That's No Moon

Many Uncrazy Clevelanders Have Seen Strange Lights In The Sky. Who - Or What - Is Buzzing Northeast Ohio?
By John Lasker

To suggest that Northeast Ohio could be witness to the next mass UFO sighting does not officially make you a member of the tin-foil hat crowd. If you believe even just a few of the witnesses, Cleveland and its surrounding communities might already be a hotspot.

During the previous two years, the Cleveland UFOlogy Project, considered the oldest of its kind on this side of the globe, has documented 20 credible sightings. The 2005 documentary Dan Akroyd: Unplugged on UFOs highlighted the peculiar lights over Lake Erie near Eastlake, where witnesses reported their latest sighting just this past June. Earlier this year, an "orb" was videotaped over the Key Bank Tower during a peace rally, and the incident made it on the CBS nightly news.

The hype continues: Literally hundreds of thousands have downloaded Internet videos of Northeast Ohio UFOs. The Cleveland Office of Homeland Security has investigated.

"If you take all of the people in Ohio who are interested in this subject, I bet half of them are from that part of the state," says Central Ohio-based William E. Jones, state director for Ohio MUFON, or Mutual UFO Network. "A lot of folks up there have seen things over the years. More people are interested up there. I don't know why."

Sam Phillips has long been a fixture of Cleveland's music scene. He's an accomplished drummer and "hand snapper," and appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show. When interviewed for this story, however, he was homeless and sleeping at the homes of friends and family. Phillips taped a strange light spinning and hovering over the Key Bank Tower on March 10, during a peace rally.

"This is not about me," says Phillips, who admits he has become obsessed with what he saw that night. "There's a pattern here. There's a riddle here. And I want answers. I want an explanation."

He believes it wasn't coincidence the sighting took place over a peace rally. During the sighting, he recalls saying that our "brothers and sisters are going to come down from the universe and humble our ass."

Phillips' story, however, is but a sidebar in the current wave of Northeast Ohio UFO mania. Taking center stage is Lake Erie, and Michael Lee Hill of Eastlake.

Hill, like Phillips, is a musician. In 2001, Grammy-award winner and guitar legend Steve Vai picked Hill as the winner of a national guitar contest. Hill is gregarious, upbeat and likeable. He's unconventional and complex. He's certain that the UFOs he has seen are targeting him.

"I've had contact my whole life," he says. "I remember asking my mother, "Why do Santa's elves keep visiting me?'"

The recent visitations started in earnest five years ago, not far from the coal-burning power plant, he says. While walking on the beach, not far from his home, Hill said he witnessed a top hat-shaped craft hovering and pulsating over the shoreline. This same area is also famous in UFO lore for a 1988 encounter documented by the Coast Guard.

Hill started taking a video camera to the lakefront. Since then he's captured scores of bright lights that appear to hover over Lake Erie. He's uploaded many of his videos to YouTube, and those caught the attention of David Sereda, who directed the Akroyd documentary. Hill created the music for Sereda's latest project, From Here To Andromeda.

"I really do consider myself a spiritual messenger; I know it sounds freaky," says Hill, adding that the UFO filmed over the Key Bank Tower is one of the same orbs he captured over Lake Erie. "There's a huge story unfolding here. I think they're absolutely sending us a message. I believe they are here to help us become a galactic society."

At the other end of the spectrum is Eastlake resident Gary Strauss, who says adamantly, "I'm not one of those UFO people." He's a chemist and a supervisor at a local laboratory. He's lived in his home on the lake since 1984, in the same neighborhood as Hill, though they've never met.

Early on the morning of June 21, Strauss and his son saw four bright lights, shaped like the tip of a Sharpie marker, high above the water. The lights were in a line parallel with the shoreline, positioned at 11 o'clock and 30 degrees above the horizon.

Then one vanished. Then another. Soon all four were gone. Suddenly, they reappeared in the shape of a diamond. Then they went flat again. This went on for more than an hour.

He called the Eastlake police and they dispatched an officer. Strauss remembers the officer saying, "What is that?"

The following day, his son checked the Internet for lights over Lake Erie and found one of Hill's videos. He recalls his son shouting, "That's it! That's what we saw!"

But unlike other Lake Erie witnesses, Strauss doesn't believe the lights are extraterrestrial. He guesses they're the result of government or aerospace industry experiments with new technology. "They're bouncing radar off some type of object," he speculates. "Some form of radar reflection technology. I'm just making an educated guess."

Nevertheless, he's intrigued.

"I look outside a lot more. I want to see it again," says Strauss. "This time, I'm going to have my camera." But he rejects the suggestion that it's anything more than curiosity: "No. I'm not obsessive. Absolutely not."

The Eastlake police actually had two witnesses that night. A detective, who asked not to be named, told the Free Times that he too saw the lights, but from a different vantage point.

The Eastlake police asked the Cleveland office of Homeland Security to look into the sighting, and the detective says he was told later that on the night of the sighting, the Canadian Coast Guard was near the opposite side of the lake searching for a man who had been reported missing. A Canadian Coast Guard helicopter dropped flares, connected to miniature parachutes, over the water. Later it was discovered the man had drowned.

Strauss finds this implausible, believes the lights appeared in a straight line, then vanished, then reappeared in a diamond formation.

The Bush administration reportedly has funneled billions to the aerospace industry to develop space-based weapons under the guise of missile defense. Secret military space-plane programs are believed to have been revived as well.

Another possibility are LAGEOS, or Laser Geodynamics Satellites. Publicly, the government says two are in orbit, and both are roughly the size of a basketball. They are made of brass and partially covered with a retro-reflection material that returns light in the direction it comes from, similar to a road sign.

There's also NASA's Glenn Research Center at the Plum Brook site in Sandusky. The site is home to the world's largest space environment simulation chamber. That chamber will test NASA's new spacecraft, Orion, which will take the US back to the moon. Recent upgrades to the Plum Brook site will also allow it to test "next- generation lunar landers, robotic systems, and military and commercial aircraft," according to NASA's Web site.

"So here I come walking out of the TV station one night in November maybe a decade ago after our early evening newscast," says Ted Henry of New Channel 5. "In perfect formation there were five large objects flying smoothly in my direction. It was stunning.

"What I saw was the undersides of five flat objects flying in exact formation. The front two were enormous, maybe the size of several football fields, and the three trailing were smaller, flying in a slightly irregular pattern."

"What do I think they were? All I can really tell you is what I saw."

Henry has talked about his sighting many times on the air. He puts the experience this way: "One thing is certain, for people who see something in the sky, as I did over Cleveland years ago, it can be a life changing experience."


http://www.freetimes.com/stories/15/21/thats-no-moon

its interesting to see these reports of mass sightings and no one thinks something is going on!

Ohio is where that huge serpent and the egg mound is isn't it? The one that was built by the Native Americans long ago? And as far as I know, it actually IS in the northeastern part of the state. Maybe that has something to do with it.

just tossing this idea out ,but didn't the Hills say that the aliens that abducted them have serpents on their uniforms as some kinda united symbol??

I don't remember that but it's been a while since I've seen the vids.

Yes, I believe they did.

ok ok this just might be a bit out there but this is what i found about the serpent beings :

The Neonates are an alien species with extreme intelligence. Neonates are three to four feet tall, have a fetus-like facial appearance and a large oversized cranium. They are thin muscled and spindly, have light gray to dark cream-colored skin, five digits on each hand and are reported to possess telepathic abilities. Neonates are often times mistaken for Greys, another similar alien species in stature and color. However, the Neonates (unlike the grays) have pupils and retinas in their unusually large eyes. The eyes of Alien Greys are large too, but they are entirely black and have no distinguishable pupils or retinas in them. Alien Greys have only four digits on each hand as opposed to the five digits on each hand of the Neonate.

It was the Neonate species that was reportedly involved in the Roswell New Mexico UFO crash in 1947. It is also the Neonate species that allegedly abducted Betty and Barney Hill in 1962; the first documented ‘Alien Abduction’ case on record. During that abduction Betty Hill was told by these Neonate aliens that they originated from the Zeta Riticuli star system.



and here is the site i got the "info" from: http://www.maar.us/alien_species.html

UAP's over Northern Ohio is definitely nothing new...

Those who are familiar with the UFO flap of 1966 - 1967 over Northern Ohio and West Virginia will no doubt know that this was the setting for the Mothman Prophecies book...

There were 100 sightings of Mothman during the Flap, however the UFO and UAP reports ran into the thousands. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman looked even further back into the history of the area and found several 1947 - 1948 reports of strange creatures and lights in the Ohio Valley area. It is even noted that several Native American tribes even refused to settle in the area because they believed it to be cursed, and many of the Thunderbird legends originate in the area.

Northern Ohio has a long rich history with UAP's, and like Sedona AZ is meant to hold a great degree of interest to unidentified forces.

There are many hundreds of reports that come from the area, I can try and find some if people are interested.

I am very interested, here is a related news story that was not brought up in this recent story...

http://www.rense.com/general57/ohio.htm


Strange Rumors Of Northern
Ohio Activity
By Kenny Young
ufo@fuse.net
10-2-4

Unusual Situation Reported In Northern Ohio

Apparently on Wednesday morning, September 22, numerous callers to Cleveland, Ohio radio station 1100 WTAM reported a rainbow-like aerial situation similar to a 'Sundog.' The situation complicates, however, as others begin describing unusual contrails, jet scrambles and other military activity all across northern Ohio. One caller, Amin, describes an unusual light seen the night before Sept. 22 while driving home from Detroit around 1:00 a.m. while another caller, Kevin, claims the similar sighting of a 'bluish green light' around 10:35 p.m. on Route 8 near the Stow, Ohio area (north of Akron). At daybreak the morning of Sept. 22, northeastern Ohio skies were allegedly 'ripped' with jet vapor trails.

One caller, Don, is a truck driver with a route between Cleveland and Youngstown, and alleges that his GPS (Global Positioning System) that pinpoints his mapping location on a laptop computer, began malfunctioning between 8 and 9:00 a.m., although working flawlessly beforehand. Stranger still, another caller named Dave claimed that Route 12, a south/north road out of Fostoria, Ohio, was blocked by "tons" of army trucks and traffic was being diverted.

This activity was briefly referenced on the Cleveland UFO E-list by George Pindroh, but with no new information. Secondly, I did receive three E-mail advisement's regarding this activity from various contacts, along with one copied message from 'June' that states: " I talked with my Mom today, and she told me that on channel 19 at 5 pm, Wed., Sept. 22, the TV news anchor said that there were hundreds of reports of UFO's all over the lakefront area of Ohio. He said that after the commercial breaks he would give the details. My mom was very curious and waited to hear the news. When the news came back on, NOTHING. So the story was squashed. I talked to a few people at work today, and yes, they had heard about the sightings. Everyone was talking about it. So lots of people here in Ohio heard about it before the news was suppressed. According to my Mom, the TV anchor said that people saw what looked like a huge cloud with rainbow colors along with many UFO's that were not disguising themselves as clouds. I also learned that fighter jets were sent out after them." (Note, I do not know June who copied me on her comments to a few other researchers, but she signed her name with the addition of "In The Light," and I cannot vouch for her comments -- KY)

Thirdly, a comment about the WTAM radio activity was filed to the National UFO Reporting Center (N.U.F.O.R.C.) website, but also containing no new information.

Further, Mrs. Donnie Blessing, Southern Ohio State Director for MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) spoke with a gentleman from Cleveland named Ken who contacted the Cincinnati UFO Hotline (513 - 588 - 4548) on September 28th to advise of a UFO sighting in Canada on September 21st. While taking the information, Ken advised that his wife knew of the strange reports on WTAM radio station on September 22, and further informed of UFOs and numerous (presumably) responding military helicopters seen near the Perry Nuclear Power Station. This specific detail has been considered most intriguing. At this time, we know of no substantive information to link this reference of a UFO situation near the Perry Nuclear Power Station to the September 22nd activity reported by WTAM radio.

Oddly, there was previous UFO activity reported 'on the record' by a Lake County law officer referenced in conjunction with the Perry Nuclear Facility in June of 2004, that report is located online at: http://home.fuse.net/ufo/willoughby04.html

So unusual was this September 22nd activity that radio station WTAM created a special web page for the situation. The page contains audio clips of the many callers that are available from the exact URL location: http://www.wtam.com/triv/index.html along with the following comment by talk show host Mike Trivisonno:

"WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE SKYS OVER NORTHERN OHIO ?"


On Wednesday morning September 22 nd , 2004 a caller rang the WTAM morning show, Wills and Coleman in the Morning, to report the sightings of strange colors in the sky. Other callers reported seeing the same thing while others tried to describe and/or explain the image.

Afternoon host Mike Trivisonno was curious and ventured into his backyard to see for himself. Although he did not see the lights he did see something peculiar, jet contrails all over the crystal clear Cleveland sky. The contrails extended in all directions as far as the eyes can see. The contrails formed a checkerboard pattern. In all of Trivisonno,s years on this planet he had never seen anything like it. Or maybe it was he just never noticed it. He played the phone calls from that morning and mentioned his observations on his #1 rated afternoon show that day and asked the question "What the heck is going on

The callers responded. Below are some of the calls that were made to the show on the 22 nd . While Triv,s question was never definitively answered, conclusions can be made. What do you think?

We do not know how long the WTAM web page and subsequent audio clips of the callers will remain posted and active.

If you have any information regarding a UFO situation taking place near the Perry Nuclear Power Station involving military helicopters or a jet scramble in response to a perceived UFO situation near the Lake County facility, please call at the contact information given below.

it just goes to prove that these things happen every single day

Well seeing as Ive been born and raised in eastern Ohio smack dab on the river I suppose I could weigh in on this. While I personally have not witnessed any strange phenomena in the area there are......stories.

Just a few off the top of my head that come from, in my life here in the valley, credible sources. One is the three circles of burned grass in the field after seeing lights in the sky the night before. Numerous "I saw something in the sky once" stories. Several bigfoot sightings and this area is a hotbed for bigfoot sightings it seems. No other weird animal stories that I've come across though. Many stories about the Native Americans that inhabited this area and what they believed. A lot of interesting stories spanning almost all the paranormal subdivisions.

One that may interest you guys is from the last half of this past August 2007. My neighbor evidently say your typical triangle shaped UFO. Both him and his wife saw it I do believe. It was dark, triangular shaped, had lights going all the way around its sides and made no sound as it flew over the houses on our hilltop here. It moved out over an area where there are no houses, just woods, and then rose up higher into the sky. He said it looked like a large out of place star at this point. Then a small blinking light came towards the triangle UFO from over the horizon. It ran right into the triangle UFO and disappeared. Soon after the first UFO blinked out and was gone.

Thats it. No one else I talked to saw anything at all. Though according to my neighbor the local news station expressed interest in coming to interview him because he was not the only one to see something around that time. Mind you I haven't had the chance to speak with him since he told me what he saw and he only had a few minutes to tell me about it. Now they are an elderly couple with some health conditions but they are of pretty sound mind and him being a retired deputy sheriff he is not prone to flights of fancy.

I've got no idea what it was. Like I said I've never personally seen anything. Only been told the stories.....

Kevin A.

Here are a few articles and book excerpts I found:

Mothman Prophecies - John Keel



There are more I can dig up, these are just some of the more interesting ones at hand.