed in front of us over
18:39
Speaker 1: a nearby pasture. Was flying about fifteen hundred to two
18:42
Speaker 1: thousand feet. As the aircraft came towards me, I could
18:46
Speaker 1: see a flat, snub nosed cockpit. One side was lighted
18:50
Speaker 1: up in a glaring white light that the other side
18:53
Speaker 1: was totally dark. The aircraft had no signs of wings
18:57
Speaker 1: or rotor blades. As it paralleled us, the aircraft appeared
19:01
Speaker 1: to demonstrate a dome shape. As it went away from us,
19:05
Speaker 1: we saw the weirdest sight we had ever seen in
19:08
Speaker 1: the sky. The six hundred to seven hundred foot aircraft
19:12
Speaker 1: had three large window panes in the back in the
19:15
Speaker 1: shape of a dome or half circle. Suddenly, from the
19:19
Speaker 1: east came a red spherical object was moving at a
19:23
Speaker 1: fairly fast pace. It traveled across the sky directly into
19:27
Speaker 1: a cloud at the same time the large aircraft entered
19:30
Speaker 1: the cloud. When the big craft emerged, the sphere did not.
19:35
Speaker 1: Now despite both of them having cameras, neither of them
19:38
Speaker 1: thought to take a photograph. On October twenty second, Danny
19:42
Speaker 1: Gordon and Roger Hall met up with John Stember and
19:45
Speaker 1: his girlfriend. This is later that night, and they returned
19:48
Speaker 1: to Route twenty one in hopes of seeing something again,
19:52
Speaker 1: and suddenly they saw quote an orange dome shaped object
19:56
Speaker 1: was hovering nearby, and as they watched, a small blue
20:00
Speaker 1: object appeared to dock with the orange dome shaped object.
20:04
Speaker 1: This time, both Danny and John managed to take photographs. Weirdly,
20:09
Speaker 1: Danny's camera suddenly stopped working after three photos, so they
20:15
Speaker 1: returned to town and they met up with John Convery,
20:18
Speaker 1: who said that he had actually seen two objects still
20:21
Speaker 1: hooked together, flying directly over Withville. The next night, Danny Gordon,
20:26
Speaker 1: Andrew Converery and John Stember saw quote a V shaped
20:30
Speaker 1: craft flying silently overhead, changing the colors of its lights
20:34
Speaker 1: as if to signal to us so is just day
20:38
Speaker 1: after day. The very next day, October twenty third, nineteen
20:41
Speaker 1: eighty seven, Roger Hall, John Stember, and Andrew Converury joined
20:46
Speaker 1: Danny Gordon for a live news conference. Danny Gordon shared
20:51
Speaker 1: their sighting and said that at this time their current
20:54
Speaker 1: assessment was that they were dealing with quote, a secret
20:58
Speaker 1: military operation. He shared some of the reports coming into
21:02
Speaker 1: the station of people reporting being followed in their cars
21:06
Speaker 1: by helicopter like craft only a few hundred feet above
21:09
Speaker 1: the road, and he said that there was also an
21:11
Speaker 1: increase of military jets and helicopters in the area, and
21:15
Speaker 1: yet none of these craft could be identified. As Danny said,
21:20
Speaker 1: We've had numerous sightings of all kinds of unusual craft,
21:24
Speaker 1: including aircraft at hover that stand still in the sky,
21:28
Speaker 1: that land and take off without any noise. We do
21:31
Speaker 1: have a lot of concerned citizens. Andrew Converrey spoke about
21:36
Speaker 1: his own sighting and said, quote, the general impression I
21:39
Speaker 1: got is this thing was riding serenely through the skies
21:43
Speaker 1: with absolutely no fear of interdiction. I felt a little
21:47
Speaker 1: bit of resentment that a strange craft could be so
21:49
Speaker 1: sure that it would not be interfered with by our people.
21:54
Speaker 1: Andrew later added, in terms of the number of sightings,
21:58
Speaker 1: details of sightings, closeness of sightings, in length of time
22:02
Speaker 1: of sightings, these incidents here at Wittville are absolutely unprecedented
22:08
Speaker 1: in the history of this phenomenon. You can go into
22:11
Speaker 1: any country store here and find people that have either
22:14
Speaker 1: seen these objects or no people that have. It's a
22:17
Speaker 1: universal phenomenon, not an individual one. John Stember, the photographer, spoke,
22:22
Speaker 1: and he said, quote, the first one seemed to be large.
22:26
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. It seemed to be sort of
22:28
Speaker 1: a large ball or a large dome shape, almost like
22:31
Speaker 1: a mother ship. Roger Hall described the above sightings and said,
22:35
Speaker 1: we've seen two things down in that area in the
22:37
Speaker 1: last two nights, and there are more witnesses. Another witness
22:42
Speaker 1: who gave her name was Emma Burchette. She described her
22:45
Speaker 1: sighting of a huge, long, silent object with a big
22:49
Speaker 1: light in front, one in the center, and one in back,
22:53
Speaker 1: and she said it was hovering only seven hundred feet
22:55
Speaker 1: above the ground. Danny Gordon explained that just that morning
22:59
Speaker 1: the Waive station had received no less than fifteen reports,
23:04
Speaker 1: and he added all fifteen coincided with what has been
23:09
Speaker 1: described to you. Danny then explained that he had contacted
23:12
Speaker 1: the offices of Virginia Senators John Warner and Paul Tribble
23:17
Speaker 1: and told them we have been invaded by something and
23:21
Speaker 1: we're not very happy about it. A lot of people
23:24
Speaker 1: are scared. Let's face it, they don't know what's out there,
23:28
Speaker 1: and I can't tell them what's out there. Again, one
23:30
Speaker 1: consistent feature with all of these sightings was a complete
23:34
Speaker 1: lack of engine noise. Danny said that to date, in
23:38
Speaker 1: the two weeks since the wave began, he had received
23:41
Speaker 1: over three hundred reports. There has been some speculation that
23:46
Speaker 1: a UFO wave is really a social phenomena. By that,
23:49
Speaker 1: I mean one person will report a sighting, it gets publicity,
23:53
Speaker 1: This encourages more people to report their sightings, and suddenly
23:57
Speaker 1: you have a snowball effect. I'm not so sure that's true,
24:00
Speaker 1: because the number of UFO waves are fairly small in
24:05
Speaker 1: terms of really intense and well documented waves. There seems
24:09
Speaker 1: to be certain hotspots located in various areas, So I'm
24:13
Speaker 1: not so sure I would call this a social phenomena.
24:16
Speaker 1: Something clearly very strange and very intense was going on
24:20
Speaker 1: in Wivil and all this activity, of course, started to
24:25
Speaker 1: generate a lot of attention. I think primarily because Danny
24:29
Speaker 1: Gordon was a newsman and was very effective in getting
24:33
Speaker 1: the word out. This was his attempt, I think, to
24:36
Speaker 1: figure out what was happening. So I call this next
24:39
Speaker 1: segment the UFO wave goes national, and this sort of
24:42
Speaker 1: covers Danny's effort to reach out to people and figure
24:46
Speaker 1: out what's going on here. And definitely this wave attracted
24:52
Speaker 1: attention from all across the United States and really the world.
24:56
Speaker 1: The latest press conference did little to help the situation. Instead,
25:00
Speaker 1: it opened the floodgates and the WYVE radio station became
25:04
Speaker 1: besieged with even more calls. Danny Gordon got interview requests
25:09
Speaker 1: from radio stations all over the US, Michigan, New York, Louisiana,
25:15
Speaker 1: even outside of the US. TV crews came from across
25:18
Speaker 1: Virginia and nearby Washington, d C. To interview him. The
25:23
Speaker 1: tabloid news show A Current Affair sent a crew to
25:26
Speaker 1: Withville to interview him. Now, as a fellow newsman, knowing
25:30
Speaker 1: how difficult it can be to pin down a story
25:33
Speaker 1: and get witnesses, Danny felt almost obligated to accept all
25:37
Speaker 1: interview requests. As Danny says, with this in mind, I
25:42
Speaker 1: tried to cooperate to the fullest with the radio newspapers
25:45
Speaker 1: and television stations which contacted me about the With County
25:49
Speaker 1: UFO story. Most outlets did treat the subject favorably, but
25:54
Speaker 1: not all. One station portrayed Withville in its residents as
25:58
Speaker 1: a quote hick town. This generated so many complaints that
26:02
Speaker 1: they were forced to issue an apology. Another television news
26:06
Speaker 1: station began the segment and the reporter actually laughed out loud.
26:10
Speaker 1: This also generated a flood of complaints, and with the
26:14
Speaker 1: added publicity came a new flood of reports, which by
26:17
Speaker 1: November one now numbered well over one thousand and were
26:22
Speaker 1: coming not just from Wyville proper, but from all of
26:25
Speaker 1: with County and farther away, including New York, Tennessee, Maine.
26:30
Speaker 1: People all across the country were hearing about the Withville
26:33
Speaker 1: sighting and wanted to share their own encounters. So Danny
26:37
Speaker 1: started to receive some really concerning calls about this. As
26:41
Speaker 1: he says, one call I received at home was offering advice,
26:45
Speaker 1: your phone is tapped, you are being watched and followed.
26:49
Speaker 1: You had better stop talking about UFOs. That was followed
26:52
Speaker 1: by a click and the phone went dead. At the time,
26:56
Speaker 1: he didn't take this call seriously, but he was soon
26:58
Speaker 1: to find that the caller was in fact correct. His
27:02
Speaker 1: phone was tapped and he was being followed. He also
27:05
Speaker 1: received in an anonymous letter that the UFO activity was
27:08
Speaker 1: actually a secret government operation and warned him to quote
27:13
Speaker 1: leave him alone. At the news conference on October twenty third,
27:17
Speaker 1: Danny had revealed that he had photographs of the UFOs,
27:20
Speaker 1: which he would soon reveal. He soon realized that UFO
27:25
Speaker 1: investigation did have some serious hazards because, as Danny says,
27:30
Speaker 1: in less than twenty four hours, someone had broken into
27:33
Speaker 1: my apartment. Nothing was taken. If thieves were involved, they
27:38
Speaker 1: overlooked my VCR color television stereo and collection of records.
27:43
Speaker 1: The unprocessed film was safe with me in my briefcase.
27:47
Speaker 1: The Virginia State Police investigated the break in, but with
27:50
Speaker 1: nothing taken and no clues as to who had broken
27:53
Speaker 1: into my apartment, they had little evidence to proceed on.
27:57
Speaker 1: Between telephone calls of warnings, signed letters wanting me to
28:01
Speaker 1: halt my UFO stories, and the mysterious break ins, I
28:04
Speaker 1: became a bit paranoid. So after all of this, Danny
28:09
Speaker 1: decided to acquire a handgun and he began carrying it
28:12
Speaker 1: around in his briefcase. He eventually returned it to the
28:15
Speaker 1: friend he had borrowed it from, But yeah, he was
28:18
Speaker 1: getting overwhelmed and a little paranoid because meanwhile calls were
28:22
Speaker 1: coming in at all hours, not only to the radio station,
28:26
Speaker 1: but at his personal home. The radio station had only
28:30
Speaker 1: two phone lines, and both were dominated by UFO callers,
28:34
Speaker 1: and when people couldn't get through to the station, they
28:36
Speaker 1: would arrive in person. Though, as news of the waves spread,
28:40
Speaker 1: tourists began to arrive in hopes of seeing the UFOs,
28:44
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurs started to take advantage of the interest and
28:47
Speaker 1: began selling T shirts with a drawing of the UFO
28:50
Speaker 1: and the words with County Virginia, the UFO capital of Virginia.
28:55
Speaker 1: One of these people who sold the T shirts and
28:57
Speaker 1: hats was Richard Philippi, owner of the Texaco Travel Store
29:02
Speaker 1: and the Comfort Inn on Interstate eighty one in Withville,
29:05
Speaker 1: and as he says, we put up a sign UFOs
29:09
Speaker 1: come on down during the wave. He says he sold
29:12
Speaker 1: about eight hundred shirts or more. He also reports something
29:16
Speaker 1: very interesting. He said he saw vehicles bearing the NASA
29:20
Speaker 1: logo with the drivers actually staying at his hotel for
29:25
Speaker 1: a period of four or five days during the middle
29:28
Speaker 1: of this UFO wave. Another couple of people who gained
29:31
Speaker 1: a lot of publicity and interest were Starla and Kim Jones,
29:35
Speaker 1: sisters in law from Roanoke. They made regular trips to Withville,
29:39
Speaker 1: arming themselves with video cameras. They spent so much time
29:43
Speaker 1: in Withville that people often mistook them for television reporters.
29:47
Speaker 1: So this was getting all kinds of publicity. Virginia Governor
29:51
Speaker 1: Gerald Ballils visited Withville during a campaign visit and said
29:56
Speaker 1: it's good to be back in with County, the land
29:59
Speaker 1: of beautiful forests, clear running streams and Martians. Virginia State
30:04
Speaker 1: Senator Danny W. Byrd Junior was asked his opinion about
30:08
Speaker 1: the flood of people coming to see the UFO, and
30:11
Speaker 1: he was quoted as saying, the way I look at it,
30:14
Speaker 1: as long as these outer space people bring money to
30:17
Speaker 1: spend in with county, who cares now? Danny continued his investigation.
30:22
Speaker 1: Danny Gordon contacted the Air National Guard at Knoxville, Tennessee,
30:26
Speaker 1: to confirm or deny reports that what people might be
30:29
Speaker 1: seeing were jet refueling operations. He was eventually put in
30:33
Speaker 1: touch with Major Ed Harrell, who said, quote, we are
30:37
Speaker 1: conducting refueling operations from our base north through with County,
30:42
Speaker 1: but we do not refuel at low altitudes. Our operation
30:46
Speaker 1: could in no way be what with Countians are seeing
30:50
Speaker 1: as UFOs at three thousand feet in under. If we
30:53
Speaker 1: try to refuel an airplane below eighteen thousand feet, we
30:57
Speaker 1: are asking for trouble. So there was this idea going
31:00
Speaker 1: around that what people were seeing were simply refueling operations,
31:04
Speaker 1: and that's why Danny Gordon contacted the Air National Guard
31:08
Speaker 1: and learned that NOL this could not be the explanation,
31:11
Speaker 1: and he revealed this in his interviews. Despite this, many
31:15
Speaker 1: newspapers went with the story that the sightings had been
31:18
Speaker 1: solved and were simply refueling operations, when clearly they weren't,
31:23
Speaker 1: and as Danny says, it totally infuriated me. Although I
31:27
Speaker 1: was the guy who had broken one of the state's
31:29
Speaker 1: hottest stories and followed up the wire service stories with
31:33
Speaker 1: a call for an actuality, the news media accepted the
31:36
Speaker 1: easier solution and my follow up story was ignored. Even
31:41
Speaker 1: more frustrating was the fact that the UFO sightings were
31:44
Speaker 1: continuing to pour in, so Danny continued his investigations. He
31:49
Speaker 1: called the North American Air Defense Command in Colorado, who
31:53
Speaker 1: told him that they had no evidence or reports of
31:56
Speaker 1: invasion of airspace over Wick County by any county, so
32:02
Speaker 1: Norrad was of no help either. He spoke with Colonel
32:06
Speaker 1: Harold quote Bud Rothgebb, Junior, the Deputy Chief of Operations
32:11
Speaker 1: to the Air Force Secretary at the Pentagon. Colonel Rothgeb
32:15
Speaker 1: told Danny Gordon that the Strategic Air Command knew of
32:19
Speaker 1: no low refueling operations over With County, and he said,
32:23
Speaker 1: if they are refueling under thirteen thousand feet somebody's butt
32:27
Speaker 1: is in a sling. So Danny made literally hundreds of
32:31
Speaker 1: calls to government officials and hit mostly dead ends. Sometimes
32:35
Speaker 1: they actually called him back asking for information. For example,
32:40
Speaker 1: Langley Air Force Base called him one morning asking him
32:43
Speaker 1: if he had learned anything new about the source of
32:45
Speaker 1: the UFOs. One man called him from the Pentagon and said, quote,
32:50
Speaker 1: we were just sitting around here talking about you and
32:53
Speaker 1: thought we should call to see if you had checked
32:55
Speaker 1: out the airship industries people in North Carolina. He hadn't,
33:01
Speaker 1: so Danny called them and got the regular denials he
33:04
Speaker 1: had repeatedly heard over and over again. They said no,
33:08
Speaker 1: they were not flying or testing craft in the Wick
33:11
Speaker 1: County area. It's really interesting to see how this town
33:15
Speaker 1: of eight thousand people reacted to this UFO wave. Some were,
33:19
Speaker 1: of course, very concerned. Others, as you can see, were
33:23
Speaker 1: taking advantage of all the publicity it brought in a
33:26
Speaker 1: lot of people, which I guess is a good thing
33:28
Speaker 1: for a small town, certainly for its economy. But yeah,
33:33
Speaker 1: what exactly people were seeing still remained a mystery, and
33:37
Speaker 1: despite Danny Gordon's hope that this was just an isolated
33:42
Speaker 1: couple of sightings that turned out not to be the case,
33:46
Speaker 1: because the wave did not stop in October. It continued
33:49
Speaker 1: throughout the end of nineteen eighty seven and into nineteen
33:53
Speaker 1: eighty eight. So that's what I'm going to be talking
33:55
Speaker 1: about in this next segment, which features a bunch of
33:59
Speaker 1: new eyewitness reports. This next segment is called The Wave
34:04
Speaker 1: Rages On. Now, it might be easy to explain away
34:08
Speaker 1: anomalous lights in the night sky, but with counteens were
34:11
Speaker 1: reporting something much stranger. Structured, solid, silent, massive unidentified craft
34:18
Speaker 1: flying at very low altitudes and behaving in a way
34:21
Speaker 1: that was contrary to conventional craft or really even secret
34:25
Speaker 1: military craft. Even weirder, these craft were all different shapes
34:30
Speaker 1: and sizes. November nineteen eighty seven brought a huge number
34:34
Speaker 1: of reports, and once again Danny Gordon found himself to
34:37
Speaker 1: be the local clearing house for all the cases. So
34:40
Speaker 1: here are some of the reports. A lady who insisted
34:43
Speaker 1: upon anonymity, said that she was driving near Speedwell on
34:47
Speaker 1: US Route twenty one, just south of Wiville when a
34:51
Speaker 1: craft moved over her car, paced her from above and
34:54
Speaker 1: shone a spotlight down on her. She sped up to
34:58
Speaker 1: escape it, and it sped up keep pace with her.
35:01
Speaker 1: She was too frightened to stop and get a closer look,
35:04
Speaker 1: but she did say that the object made no noise.
35:07
Speaker 1: There are quite a few cases of cars being chased
35:10
Speaker 1: down roads. One report came from two ladies who were
35:13
Speaker 1: on their way to a high school basketball game driving
35:16
Speaker 1: north on Interstate eighty one when suddenly a quote strange
35:21
Speaker 1: looking craft swooped down directly over their car and chased
35:25
Speaker 1: them from no less than ten miles. An older couple
35:28
Speaker 1: said that they were awakened by a brilliant light shining
35:31
Speaker 1: into the bedroom of their home in Austinville. Looking outside,
35:35
Speaker 1: they saw some sort of craft hovering in their yard.
35:38
Speaker 1: It instantly rose straight up in perfect silence, and disappeared
35:42
Speaker 1: into the distance. Another Widthville couple, both professionals, who remained anonymous,
35:48
Speaker 1: said that they were awakened by a bright, glowing object
35:51
Speaker 1: circling around their home. Again, it made no noise and
35:54
Speaker 1: left after several moments. A number of farmers in the
35:57
Speaker 1: area reported unmarked black helicopters or dark green cargo planes
36:03
Speaker 1: with no markings of any kind, and they were flying
36:05
Speaker 1: less than five hundred feet over their properties. Even lower.
36:09
Speaker 1: Some deer hunters said that they saw strange craft that
36:12
Speaker 1: were so low they were actually below the level of
36:16
Speaker 1: their deer stands. No. Reporter Paul Dellinger, Danny Gordon's associate
36:21
Speaker 1: and soon to be co writer of a book about
36:23
Speaker 1: the wave. He helped Danny feeld the many calls, and
36:27
Speaker 1: like Danny Gordon, Paul Dellinger believed that the military was
36:30
Speaker 1: probably behind the sightings, or at least most of them.
36:34
Speaker 1: But as the reports mounted and the strangeness of the
36:37
Speaker 1: craft became increasingly apparent, he began to wonder if perhaps
36:41
Speaker 1: it could be ets. Paul Dellinger spoke with prominent UFO
36:45
Speaker 1: researcher Leonard Stringfield, and after giving him the rundown of reports,
36:50
Speaker 1: Leonard Stringfield said, quote, I think what you're all seeing
36:54
Speaker 1: down there is of extraterrestrial origin in their not conventional aircraft.
37:00
Speaker 1: And as Paul Dellinger wrote, he said the descriptions of
37:03
Speaker 1: angular flight movements, rapid turns, and lack of sound added
37:08
Speaker 1: up to quote something very serious going on. So, of
37:11
Speaker 1: course Paul eventually had his own sighting. As Paul says,
37:16
Speaker 1: it came down over my driveway. It had a huge
37:19
Speaker 1: bright light in front with three windows like the craft.
37:22
Speaker 1: Danny saw, I heard a low motor, but I don't
37:26
Speaker 1: believe it's anything extraterrestrial. I believe a lot of people
37:30
Speaker 1: saw some unusual aircraft. These people aren't excited, they're down
37:34
Speaker 1: to earth. They just say I saw UFO. Now, some researchers,
37:38
Speaker 1: such as Tony Gonsalvez, are convinced that people are in
37:42
Speaker 1: fact seeing secret military craft, particularly a stealth B two bomber.
37:48
Speaker 1: As he says, I believe there's a secret government aircraft
37:51
Speaker 1: flying around that the public hasn't been advised of. Well,
37:55
Speaker 1: certainly these are not all B two bombers, because the
37:59
Speaker 1: descriptions very widely. Still, many people believe that this was military,
38:04
Speaker 1: and this is certainly what doctor Carl E. Stark, the
38:07
Speaker 1: longtime mayor of Witville, believed, as he told reporters, I
38:11
Speaker 1: still think it could be something that the military is
38:14
Speaker 1: doing and don't want to release, and I respect their secrecy.
38:18
Speaker 1: He does agree that people are seeing something unexplained, as
38:21
Speaker 1: he says, our people are not daffy. They're seeing something.
38:25
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of our community. They're approaching this thing
38:28
Speaker 1: very sensibly, but they're concerned if there are secret things
38:32
Speaker 1: going on. They deserve to know about it. He admits
38:36
Speaker 1: that even his wife became a witness, but he adds,
38:39
Speaker 1: quote it helps the restaurant and hotel business. We're glad
38:43
Speaker 1: to welcome all those interested in UFOs. Another person who
38:47
Speaker 1: became very interested in the sightings was muffan Field investigator
38:52
Speaker 1: and West Virginia resident David Bodner. He reported that he
38:56
Speaker 1: talked to a family of six and a rural retreat
38:59
Speaker 1: and was baffled that each member of the family seemed
39:02
Speaker 1: to have differing descriptions of the UFO they had seen, and,
39:06
Speaker 1: as he says, they even saw different colored lights. It
39:10
Speaker 1: might be an optical illusion, it might be atmospheric conditions anything.
39:14
Speaker 1: I'm not here to promote this, I'm here to investigate this.
39:18
Speaker 1: So on November eighteen, nineteen eighty seven, Paul Dellinger and
39:23
Speaker 1: Danny Gordon held a UFO conference at the Withville Community College,
39:28
Speaker 1: and they received still more reports. One couple who lived
39:32
Speaker 1: in a very rural area in Patrick County said that
39:36
Speaker 1: she and her husband observed so many objects flashing red
39:40
Speaker 1: and green lights which were illuminating their property that it
39:43
Speaker 1: looked quote like we were in the city. Almost A
39:47
Speaker 1: woman attending the conference said that at three point forty
39:50
Speaker 1: that very morning, she used her telescope to view three
39:53
Speaker 1: Starlik objects which were twinkling red and green and moving
39:58
Speaker 1: very slowly across the sky for a spell of one hour.
40:01
Speaker 1: A woman from Witheville who worked in nearby Smith County,
40:05
Speaker 1: said that she recently saw a strange light that moved
40:08
Speaker 1: just slightly faster than her car and followed her to work,
40:13
Speaker 1: and on the way back that evening she saw it again,
40:15
Speaker 1: only this time it was on the other side of
40:17
Speaker 1: the road end slightly closer, and after sharing her story,
40:21
Speaker 1: she said, I am not searching for UFOs. In fact,
40:24
Speaker 1: I'm driving down the road saying not me, not tonight.
40:28
Speaker 1: I don't have the time. I immediately think UFO, and then
40:31
Speaker 1: I put my foot to the gas pedal as fast
40:33
Speaker 1: as I can. On November seventh, nineteen eighty seven, two
40:37
Speaker 1: men described an egg shaped object traveling as fast as
40:40
Speaker 1: the jet they said, and it was several hundred feet long.
40:44
Speaker 1: They watched it for a full fifteen to twenty minutes
40:47
Speaker 1: and both said quote was hard to explain. Another witness
40:51
Speaker 1: was Mirta Mullins. She said that she and her family
40:54
Speaker 1: saw a quote bright light. It split into several objects
40:58
Speaker 1: which began to dart around. She said, there are many
41:01
Speaker 1: of the small lights and they move in all directions.
41:04
Speaker 1: They move fast, too fast for an airplane. We looked
41:07
Speaker 1: at it through binoculars and it was something, but you
41:10
Speaker 1: could see it without binoculars. Another witness was Francis Holloway
41:14
Speaker 1: of brush Fork. She and others saw a UFO that
41:17
Speaker 1: she said was quote like looking at a city. What
41:21
Speaker 1: we saw wasn't anything that man could have made. It
41:24
Speaker 1: is hard for anyone to believe. We all stand out
41:27
Speaker 1: on the road and look for them until it gets
41:29
Speaker 1: too cold. People that drive by probably think we're crazy,
41:33
Speaker 1: but something's causing those lights. One rural retreat resident said
41:38
Speaker 1: that the UFO sightings were so constant and she and
41:41
Speaker 1: others used to rush outside, but as she says, it
41:44
Speaker 1: got to be old hat. Another rural retreat resident said
41:48
Speaker 1: that she and her friends regularly went UFO hunting, and
41:51
Speaker 1: at once they even saw a UFO right over the
41:54
Speaker 1: local drive in with Pville resident Gary White said that
41:58
Speaker 1: he and his friends had a sighting and, as he said,
42:01
Speaker 1: they were heading out the door and they joked and said,
42:03
Speaker 1: let's see if there's any UFOs, And they looked up
42:06
Speaker 1: and there were four. NOWA was later learned that an
42:10
Speaker 1: entire busload of students at George With High School saw
42:13
Speaker 1: a UFO moving directly over the Whittville shopping center to
42:17
Speaker 1: Other witnesses were Johnny Turner and his son Chris, who
42:21
Speaker 1: said that they saw a UFO in September, two weeks
42:24
Speaker 1: before the official wave began. He told reporters quote, there
42:29
Speaker 1: was a row of red lights and a row of
42:31
Speaker 1: green lights shipped kind of like the back of a car,
42:35
Speaker 1: was flowing as low as a tall tree. We just
42:37
Speaker 1: passed it off. One witness from Rural Retreat later said
42:41
Speaker 1: that when he was ten years old at the time
42:43
Speaker 1: of this wave, he and his parents saw quote, an
42:46
Speaker 1: upside down saucer with lights all along the bottom of
42:49
Speaker 1: different colors. It was nuts. I saw it with my
42:52
Speaker 1: own eyes, but I had never seen anything remotely like
42:56
Speaker 1: it before or again. People were afraid to talk about
42:59
Speaker 1: what we saw. We didn't know what we saw, and
43:02
Speaker 1: we didn't want to sound crazy. Talking about it made
43:05
Speaker 1: it real. It was a confusing, scary experience, so not
43:09
Speaker 1: talking about it made it just go away. Now. He
43:12
Speaker 1: also said something very interesting. His own mother got caught
43:16
Speaker 1: behind a caravan of NASA vehicles cruising through Withville, So
43:21
Speaker 1: there's another report that NASA themselves were very interested in
43:25
Speaker 1: what was going on here. Meanwhile, Danny Gordon continued to
43:29
Speaker 1: receive not only calls but letters from witnesses. One lady,
43:34
Speaker 1: aged sixty seven, said that right before the wave broke,
43:38
Speaker 1: she was en route from Galax to Independence along Route
43:41
Speaker 1: fifty eight when she had an incredible sighting. As she said,
43:46
Speaker 1: I saw a very slow moving craft, very low. It
43:50
Speaker 1: reminded me in size and shape of a World War
43:53
Speaker 1: II patrol plane. Then I saw it had no sound.
43:57
Speaker 1: She also described another sighting that she and her friends
44:00
Speaker 1: had just south of Route fifty eight. They were playing
44:03
Speaker 1: bridge at one of their homes, and as she says,
44:06
Speaker 1: one lady exclaimed that plane is going to hit my house.
44:10
Speaker 1: It had no sound, was slow moving and about the
44:13
Speaker 1: same color as the other aircraft. It left our view,
44:17
Speaker 1: but still was flying very low. In nineteen eighty eight,
44:21
Speaker 1: just over two months into the UFO wave, Danny Gordon
44:24
Speaker 1: headed another with the UFO conference and revealed that to
44:28
Speaker 1: date he himself had had nineteen UFO sightings that he
44:33
Speaker 1: was unable to explain. The intensity of this wave is
44:37
Speaker 1: mind boggling. I mean, we have cases of cars being
44:40
Speaker 1: chased down the road, sightings day after day, and again
44:44
Speaker 1: this huge variety of objects people are seeing, most of
44:48
Speaker 1: which are perfectly silent. So if these are secret government craft,
44:55
Speaker 1: they're showing a technology that pretty much has not been
44:59
Speaker 1: public before or this this could be an important feature here,
45:02
Speaker 1: which I'll talk towards the end of this video, But
45:05
Speaker 1: this point Stee people still weren't sure what they were seeing.
45:09
Speaker 1: What's interesting about this UFO wave is there seems to
45:12
Speaker 1: be an almost total lack of humanoid reports or of
45:16
Speaker 1: people being taken on board and this kind of thing.
45:19
Speaker 1: But it turns out there are a few cases of
45:23
Speaker 1: people reporting what seems to be more than just a
45:26
Speaker 1: simple sighting. So that's what this next segment is about.
45:30
Speaker 1: I call this next segment cases of direct contact. There's
45:34
Speaker 1: not a lot, but there's a few. Again, one of
45:37
Speaker 1: the curious features of the with vil UFO wave was
45:40
Speaker 1: the almost complete lack of reports of humanoids missing time
45:43
Speaker 1: in onboard encounters, but there were actually a few reports.
45:48
Speaker 1: A lady named Barbara, who is apparently investigating these reports
45:52
Speaker 1: says quote unknown to Danny and Paul. After the talk
45:56
Speaker 1: at the community college, many locally prominent citizens contacted me
46:00
Speaker 1: privately and related suspected abduction experiences to me. Unfortunately, she
46:06
Speaker 1: did not go into any other detail. But one anonymous
46:10
Speaker 1: witness said that he was thirteen years old at the
46:12
Speaker 1: time of the wave and he woke up one evening
46:15
Speaker 1: to see lights shining in every window of his house.
46:19
Speaker 1: He was the only one awake in his house at
46:21
Speaker 1: that time, but the next morning nobody believed him. The
46:24
Speaker 1: weird thing is he didn't remember going to bed. He
46:27
Speaker 1: was just looking at these lights, and then suddenly he
46:30
Speaker 1: found himself waking up the next morning, so that could
46:33
Speaker 1: be missing time. One definite case of contact comes from
46:37
Speaker 1: Lena Whitewall, but this was much earlier. She said that
46:41
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty, she was eight years old and living
46:43
Speaker 1: in Whiteville at the Presbyterian Children's Home. One morning, she
46:47
Speaker 1: was playing outside when the house mother began screaming for
46:50
Speaker 1: all the children to come inside. She looked up and
46:53
Speaker 1: saw quote this thing hovering over the house. It was
46:57
Speaker 1: a UFO. She wanted to stay outside and want but
47:00
Speaker 1: was ordered to go inside. But that night something happened.
47:05
Speaker 1: She was in her bedroom when she says a ball
47:07
Speaker 1: of light appeared in her bedroom. Nizzalina says, it floated
47:12
Speaker 1: down very slowly, and I saw it come across the floor.
47:16
Speaker 1: I got scared and hid under my covers. Then the
47:19
Speaker 1: light manifested itself into a being, a very tall woman
47:23
Speaker 1: in a long white gown. She had no hair, but
47:26
Speaker 1: she had beautiful blue eyes. She put her hand on
47:29
Speaker 1: my shoulder and said, do not be afraid, for you
47:33
Speaker 1: are one among us, and she told me that they
47:36
Speaker 1: would be back. Two years later, still in Withville, Lena
47:40
Speaker 1: says she was taken on board a craft where she
47:42
Speaker 1: saw grays and as Lina says, these people were only
47:46
Speaker 1: about four feet three inches tall and had no hair.
47:50
Speaker 1: They had big black eyes that slanted to the side,
47:53
Speaker 1: had no ears, and very very thin lips that never moved.
47:57
Speaker 1: We spoke through telepathy. During this onboard experience, Lena said
48:02
Speaker 1: that the extratrestrials performed the first of many surgeries and
48:06
Speaker 1: examinations of her body, and she says they took me
48:10
Speaker 1: to an operating room and put me on a silver table.
48:13
Speaker 1: They kept telling me that they were not going to
48:15
Speaker 1: hurt me and for me not to be afraid. It
48:17
Speaker 1: didn't hurt. They just used a machine to scan my body.
48:21
Speaker 1: There were other times later on that it did hurt.
48:24
Speaker 1: With so few cases of onboard encounters, humanoid encounters missing time,
48:32
Speaker 1: I think it's leaning towards this way being explainable as
48:37
Speaker 1: secret military craft. But that still doesn't answer the question
48:41
Speaker 1: why what is it about with Ville that the military,
48:45
Speaker 1: if that's what this is, would chase cars down the
48:48
Speaker 1: road and show themselves in such large numbers. It's really baffling,
48:52
Speaker 1: and it certainly doesn't explain the wide variety of craft
48:55
Speaker 1: people are seeing, some of which are your classic flying saucer.
49:00
Speaker 1: So the next thing I decided to do was take
49:02
Speaker 1: a little bit of a look into Withville's history of
49:05
Speaker 1: ufhone encounters, because often with UFO hotspots you'll see that
49:09
Speaker 1: they have a long and rich history of ufhone counters.
49:13
Speaker 1: Didn't turn out to be the case with Withville. I
49:16
Speaker 1: did find a few encounters, So that's what I'll cover here,
49:19
Speaker 1: which is a history of encounters. Once again, the wave
49:24
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty seven to nineteen eighty eight put Withville
49:26
Speaker 1: on the UFO map with literally thousands of sightings in
49:30
Speaker 1: that time. But it should come as no surprise that
49:33
Speaker 1: there were a few earlier sightings pre dating the wave.
49:36
Speaker 1: For example, in nineteen sixty eight, residents of a one
49:41
Speaker 1: hundred acre farming in Withville saw quote a large, round
49:45
Speaker 1: dome shaped craft. It was making a buzzing noise, and
49:48
Speaker 1: as the primary witness says, the craft had a huge,
49:51
Speaker 1: dark tinted window. I could feel someone watching me. I
49:55
Speaker 1: went in the house and ran and got a rifle
49:58
Speaker 1: and sat and prayed. I decided to go back in
50:01
Speaker 1: the yard and look. The craft was still there, hovering
50:04
Speaker 1: above the ground, only a few feet above the ground.
50:07
Speaker 1: I felt a loss of time, and the animals seemed
50:10
Speaker 1: to sense something odd. Then my mom came around the
50:13
Speaker 1: curve in the distance, and as soon as the lights shone,
50:17
Speaker 1: the craft zoomed away. So here we do have another
50:20
Speaker 1: case of what appears to be missing time. And here
50:23
Speaker 1: is another interesting sighting. November of nineteen eighty a with
50:27
Speaker 1: the woman who lived on Eleventh Street said that she
50:30
Speaker 1: was awakened at two thirty a m. By her cat,
50:33
Speaker 1: and looking up, saw a bright object hovering over with fell.
50:38
Speaker 1: She woke up her brother and they both watched it
50:40
Speaker 1: for about ten minutes and then called the police, and
50:43
Speaker 1: as the witness says, the object darted from place to
50:47
Speaker 1: place at a very fast pace. Once the policeman arrived,
50:51
Speaker 1: he admitted that the UFO had caught his eye prior
50:54
Speaker 1: to my call. The officer watched the UFO for some
50:58
Speaker 1: time with me before it dis heared from view. Withville
51:02
Speaker 1: is a pretty small town, so perhaps that's why we
51:05
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of historical cases. Hard to say,
51:08
Speaker 1: but given the intensity of this current way from nineteen
51:12
Speaker 1: eighty seven to nineteen eighty eight, this seems like there
51:16
Speaker 1: would point to be there being more encounters in the past.
51:20
Speaker 1: That's just not the case. So there's something going on
51:23
Speaker 1: here at this time which has put Withville on the
51:27
Speaker 1: UFO map. It's really baffling. So now I want to
51:30
Speaker 1: jump ahead in time a little bit and cover a
51:35
Speaker 1: very interesting event in Withville's UFO wave history, and that
51:39
Speaker 1: is when Unsolved Mysteries decided to visit the town of
51:42
Speaker 1: Withville and do a segment on all the UFO activity
51:46
Speaker 1: that took place there. So that's what this next segment
51:50
Speaker 1: is about. I call it Unsolved Mysteries Visits Withville in
51:54
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, the popular TV program Unsolved Mysteries visited
51:59
Speaker 1: Withville and segment about the nineteen eighty seven nineteen eighty
52:02
Speaker 1: eight Withville UFO flap. Of course, Danny Gordon was the
52:06
Speaker 1: featured guest. Other witnesses were interviewed, such as Mary, Jane Williamson,
52:12
Speaker 1: and Patricia Akers. The segment was a full twenty minutes
52:16
Speaker 1: long and was very well received by witnesses and residents
52:20
Speaker 1: in Whiteville. Turned out to be Unsolved Mysteries one hundredth show.
52:24
Speaker 1: It was season four, episode eighteen and aired on January
52:28
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, nineteen ninety two. Patricia Akers, who witnessed the
52:34
Speaker 1: UFOs during the flap, was very pleased with the show.
52:37
Speaker 1: She had previously appeared on two other shows, a Current
52:40
Speaker 1: Affair in Channel thirteen News and was not happy how
52:45
Speaker 1: they handled the subject, and she says they sort of
52:48
Speaker 1: made fun of it. Now was reluctant to be interviewed
52:51
Speaker 1: for Unsolved Mysteries after that. I didn't know how they
52:54
Speaker 1: would treat it. Ultimately, she was very pleased and, as
52:57
Speaker 1: she said, thought it was real good. They took it seriously.
53:02
Speaker 1: Another eyewitness, Jane Williamson, concurred and said I thought it
53:06
Speaker 1: was really good. They did a good job with it.
53:09
Speaker 1: I was a little worried that they would make it
53:11
Speaker 1: seem sensational. She still wonders about her own sighting, and
53:14
Speaker 1: she says, nobody can tell me anything that makes sense.
53:18
Speaker 1: I know I saw something was down low where I
53:21
Speaker 1: could see it. If it were an airplane or a
53:24
Speaker 1: stealth bomber, we would not have a roof on the house.
53:28
Speaker 1: I think the government knows more than it's telling I
53:30
Speaker 1: think the government knows what it is with Ville Mayor.
53:34
Speaker 1: Trent Crew was relieved at the treatment of the subject,
53:37
Speaker 1: and he says, I thought it was realistic. I was
53:40
Speaker 1: apprehensive that we'd come off looking like a bunch of hillbillies.
53:44
Speaker 1: But for Danny Gordon was both cathartic and traumatic. As
53:49
Speaker 1: Danny says, I'm still kind of numb. Seeing it like
53:53
Speaker 1: this brought it all back. I can deal better with
53:56
Speaker 1: it now than I could when it all happened. I
53:58
Speaker 1: think they did a super job on the show. Of course,
54:02
Speaker 1: this segment did bring a new flood of calls, just
54:05
Speaker 1: when Danny Gordon thought the wave had finally stopped for good.
54:09
Speaker 1: I'm very pleased to see that unsolved mysteries, did a
54:11
Speaker 1: fair and balanced reporting of the UFO activity that was
54:15
Speaker 1: taking place there, because as we have seen, that's certainly
54:19
Speaker 1: not the case with a lot of media coverage of
54:22
Speaker 1: this subject. But now I want to go back in
54:25
Speaker 1: time to while this wave was still going on. As
54:29
Speaker 1: we have seen, it raged very strong, starting in October,
54:32
Speaker 1: then going through November and December and into January and
54:36
Speaker 1: February and so forth, and it continued and Danny Gordon
54:40
Speaker 1: once again was pretty much single handedly dealing with this.
54:45
Speaker 1: He did have some help with his associate Paul Dellinger,
54:50
Speaker 1: but really Danny Gordon was the one who was fielding
54:54
Speaker 1: all the interviews, writing all the news reports, and trying
54:58
Speaker 1: to figure out what was going on here. And he
55:02
Speaker 1: paid a pretty heavy price for it. So that's what
55:05
Speaker 1: I want to talk about in this next segment, which
55:08
Speaker 1: I call the Dangers of UFO Research, because he found
55:12
Speaker 1: out some pretty interesting things. So back to the UFO wave.
55:16
Speaker 1: By February and March of nineteen eighty eight, the constant
55:18
Speaker 1: sightings were just beginning to start to wane. That or
55:22
Speaker 1: people became used to the activity and stopped reporting them.
55:27
Speaker 1: Danny Gordon himself was growing weary of all the attention
55:30
Speaker 1: and the workload that the UFO wave had burdened him with.
55:34
Speaker 1: He was tired, he was losing weight. Someone told him
55:37
Speaker 1: his hairlic thinner. Then came an alarming new development. On
55:42
Speaker 1: March nineteen, nineteen eighty eight, a man telephoned Danny Gordon
55:46
Speaker 1: at his home and identified himself as William Lawrence Smith
55:50
Speaker 1: of Clifton Forge, Virginia. He had a warning for Danny,
55:54
Speaker 1: a dire warning, and he urged Danny to record the conversation.
55:58
Speaker 1: And as this man said, what I'm telling you, Danny,
56:02
Speaker 1: you are pursuing something I have been, but you are
56:05
Speaker 1: new to it. I've been pursuing this thing for many,
56:08
Speaker 1: many years. I saw my son die of leukemia. He
56:11
Speaker 1: was just as healthy as can be. In fact, I
56:15
Speaker 1: told people I thought they would hit my son to
56:17
Speaker 1: get back at me. This man told Danny that the
56:19
Speaker 1: UFOs people were seeing in Witville and elsewhere were not extraterrestrial,
56:25
Speaker 1: but were in fact being flown by members of a
56:27
Speaker 1: global society of very powerful people. He told Danny quote,
56:33
Speaker 1: the thing is that anyone who investigates these things usually
56:37
Speaker 1: comes into a whole lot of problems. What I'm telling
56:40
Speaker 1: you is that they will try to hit you if
56:43
Speaker 1: they think it's practical. Most likely it would be done
56:46
Speaker 1: by skin contact chemicals. Now, at the time he received
56:50
Speaker 1: this call, Danny Gordon was planning to go to Virginia
56:53
Speaker 1: Beach to accept several journalism awards, and the man advised
56:57
Speaker 1: him not to go and said, if any thing should
57:00
Speaker 1: happen to you, if you come back and some of
57:02
Speaker 1: your friends say, that doesn't seem to be the same
57:05
Speaker 1: old Danny Gordon, we knew. The man warned him the
57:09
Speaker 1: chemicals could make you go completely insane or come down
57:12
Speaker 1: with the fatal virus. They could come up with something
57:15
Speaker 1: to do to your children. The reason I'm telling you this,
57:19
Speaker 1: if anything should happen to you, you have been forewarned.
57:23
Speaker 1: Be damn careful. So Danny asked him who are quote?
57:27
Speaker 1: They and William identified them as quote an international cartel
57:33
Speaker 1: who were in control of the UFOs and added, these
57:36
Speaker 1: people are not friendly to you. The Air Force is
57:40
Speaker 1: scared to death of them. Danny did later confirm the
57:44
Speaker 1: man's identity with the Virginia Police. He did end up
57:47
Speaker 1: going to Virginia Beach. He received his awards, ironically, which
57:51
Speaker 1: were from stories about the UFO wave and killing two
57:55
Speaker 1: birds with one stone. He had arranged a meeting with
57:58
Speaker 1: a colonel from Langley Air Force Base to have a
58:01
Speaker 1: quote unofficial conversation about the activity over with County, and
58:06
Speaker 1: he promised to share his own photographs with the colonel.
58:10
Speaker 1: The colonel at Langley did express a great interest in this,
58:14
Speaker 1: but they ended up giving Danny the run around. They
58:18
Speaker 1: finally asked him to go to the base itself and
58:20
Speaker 1: leave his photographs with them instead of meeting at a
58:23
Speaker 1: hotel room. Refused to let his photos leave his possession
58:28
Speaker 1: and that turned out to be the end of it.
58:29
Speaker 1: But yeah, weird events continued to happen. Danny Gordon said
58:33
Speaker 1: at one point he had a threat on his life.
58:36
Speaker 1: He still continued to contact government officials in hopes of
58:40
Speaker 1: getting answers. He contacted Congressman Rick Bouchet, told him about
58:45
Speaker 1: the sightings and asked for assistance in identifying them, and
58:49
Speaker 1: Congressman Bouchet was very cooperative and said, quote, I can
58:54
Speaker 1: certainly talk with armed services and I'll be happy to
58:57
Speaker 1: do that. I don't have any insight, I'm sorry, but
59:01
Speaker 1: I can work with you to make sure we get
59:03
Speaker 1: a response from the Air Force. Turns out Congressom Bouchet
59:06
Speaker 1: did fulfill his promise and contacted rp ilg. Rear, Admiral
59:11
Speaker 1: of the US Navy, Deputy Assistant Chief of Naval Operations Warfare,
59:17
Speaker 1: who responded with a full page letter which said, in
59:20
Speaker 1: part quote, the Department of Defense no longer records or
59:25
Speaker 1: investigates reports of UFO sightings, and we are not aware
59:29
Speaker 1: of any new or special activity over with County. On
59:33
Speaker 1: April twenty eighth, nineteen eighty eight, Danny held the third
59:36
Speaker 1: Withville UFO conference, this time at the with County Public Library,
59:40
Speaker 1: and once again more With County sidings came to light.
59:45
Speaker 1: One came from doctor brock Hughes, a respected physician in Withville,
59:49
Speaker 1: who described his own sighting which occurred between Withville and Marion.
59:53
Speaker 1: As he says in his own words, I saw it
59:56
Speaker 1: was two huge balls of incandescent light. It was almost
1:00:01
Speaker 1: like a big large sparkler that kept throwing off sparkles
1:00:04
Speaker 1: in every direction, and they were different colors. So he
1:00:07
Speaker 1: soon saw that there were actually two of them, and
1:00:09
Speaker 1: that they were connected to one large object. And as
1:00:12
Speaker 1: he says, it was motionless and between the two lights
1:00:16
Speaker 1: was a superstructure that looked a great deal like the
1:00:19
Speaker 1: platform of an airplane carrier, except that there wasn't any keel,
1:00:24
Speaker 1: was just a flat surface, was very very large. I
1:00:28
Speaker 1: know the length of it was two or three blocks long,
1:00:30
Speaker 1: easily maybe more than that. I'm sure that whatever that was,
1:00:35
Speaker 1: there's nothing in our technology that I know of in
1:00:38
Speaker 1: this world that would hold anything up there like that.
1:00:42
Speaker 1: Danny Gordon himself continued to have his own sightings. In fact,
1:00:46
Speaker 1: by the end of June nineteen eighty eight, he logged
1:00:49
Speaker 1: more than twenty nine separate sightings that he himself saw,
1:00:53
Speaker 1: and as Danny says, these include only sightings where I
1:00:57
Speaker 1: have had a close enough look to discount it being
1:01:00
Speaker 1: a conventional airplane, helicopter, balloon, or natural lights from the sky.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: I have seen at least one UFO each month, including
1:01:10
Speaker 1: four in October, six in November, four in February, and
1:01:15
Speaker 1: three in December. Five of these settings were in daylight,
1:01:18
Speaker 1: and twenty four others at night. So these include a
1:01:22
Speaker 1: wide variety of shapes. And I'll just do a quick
1:01:25
Speaker 1: rundown of some of the UFOs Danny saw, such as quote,
1:01:30
Speaker 1: a round object, a saucer shaped flat object, just spinning
1:01:34
Speaker 1: carelessly through the dark blue sky. A large circular craft
1:01:38
Speaker 1: hovering over sand Mountain. The craft had a red pulsating
1:01:42
Speaker 1: light which rotated around the bottom. Around aircraft with red
1:01:46
Speaker 1: and white lights moving in a constant swirling motion, sitting
1:01:50
Speaker 1: motionless in the sky between two hills. A long row
1:01:54
Speaker 1: of bright white lights. There are one minute and gone
1:01:57
Speaker 1: the next. A large, unusually bright object very low on
1:02:01
Speaker 1: the horizon. It suddenly shot out of view. A solid
1:02:05
Speaker 1: bright yellow light zooming overhead at tremendous speed. Four round
1:02:10
Speaker 1: objects flying in tight formation. A dome shaped aircraft slowly
1:02:15
Speaker 1: crossing the road from east to west. A jet chasing
1:02:20
Speaker 1: two cigar shaped craft. A flying saucer just like the
1:02:24
Speaker 1: original models, came down out of the sky and hovered
1:02:27
Speaker 1: at about five thousand feet. A round silver object slowly
1:02:32
Speaker 1: going from one cloud to another. A huge object with
1:02:35
Speaker 1: unusual lights. It made a sudden ninety degree turn and disappeared.
1:02:40
Speaker 1: A rectangular object shaped like a box hovering at tree
1:02:43
Speaker 1: top level over Draper Mountain. A V shaped craft with
1:02:48
Speaker 1: multiple disco type lights in red, white, and blue around
1:02:53
Speaker 1: orange object hovering at five hundred feet. It left in
1:02:56
Speaker 1: a burst of silent speed. So these were by no
1:02:59
Speaker 1: means all of Danny Gordon's sightings, and there would soon
1:03:03
Speaker 1: be more. So perhaps what people are seeing is both
1:03:07
Speaker 1: military craft and ET craft. In July of nineteen eighty eight,
1:03:12
Speaker 1: the stress became too much and Danny was rushed to
1:03:16
Speaker 1: the Wye County Community Hospital, suffering from acute chest pains
1:03:20
Speaker 1: and shortness of breath, and it looked as though he
1:03:23
Speaker 1: was having a heart attack. Thankfully, doctor soon diagnosed his
1:03:26
Speaker 1: condition as esophagial trauma brought on by stress, not eating right,
1:03:31
Speaker 1: and not getting enough sleep. After recovering a few days
1:03:35
Speaker 1: in the hospital, Danny knew that he had to back
1:03:37
Speaker 1: off from the UFO story. My heart goes out to
1:03:40
Speaker 1: Danny Gordon, and I totally understand what it's like to
1:03:43
Speaker 1: be embroiled in a UFO investigation that never seems to end.
1:03:47
Speaker 1: I myself did investigate a UFO wave over to Penga
1:03:51
Speaker 1: Canyon in California. That way wave was from nineteen ninety
1:03:54
Speaker 1: two to nineteen ninety four, and like this wave involved
1:03:58
Speaker 1: a huge variety of craft. There were quite a few
1:04:02
Speaker 1: more reports of ets and people being taken on board,
1:04:06
Speaker 1: So I think I lean in that case towards ET's
1:04:10
Speaker 1: being responsible, whereas here I'm just not so sure, but
1:04:15
Speaker 1: we do see this wide variety of craft. I feel
1:04:18
Speaker 1: for Danny and his struggle to try to get answers
1:04:21
Speaker 1: from authorities, because he was really in a position where
1:04:24
Speaker 1: he could contact a lot of people but still didn't
1:04:27
Speaker 1: get a whole lot of cooperation. He did get some,
1:04:30
Speaker 1: and I applaud his efforts because he worked so hard,
1:04:34
Speaker 1: and I completely understand why he decided that he had
1:04:39
Speaker 1: to step back. What's really interesting is that while this
1:04:43
Speaker 1: wave started to die down, it didn't look like it
1:04:47
Speaker 1: was ever going to end. So that's what this next
1:04:50
Speaker 1: and final segment is about, is the end of the
1:04:54
Speaker 1: with Ville UFO wave, which I call the end. Despite
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Danny trying to get out of the UFO business, he
1:05:01
Speaker 1: was unable to fully extricate himself. As he says, it
1:05:05
Speaker 1: seemed the more I tried to remove myself from the
1:05:07
Speaker 1: mystery in Wye County, the closer I was drawn. I've
1:05:11
Speaker 1: got a story and I can't get it to end,
1:05:14
Speaker 1: and it's eating me. I've lost weight, I'm not sleeping well.
1:05:18
Speaker 1: I seldom see my children anymore. I go to sleep
1:05:21
Speaker 1: at night and I dream about UFOs and I wake
1:05:24
Speaker 1: up in the morning thinking about it. It's really hard
1:05:26
Speaker 1: to explain. It's kind of like the UFO experience has
1:05:30
Speaker 1: consumed me whirst. The UFO calls kept coming in, the
1:05:33
Speaker 1: interview requests slowed down, but never completely stopped, And while
1:05:38
Speaker 1: the sighting slowed down dramatically by mid nineteen eighty eight,
1:05:41
Speaker 1: they did not end. Danny counted at least twenty five
1:05:45
Speaker 1: hundred reports and they were still coming in by the
1:05:49
Speaker 1: end of nineteen eighty eight. Danny Gordon said that the
1:05:51
Speaker 1: reports came in at a rate of ten every two weeks,
1:05:55
Speaker 1: but outsiders weren't hearing about them because they were no
1:05:58
Speaker 1: longer news. And as Danny says, every time I thought
1:06:02
Speaker 1: the With County UFO story was over, still with no
1:06:06
Speaker 1: ending but over, I would receive another report of a sighting,
1:06:10
Speaker 1: or I'd see something myself. Was almost as though the
1:06:13
Speaker 1: UFO sidings were being orchestrated for a purpose still unknown
1:06:18
Speaker 1: to me or the rest of the world. This is
1:06:21
Speaker 1: the most confusing thing that has ever happened to me
1:06:24
Speaker 1: in my life. The pieces of the puzzle are not
1:06:27
Speaker 1: coming together. So despite months of investigating and columns of
1:06:31
Speaker 1: his own sightings, Danny was still no closer to getting
1:06:34
Speaker 1: any solid answers. In nineteen eighty eight, Danny Gordon and
1:06:38
Speaker 1: Paul Dellinger penned the book Don't Look Up, The Real
1:06:42
Speaker 1: Story Behind the Virginia Sightings, which presented a day by
1:06:46
Speaker 1: day accounting of the Withville and with County UFO wave.
1:06:50
Speaker 1: He titled the book Don't Look Up because, as he says,
1:06:53
Speaker 1: I'm telling people, don't look up. It'll take too much
1:06:57
Speaker 1: out of your life. This has cost me money and
1:07:00
Speaker 1: almost my marriage and my job. A newsman's life is
1:07:03
Speaker 1: hectic enough without this. If I had to do it
1:07:06
Speaker 1: over again, I wouldn't do it. It has caused me so
1:07:10
Speaker 1: much trauma. These craft have pulled my life inside out.
1:07:14
Speaker 1: It has been one crisis after another. UFOs have ruined
1:07:18
Speaker 1: my life. By the time the book came out, Danny
1:07:21
Speaker 1: counted about forty seven of his own sightings, and despite
1:07:26
Speaker 1: having seen UFOs so many times himself and investigating in
1:07:29
Speaker 1: every way he could, he was no closer to solving
1:07:32
Speaker 1: the mystery. As he says, using my journalistic skills and contacts,
1:07:38
Speaker 1: I covered the Pentagon Air Force, other branches of the military,
1:07:42
Speaker 1: and more. Asking for help and bringing the With County
1:07:45
Speaker 1: UFO mystery to a resolution. But no one could or
1:07:50
Speaker 1: no one was willing to help. I suddenly became a
1:07:53
Speaker 1: UFO guru for hundreds of callers. The burden was almost
1:07:57
Speaker 1: too much. I've been advised my phone has been tapped
1:08:01
Speaker 1: and my car bugged, that I was being followed and watched,
1:08:04
Speaker 1: that I was in danger of being eliminated. It has
1:08:07
Speaker 1: truly been a very unusual eight months. I have watched
1:08:11
Speaker 1: aircraft do three hundred and sixty degree turns with no
1:08:14
Speaker 1: effort or noise between two ridges. I have witnessed large
1:08:18
Speaker 1: craft traveling at below stall speeds with no noise at
1:08:22
Speaker 1: low altitudes. I have seen jet fighters chase a white
1:08:25
Speaker 1: spherical object in the sky, failing to catch up with it.
1:08:29
Speaker 1: I have photographed a number of unidentified flying objects. I
1:08:33
Speaker 1: have been harassed because of the UFO reports. I have
1:08:37
Speaker 1: seen other media back off the With County UFO story
1:08:41
Speaker 1: because of word from the top of the corporate ladder.
1:08:44
Speaker 1: The UFO mystery is the greatest story of our time,
1:08:48
Speaker 1: yet the national media ignore it every day. It's almost
1:08:52
Speaker 1: like the story is so hot everyone's afraid of it.
1:08:55
Speaker 1: I have seen enough listened enough, been stonewallding enough, and
1:08:59
Speaker 1: lied to enough. It is obvious. I am convinced we
1:09:03
Speaker 1: have been invaded. Where does this invasion come from? I
1:09:07
Speaker 1: don't profess to know. Something is out there in the skies,
1:09:10
Speaker 1: and whatever it is, it is not of this world
1:09:13
Speaker 1: as we know it. I'm trying not to let my
1:09:16
Speaker 1: imagination run away with me, but the more I study it,
1:09:19
Speaker 1: the more it seems like something beyond our technology. So
1:09:23
Speaker 1: again I'm wondering if it was both. Maybe some of
1:09:26
Speaker 1: this is et and the government showed up with secret
1:09:29
Speaker 1: technology to sort of study it or muddy the waters.
1:09:34
Speaker 1: Withville continues to have yearly conferences known as the Withyville
1:09:38
Speaker 1: UFO fest. So the mystery of the Withville UFO flap
1:09:43
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty seven to nineteen eighty eight has never
1:09:45
Speaker 1: really been solved, and it looks like it never will be.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: There are sightings still going on. For example, on December sixth,
1:09:54
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, a witness described a quote big blob of
1:09:58
Speaker 1: white light. The speed was faster than anything I had
1:10:01
Speaker 1: ever seen in the night sky. Just under a year later,
1:10:04
Speaker 1: this same witness saw quote a huge circular aircraft hovering
1:10:09
Speaker 1: over Widville was surrounded by a band of white and
1:10:12
Speaker 1: blue lights. Small red flashing lights were flying around the
1:10:16
Speaker 1: large object. The crafts made no sound. They disappeared suddenly
1:10:20
Speaker 1: in a clear sky and were seen by a number
1:10:22
Speaker 1: of people attending a high school bonfire. The ladiest setting
1:10:26
Speaker 1: I could find occurred on January fifth, twenty twelve, and
1:10:29
Speaker 1: a witness said, we were driving on Route fifty two
1:10:33
Speaker 1: when my girlfriend looked up and saw something flying really low,
1:10:36
Speaker 1: like low enough to hit a tall tree. We thought
1:10:39
Speaker 1: it might have been a plane, but there were so
1:10:41
Speaker 1: many lights that were different colors and was going slow.
1:10:45
Speaker 1: By all accounts, the wave did end before the end
1:10:49
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty eight, or, like Danny says, perhaps people
1:10:53
Speaker 1: just became tired of it and stopped reporting. It wasn't
1:10:56
Speaker 1: news anymore. I don't think so, because we were not
1:10:59
Speaker 1: seeing a huge number of reports. In fact, if you
1:11:03
Speaker 1: go to UFO reporting centers like NEWFK or MUFON, you
1:11:07
Speaker 1: will see a number of reports in the nineteen eighty
1:11:11
Speaker 1: seven and nineteen eighty eight, but not really much beyond that,
1:11:14
Speaker 1: just a few as we have seen. So yeah, this
1:11:17
Speaker 1: is an unprecedented UFO wave of incredible intensity. And the
1:11:22
Speaker 1: mystery of what these craft were remains. I think most
1:11:27
Speaker 1: of the witnesses and Danny Gordon and other investigators are
1:11:31
Speaker 1: leaning towards this being secret military aircraft, and they really
1:11:36
Speaker 1: tried to do a deep dive into this. And I'm
1:11:39
Speaker 1: a little on the fence about it because some of
1:11:41
Speaker 1: these craft sound like you're very much your classic Saucers.
1:11:46
Speaker 1: They're chasing cars down the road for Pete's sake. Is
1:11:49
Speaker 1: this something that secret military craft would do? Perhaps? I
1:11:53
Speaker 1: don't know. I did find something interesting. In nineteen eighty
1:11:58
Speaker 1: seven and nineteen eighty eight there were significant military advances
1:12:03
Speaker 1: in terms of stealth aircraft, so this could be a
1:12:08
Speaker 1: very important clue as to what the residents of worthevill
1:12:12
Speaker 1: were seeing, and that perhaps the military decided that this
1:12:17
Speaker 1: was the town that they were going to test their
1:12:20
Speaker 1: aircraft over and see how people reacted. Perhaps this was
1:12:23
Speaker 1: a test run for an upcoming false flag. I was
1:12:27
Speaker 1: really interested and concerned about the warning given to Danny
1:12:32
Speaker 1: Gordon by one gentleman who said that basically, this is
1:12:37
Speaker 1: a cabal, a secret group of very wealthy individuals who
1:12:40
Speaker 1: have gotten hold of UFO technology, UFO craft and are
1:12:44
Speaker 1: flying them around, and that the military itself is terrified
1:12:48
Speaker 1: of these folks. That's bone chilling. I mean, that's very concerning,
1:12:53
Speaker 1: to say the least. I don't know. This is the
1:12:56
Speaker 1: Withdville UFO way, and almost always when you invent to
1:13:00
Speaker 1: get UFOs, there are more questions than answers. But certainly
1:13:04
Speaker 1: an interesting period of UFO history, a wave that deserves
1:13:09
Speaker 1: a lot more attention than it got, and something that
1:13:13
Speaker 1: anyone interested in this subject should know about. And that's
1:13:16
Speaker 1: why I did this particular episode on the Forgotten UFO Wave.
1:13:23
Speaker 1: So I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you very
1:13:25
Speaker 1: much for watching. I truly appreciate it, And until next time,
1:13:29
Speaker 1: keep asking those hard questions, keep searching for the truth
1:13:33
Speaker 1: most important of all, keep having fun, and I'll see
1:13:36
Speaker 1: you next time for another episode of UFOs and the Paranormal.
1:13:40
Speaker 1: Bye for now.