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"All I can do is report it, Bud."
Bear in mind as you read the following account that
the person making the statements collected the names
of three other witnesses who happened to be in the
area and did not know him personally. Granted the
witness was well aware of the UFO problem and thus
conditioned to "tell a tall tale" if he desired, but
there are many possible checks that could be made to
ruin the validity of the sighting.A hoax seems
improbable unless the man was a complete fool. The
entry in official UFO records is brief:
"On 29 April 1952, at 0830 hours, the following
report was submitted to the undersigned by the Officer
of the Day relative to sightings of unconventional
aircraft observed on 27 April 1952.
"A/2C (deleted) of the Air Police Squadron took a
call from a Mr. (deleted) of Pontiac, Michigan. Mr.
(--- deleted) called at approximately 2306 hours
concerning an object approximately 200 feet in
diameter and 200 feet off the ground.
The object would go from brilliant white to
nothing. Mr- (deleted) was in a business
establishment making the phone call but friends were
outside the building still watching the object.
A/2C (deleted) did not get the phone number or address
of Mr. (--- deleted)."231
So much for the brief official note.
On May 16, 1952, the witness wrote an extensive
letter to BLUE BOOK providing his address and the
names and addresses of three other witnesses. The bulk
of the letter recounted the events of that wild night.
"Gentlemen: "I have been a faithful believer
and follower of Flying Saucers incidents as far back
as 1948 and was of the opinion that they were a
project of the U.S. Government, but after my recent
experience which I am going to outline in detail, it
has changed my belief entirely.
-63-
"Coincidentally, I happened to read the April 7th
issue of Life Magazine which precedes my experience by
a couple of weeks. Explaining my actions as you will
note.
I live approximately seven miles west of
Birmingham, Michigan which is north of Detroit about
fifteen miles. On Sunday night, April 27th my wife,
two children and myself were proceeding home from my
sister's traveling north on Stevenson Highway at 10:45
PM. As I turned left on fifteen mile road
(Fifteen Mile Road runs through Birmingham east and
west and at this pint is about seven miles east of
Birmingham), my wife and I both spotted a brilliant
white object coming toward us out of the sky from the
northeast. It descended so fast that by the by the
time my wife could realize and state it was a Flying
Saucer it had descended to its minimum
height of approximately 3,000 feet or the average
height of a transport plane in flight. It
stopped abruptly and rocked slightly similar to a row
boat in choppy water. It then settled at an
approximate 80 degree angle and the brilliant
whiteness diminished to what appeared to be window
lights. It sat in this exact position and spot
for approximately three or four minutes making it to
be about two miles north of us and 300 feet
high. The angle at which it rested made it very
easy for us to estimate it's thickness and
diameter. It appeared to have two tiers of
windows each about ten feet high which resembled
looking into the playing section of a mouth
organ. The windows were all around the entire
diameter making visible the round flatness. We
estimated conservatively that the diameter of
this ship was at least two hundred feet.
"After what seemed to me they were getting their
bearings, they started drifting northwest towards the
city of Pontiac at about one hundred miles per hour
but stopped two or three times during the time of our
observation. At no time did it make a noise.
"Immediately l realized that I should have
witnesses to this phenomenon, so I sped west on
Fifteen Mile Road to a drive-in restaurant about a
mile away. I ran in and asked some young men if
they would come out and witness my experience.
After persuasion, two of them went out and were
amazed, causing others to follow. By this time
it had drifted at least five miles northwest. At
this point I called the Birmingham Police and asked
them to alarm all the air fields in it's direction
which they said they would do. I returned to my
car and we continued to follow it driving west on
Fifteen Mile Road. During the next five minutes
the lights in the saucer went off and on three
times. The third time the lights changed from
white to a brilliant yellow-orange and by this time we
had reached the Grand Trunk Railroad Station, a
half mile from Birmingham. Thinking this
experience would make a good newspaper story, I
stopped at the railroad station and called the Detroit
Times telling them my story thus far.
"After that I again called the Birmingham police
and asked them if they had reported the incident as
yet. They said they were thinking about it so I
became provoked and said I would call Selfridge Field
myself, which I did. If anyone ever got the
'Brush' I sure did. I was transferred to five
different departments and finally got an officer who,
I am sure, was awakened by my call and was very
peeved. I explained what was taking place and he
mumbled some thing to another fellow and then said:
'I'll report it What's your name?' I gave
him my name and explained: 'If you ever want a
close-up view of a giant saucer, get some planes in
the sky at once, telling him the approximate location
of the saucer. Then he repeated: 'All I
can do is report it, Bud.' Then he hung up.
"During my telephone conversation, my wife had
convinced the station attendant and railroad express
truck driver to observe the spectacle. I secured
the truck driver's name and then proceeded west
following the saucer until it vanished from our vision
over the tree tops toward the general direction of
Flint at 11:15 p.m.
"I contacted the Detroit Times Tuesday A.M.
gave them my complete story. Their reporter
phoned Selfridge Field and the radar Division and they
both told him that it was impossible for anything to
be in the air at that time because nothing was picked
up by radar, so naturally, Time dropped the
story.
"To prove my story, I started to trace down my
witnesses. After considerable difficulty, I
found the young men I asked to come out of the
drive-in and obtained written statements from
each. Then I contacted the truck driver and he
was very willing to write a statement of his
observation (Their names and addresses are at the end
of this letter.). I again went to the
Times with my proof and the editor turned the story
over to another reporter who again phoned Selfridge
Field. This time they contacted the intelligence
division. They stated that they received at
least two letters a day from people who had also
sighted the saucer at different points. This assured
the reporter of my story and he later stated that he
thought the complete story would be in the Sunday, May
4th issue. However, for some unknown reason it never
appeared."232
It would be very interesting to locate the writer
of the aforementioned letter and the other witnesses
but all such information has been blotted out with
black ink by Air Force censors.
-65-
Finally, it seems Captain Rosinia saw something
himself. The night of April 27th at 8:00 p.m. he
was walking in the officer's barracks area at
Selfridge Air Force Base when he happened to observe
one of those famous silent horizontal green
"meteors." He reported: "...I noticed in
the sky at a 45 degree angle a large flash of green
light which trailed to a point to the north.
The light was Kelly green in color, persisted for
from three to four seconds, and then disappeared. I
heard no noise, saw no object - - though the light
appeared to move in a horizontal plane."233
The Captain was puzzled by the sight. "I have
been at Selfridge Air Force Base for 16 months and
have never seen any similar lights or balls of green
light. The night was clear, stars were clearly
visible, no clouds in the sky. I have seen falling
stars, but this light moved horizontally and not
vertically.as a falling star. "I would not have
reported this ball of light in view of its fragmentary
nature were it not for the fact that four other
sightings, during the daytime, were reported in areas
around Selfridge Air Force Base, Michigan."234
Source: UFOs A History 1952, |