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The Portage County UFO incident ~ Ohio,1966.


karl 12

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Very interesting UFO incident from Ohio in which multiple police officers witness and chase a UFO (Project Blue Book Record 10073) - the case was also the model for the scene in Steven Spielberg's film 'Close Encounters of the Third kind'.

1966 Portage County, Ohio UFO Police Chase

On the morning of April 17th, 1966, police officers encountered a structured, low-level UFO, and gave chase. Officers of the Portage County, Ohio, Sheriff's Department first saw the object rise up from near ground level, bathing them in light, near Ravenna, Ohio, about 5:00 A.M. Ordered by the sergeant to pursue the object, they chased it for eighty-five miles across the border into Pennsylvania, as it seemed to play a cat-and-mouse game with them. Along the route, police officers from other jurisdictions saw the object and joined in the chase.

Deputy Sheriff Dale Spaur and Mounted Deputy Wilbur "Barney" Neff had left their car to investigate an apparently abandoned automobile on Route 224. Spaur stated:

"I always look behind me so no one can come up behind me. And when I looked in this wooded area behind us, I saw this thing. At this time it was coming up...to about tree top level. I'd say about one hundred feet. it started moving toward us.... As it came over the trees, I looked at Barney and he was still watching the car...and he didn't say nothing and the thing kept getting brighter and the area started to get light...I told him to look over his shoulder, and he did.

He just stood there with his mouth open for a minute, as bright as it was, and he looked down. And I started looking down and I looked at my hands and my clothes weren't burning or anything, when it stopped right over on top of us. The only thing, the only sound in the whole area was a hum...like a transformer being loaded or an overloaded transformer when it changes....

According to Spaur, as the four officers stood and watched the UFO, which had stopped and was hovering, there was traffic on the radio about jets being scrambled to chase the UFO, and "...we could see these planes coming in...When they started talking about fighter planes, it was just as if that thing heard every word that was said; it went PSSSSSHHEW, straight up; and I mean when it went up, friend, it didn't play no games; it went straight up."

Officer sketch of the object:

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Officer descriptions of the object:

SPAUR-NEFF, UFO DETAIL

1. Projection, tilted from rear (trailing edge) 18' long, tapered to to tip

2. Dome-shaped top; partly metallic, partly self-illuminated

3. Glowing front (leading edge)

4. Cone-shaped light underneath

5. Glowing tip of trailing edge

6. Metallic surface

7. Sharp "drop-off" (Neff disagrees; remembers more rounded here)

8. Rounded "undercarriage"

9. Line separating metallic from self-illuminated portions

SPAUR-NEFF, SIGHTING TERMINUS

1. Bright spot to right of moon, a little above axis of symmetry of crescent

2. Crescent moon (bump in concave portion indicates "nose" of "Man in Moon")

3. TV antenna on nearby house, through whose elements Spaur and Neff saw the

UFO hovering before 1st upward elevation

4. Position of UFO after 1st elevation, above moon (now moving away, or disappearing)

HUSTON, UFO DETAIL

1. Cone-shaped light underneath

2. Bright, self-illuminated solid appearing top

3. Dome shape

4. Cone tilted toward rear, of direction of motion, more so than shown here.

Edited by karl 12
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Reconstruction:

Debunkery:

The official Air Force evaluation has concluded that the case is explained by an astronomical phenomenon. When asked for details, they explained that the officers had seen a satellite at first, and then had chased the planet Venus for 40-odd miles. Absolutely none of the witness and investigators could agree with this..
Officer statement to press:

"I've seen Venus many times, but I never saw Venus 50 feet above a road and moving from side to side like this was..."

Portage County Sheriff Ross Dustman to United Press International.

The 'investigation' by USAF Major Quintanilla actually consisted in a two minutes and a half phone call to the sole Dale Spaur, starting with this question: "tell me about this mirage you saw."

Then a second one minute and a half phone was passed again only to Dale Spaur. According to a written and signed testimony by Spaur, Quintanilla wanted him to sign a text specifying that the sighting lasted only a few minutes. When Spaur protested that it was at least a 60 miles car chase covering two states, Quintanilla put an end to the conversation.

Links:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Project-Blue-Book-1966-Portage-County--Ohio-UFO-Debunking

http://www.aliensthetruth.com/UFO_sightings_famous.php?view=1&ID=14

http://www.nicap.org/raven6.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_County_UFO_Chase

Edited by karl 12
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Probably

(especialy the cases with completely ludicrous USAF explanations like this one).

Edited by karl 12
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There are websites we can visit if we wanna read reports. What's annoying is you don't even say anything about the cases, you just post quotes, pics and links and flood this section with 'em. We can read these reports at those other sites.

1966? Who cares? If nothing's come of it by now, it never will.

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Well I for one am glad of what karl12 is doing. Yes I do agree that we can read these reports on other sites, but this kind of thing is what this site is for. People bring stuff in for others to see. You can't really get mad for using the site the way its suppose to be used. I say keep up the good work.

As for the report. How often do you get one with such detail? Most of the time its just a light in the sky. This one has a description of the craft, an estimate of how high up it was, and how long it was followed. Now if we could get that picture that was taken we would be set. I just don't understand why they couldn't be released. The most I can see happening from it is people would be more open minded to the possibility. Not turning them into believers but get them to consider the possibility.

Any way, I say again, good job.

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Yes,you've been complaining a lot recently - at least threads like this one actualy bring the incident up for discussion.

Perhaps folks have never heard of this case before or are not aware of the outright discrepencies in the government 'version of events'.

Whatever the case - its probably far more constructive to attempt to actualy address the incident rather than just constantly gripe about posting methods.

This is a great UFO case - a thread exists about it on a UFO board - get over it.

What do you think the object was, Venus?

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"its probably far more constructive to attempt to actualy address the incident "

I can't believe you just wrote that. LMAO!!!

Exactly. :)

Great! At least discuss it then.

Edited by Sweetpumper
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Hi Karl;

I seen this story posted on another site and I must say its interesting to say the least, No I dont believe it was venus they chased, Anyone with half a wit can tell the difference between venus and an object moving along at speed let alone chase it for such a distance, Its an intersting incident for sure,

Regards;

TFF

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As for the report. How often do you get one with such detail? Most of the time its just a light in the sky. This one has a description of the craft, an estimate of how high up it was, and how long it was followed.

Ywalme,thanks for the reply -you're certainly right about it being an interesting case. :)

Apparently the Sheriff’s office code-named the object 'Floyd' as to not tip off civilians listening in on police band radio.

Heres another sketch of 'floyd':

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Interview with the Police witnesses:

http://www.aliensthetruth.com/media/ohioufointerview.mp3

As to the true nature of the object I have absolutely no idea what it was but Dr James E. Mcdonald who was senior physicist at the Institute for Atmospherical Physics in Arizona makes some very good points about dishonest USAF debunking tactics in this interview:

Interview with Dr. James E. McDonald who discusses the Portage County incident and the subsequent 'unbeleivable' USAF conclusion:

September 24, 1968 Lecture,

"UFOs: A Case Study in Public Mis-information"

at Kent State University, Ohio

http://www.cohenufo.org/PortageCounty2-McDonald.htm

Cheers.

Edited by karl 12
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Hi Karl;

I seen this story posted on another site and I must say its interesting to say the least, No I dont believe it was venus they chased, Anyone with half a wit can tell the difference between venus and an object moving along at speed let alone chase it for such a distance, Its an intersting incident for sure,

Regards;

TFF

TFF,thanks for the reply -I think you're right about it not being Venus. :)

Theres also another UFO report from two Sheriff Deputies in the same area from ten days earlier:

April 7, 1966; Mansfield, OH

Two sheriffs deputies while on patrol chased a bright round object at high speed, seeing it or a similar object five times. The UFO alternately hovered and sped up, the last time departing vertically upward.

http://www.nicap.org/waves/1966fullrep.htm

Cheers.

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What do you think the object was, Venus?

At least discuss it then.

Well,its a bit difficult to discuss if you refuse to address the incident.

1966? Who cares?

If that's your attitude why bother posting in this thread at all?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just a thought?

1966 two Police cars Flying down the road at nite at what Speed`s ? Well At best 100 mph or so and Little E.T in His potentially Faster than Light Ship Letting them track it?

Close enough to see a shape and some detail ,allbeit sketchy at best.

These pranksters must really know how to throttle back those babys ?

I mean even a few hundred milse per hr,would be less than a tenth of a precent of there flying speeds? maybe even one-one thousanth?

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Donteatus,thanks for the reply -I suspect the police witnesses had no idea what the object was (although the officers do refer to it as a 'craft' in one interview).

Its also worth pointing out that it did get quite ugly for the policemen afterwards - apparently they suffered a great deal of ridicule and media harassment about the incident:

Witnesses Suffer From Encounter

The men who were involved in this incident suffered for it. They were hounded by the media and ridiculed by others. Buchert and Neff stopped talking about the incident to anyone. Panzenella received so many phone calls about the incident that he finally had his phone disconnected. Huston quit the police department and moved to Seattle, Washington, where he became a bus driver, changing his preferred name from Wayne to Harold.

Spaur Life Becomes Total Nightmare

The life of Spaur was ruined. He was hounded even worse than the others. He began to have personal problems that culminated in his arrest for the assault and battery of his wife. He turned in his badge and made a meager living as a painter. His wife divorced him. Spaur said: "If I could change all that I have done in my life, I would change just one thing. And that would be the night we chased that damn thing. That saucer."

http://hubpages.com/hub/Project-Blue-Book-1966-Portage-County--Ohio-UFO-Debunking

Cheers.

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Sweetpumper - three posts in this thread now and you've still not actualy addressed the subject matter.

Do you think the object involved in the Portage County incident was the planet Venus?

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  • 1 month later...

Scientific advisor to Project Bluebook (Dr Hyneck) debunks the 'Venus explanation':

The most intriguing piece, however, came from Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the Air Force consultant. Hynek noted that Venus had risen at 3:35 that morning and would have been too high in the sky, by the time of the sightings, to be mistaken for an aircraft.

http://www.eyepod.org/RP-Seven-Steps-to-Hell.html

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Are you gonna start a thread for every single g-damn sighting that's been reported?

Hopefully. I found it quite interesting.

:rolleyes:

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  • 2 months later...

'Hi Karl!'I remember first reading about this case years ago!..And have always held the opinion, that this is one of the real stand out examples of the ETH and the sheer ineptitude and arrogance of some of the 'so called logical minded' debunkers!!I mean,..the fact that 'Venus', was their main suspect(for a 2 state 84mile high speed chase!) speaks volumes as to the mentality and complacency of these 'right thinking,scientifically minded' IDIOTS!!..after all,..surely whatever these massively brained proffesional sceptics dream up,' in the comfort of of their offices',..has automatically to cancel out any amount of Actual Eye Witness Statements!! :hmm: Well, it does to a lot of posters on this forum!..Oh!..and I'm glad that you mentioned Dr.James E Mcdonald!..If for no other reason,than he's a hero of mine!..Having read his profiles and biography,I find it impossible that anyone could view this man as anything but.. a giant in the field of UFO reserch!! :tu: ....OH!,And by the way 'Karl'!..It was for posts, such as this! that I joined this site for in the first place!!! So keep it up and the :devil: to the boo-boys!

Edited by 1963
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It would seem the officers involved did not deserve the ridicule that they ultimately received, which was detrimental to their carreers and their marriages. What I read sounded very unfortunate.

If this were the only reliable instance of such an event, it would be worthy of consideration, in terms of some sort of possible probe of unknown origin. Provided, everything was generally above reproach.

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It would seem the officers involved did not deserve the ridicule that they ultimately received, which was detrimental to their carreers and their marriages. What I read sounded very unfortunate.

If this were the only reliable instance of such an event, it would be worthy of consideration, in terms of some sort of possible probe of unknown origin. Provided, everything was generally above reproach.

'Hi Merril!' This is indeed an interesting case!! :yes: ....But,...I'm still waiting for your 'Trent' photos!...You know!..the ones that you were going to reproduce perfectly!(using original eqipment!)..and waiting for your trashing of Maccabee's technical and scientific assesment of the Trents photos and story!!!..Had you forgotten :unsure: Still waiting!!

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The tale of Spaur is terribly sad. One wonders how Quintanilla managed such free reign. Skirting Dr. Hynek, and clearly releasing fabrications. Sadly, not the first AF officer to make a blunder and then use others to cover it up. Thank goodness this example is by far, very much a minority. One in every crowd I guess.

I'd like to know more of the scrambled Jets. I wonder why they have never been required to submit testimony of their involvement. Black ops maybe? Perhaps that might explain Quintanilla's attitude, and the jet pilot silence?

"It's something that should be forgotten...left alone. I saw something, but I don't know what it was."

Edited by psyche101
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Just a thought?

1966 two Police cars Flying down the road at nite at what Speed`s ? Well At best 100 mph or so and Little E.T in His potentially Faster than Light Ship Letting them track it?

Close enough to see a shape and some detail ,allbeit sketchy at best.

These pranksters must really know how to throttle back those babys ?

I mean even a few hundred milse per hr,would be less than a tenth of a precent of there flying speeds? maybe even one-one thousanth?

Obviously this story inspired other police departments around the world and demonstrated the need for this....

polizia_lamborghini_gallardo_lp560-4-600x376.jpg

E.T. better Check his 6 :tu:

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