Form: 97 Report
Subject: Oct. 24,
1973; Fredricktown, Ohio CE-III Case
Investigators: Rebecca MinShall, Joseph A. Stets, Warren B. Nicholson
and William E. Jones.
Source: MORA 3/93
Oct. 24, 1973; Fredricktown, Ohio Case
9:00 p.m.
I found this report in my 1973 file while preparing the 1973 UFO
Chronology to be released on April 15, 2007.
This case was Investigated in the summer of 1976 by members of the now
defunct Civil Commission on Aerial Phenomena.
Mrs. Evelyn Addlesperger lived in Eredricktown, a small northern Ohio
community just off Interstate 71, all of her life. She was well
respected by her neighbors and was known to be a very hard worker. She
and her husband, who died prior to this sighting, had built their home.
When she pulled into her driveway that October 24th night in 1973 she
was confronted with something that she was unprepared for.
It wad about 9:00 p.m.. It was fall, and the night was cool. She came
up the street from the east and turned left into her driveway. As she
turned, the headlights of her car passed across her house, an open area
at the rear of the house, and then onto her garage at the end of the
driveway. As the headlights passed across the open area, which allows
for a partial view of a deep backyard, something lit up this backyard
area. The area, usually quite dark at night, was now brightly lit. The
color appeared to be the same as the lights of her car. The apparent
source of the light was a large object hovering above the ground. It
seemed as if her headlights had caused this object to light up, but
there was too much light for it to have been merely reflected light
from a smooth metallic surface. Also, between her and the object were
two large pine trees and a deciduous tree with a few leaves still on it.
She reacted by saying, 'Oh, my gosh," out loud to her self. The object
was visible for only a few moments moments. She didn't see it move, but
sensed that it came in from the east, down into her yard, and then back
out to the west. It reminded her of an "open cockpit" airplane, but she
could see no wings, nor vertical or horizontal stabilizers. Based on
her observations and the distance between the trees, the object was
approximately thirty feet long. The front of the object, which was
pointed west - to her right -seemed "square" and it tapered to the
rear. It's front, which appeared to be like an "open cockpit", was
"covered" and had "wires funning all over the object." Later attempts
to describe what was meant by these "wires" and the "cover" were vague.
Mrs. Addlesperger attributed this to the three years that had elapsed
since her sighting.
In the "open cockpit" area were three hooded figures "like the Ku Klux
Klan." The figure on the right was "taller than the one to the left or
the one to the rear." The figures appeared to be seated because she
could see them only from what appeared to be the waist up. No facial
figures were noted, just the hoods. The figures appeared to glow with
the same white/yellow color as the object itself.
She sat there for a few moments. Exactly how long, she can't say. She
turned off the engine of her car but left the headlights on. By this
time the backyard was dark again. Determined to find out what was going
on, she got out of her car and started toward the area where the object
had been seen. When she reached the rear of her garage, about thirty
five feet from her car, she stopped. It was as if something told her
not to go back there. She felt fear. She returned to her car, started
it up, and drove into the garage. Then she went into her house and
looked out the rear window into the dark back yard. Nothing! She went
into her living room and sat down. She said that she was "stunned" by
what had occurred.
The next day the area was checked by some of her friends for physical
traces, but none were found.
Questioning revealed that her car radio was not on and her car operated
normally. She heard no sound from the object. There were no animals in
the area, as far as she knew, that reacted to the object. A later check
of the neighborhood turned up no one who had seen anything strange that
night.
Mrs. Addlesperger, at times, seemed reluctant to talk about her
experience. At one point she said, "I would give anything to see that
thing back there." Later, she seemed afraid that it would happen to her
again if she talked about it. When asked about this apparent
inconsistency, she said she would like to see the object if "they"
would stay out there and not come into her home.
This experience left a very real impression on her. "It sure lit up
back there," she said. "I think about it everytime I drive in the
driveway."
This was not the only UFO seen in the Fredricktown area that fall. The
night before Mrs. Addlesperger had her experience, a woman two blocks
away to the northwest saw an object in the southwestern sky. At 10:30
.m. that night Mrs. Thomas Purdy drove into the driveway on the west
side of her home at 149 Salem Avenue. The car was facing south. As she
got out of her car she heard a few "beeps" from up in the sky. She
looked up above some trees to the southwest and saw a yellow orange
object. The object was banana or cigar shaped and "pointed at both
ends." A quarter held at arms length would probably have covered the
object, she said. She felt scared and ran into the house to get her
husband. They both looked outside in time to see the object leave by
rising quickly upward and to the east.
A hundred yards or so west of Mrs. Addlesperger's home on the other
side of a small factory lives Mrs. Lela Hoeflich. Like Mrs.
Addlesperger, Mrs. Hoeflich is in her seventies. At around 5:00 a.m. on
a night in October or November of 1973, she got up to get a drink of
water and happened to look out of her kitchen window. This window faces
east in the direction of the factory and the Addlesperger house. The
Addleiperger house is on the other side of the factory and cannot be
seen from the Hoeflich house. There, in the sky above the factory and
the trees to the east, was a gold object "like a large wash tub." It
was flat on the bottom and open on the top. Sitting inside was a "man."
Because of the distance, she could see no features on his face. While
the object seemed to glow, the man did not.
She saw the object for only a brief period of time as it glided
noiselessly from north to south and disappeared from view behind some
trees or the factory building. She estimated that the object was
further east than the Addlesperger house. While she has since heard of
the Addlesperger experience, she claims she didn't know of it at the
time of her sighting.
That same fall, according to Beth Ann Jones, a number of Fredricktown
high school students had experiences with strange aerial objects. One
group was followed by a yellow object that was 'like the moon", but
twice as big, while they were driving a pick up truck over roads
northeast of Fredricktown. She was with that group. Another group had a
similar experience during that same period. One member from each group
was located and interviewed, but due to the three year lapse of time,
they remembered few details. However, each seemed sure they hadn't
mistaken the moon for a UFO.