BEST DOCUMENTED TRIANGULAR SHAPED UFO REVISITED

From: aa440@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dale Wedge)
Newsgroups: alt.paranet.ufo
Subject: BEST DOCUMENTED TRIANGULAR SHAPED UFO REVISITED
Date: 20 Nov 1994 08:17:56 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)

Rick Dell'Aquilla (Co-Sysop) of this system wrote an arti- cle on our involvement with the Eastlake case. The follow- ing is the text concerning our investigation:

Richard P. Dell'Aquila and Dale Wedge, Ohio State Section Directors for Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula Counties investigated a series of sightings beginning around March 4, 1988 and seemingly centered around the Perry Nuclear Power Plant and the CEI coal burning plant in Eastlake.

March 4, 1988 was a clear, crisp night. The stars were clearly visible, especially to the north over the lake where there are no city lights. Venus and Jupiter were bright and in close proximity to each other in the western sky. At about 6:30 P.M., S.B. (name withheld) and her children were driving home to Eastlake along the lake shore when they observed a large blimp-like object with lights at each end, hovering over the lake and rocking up and down like a “teeter totter.” One light was brighter than the other and was strobing. On arriving home, she asked her husband to accompany her to the beach about 200 yards north for a closer view of the object which she described as “larger than a football held at arm's length.”

She and her husband walked onto the beach. The noiseless object was gun metal gray and seemed to cause the ice on the lake to rumble and crack loudly in an unusual way which frightened her. The witnesses had to shout to be heard by each other, and were surprised that no dogs were out barking as would have been expected.

After observing the object for a while, the couple became concerned for the safety of their children in the car when the object revolved slowly about 90 degrees, coming almost overhead (about 1/4 mile high) and pointing it's “front” end down toward them. They drove the children home and continued watching the object from their living room window which faces the lake. A neighbor was phoned and she and her son went to the beach, reporting the same thing. They took photographs which did not turn out.

The object began to descend and the witnesses returned to the beach, where it was now observed to have red and blue blinking lights. It emitted 5 or 6 noiseless, intensly bright yellow triangular lights from its side. Mr. B. noticed a brighter light at the apex of the triangles. They intermittently hovered around the larger object, darted and zig-zagged into the night sky at velocities far in excess of known aircraft. Mr. B stated the noiseless triangular objects were smaller than a one-seat Cessna and travelled 50 mile stretches low over the ice in the “snap

of a finger.” They were said to be able to approach the shore, turn abrupt right angles due east toward the Perry Nuclear Power Plant about 12 miles away, climbing rapidly and returning again, all within several seconds. By this time, a Coast Guard patrol vehicle had arrived on the beach in response to S.B.'s several phone calles.

The triangular objects came closer to the shore, causing the witnesses to become concerned that the lights on the Coast Guard vehicle would attract the objects and the lights were turned off. The triangles continued to fly off at high speed northward over the lake and eastward toward the Perry Nuclear Power Plant. About an hour later, they returned one at a time into the large ship, which then landed on the ice. Several multi-colored lights now came on for about 5 minutes on the bottom of the object “in a wave like a movie theater sign.” When these went off, the ice stopped making noise and everthing became “dead silent.” The object could no longer be seen within about a half hour and it was assumed to have gone below the sur- face. The next day, huge pieces of broken ice were ob- served in the area of the landing.

The Coast Guard informed Mr. and Mrs. B the following day that the Army and NASA had instructed them not to investi- gate the matter further or go out on the lake in their cutter to observe the ice in the area of the landing, since the matter was “out of their league and out of their hands.” They informed the couple that all information was being forwarded to Wright Patterson Air Force Base and a facility in Detroit, Michigan. In response to a Coast Guard inquiry, Wright-Patterson refused to confirm or deny any interest in these activities.

On March 7, 1988, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Lake County News-Herald carried articles which attributed a series of reports of large brightly lit objects over Lake Erie on the prior weekend to several witnesses' misidenti- fication of the planets Venus and Jupiter. The newspaper accounts indicated that the Fairport Harbor Coast Guard went to the area and saw a large bright object that seemed to dispurse smaller, bright multi-colored objects. But when they called the local air traffic controllers, they were “informed” that Jupiter and Venus were in alignment and that the colors were the result of “spontaneous gas emissions from the two planets.” One article even attributed this amazing explanation to a professor of astronomy at a local university.

On reading the articles, Dell'Aquila felt it was unlikely that U.S. Coast Guard personnel, trained in navigation and identification of basic celestial objects such as the planets, could have made such a gross misidentification. Likewise, the statement attributed to the professor of astronomy was equally unacceptable, in that no other simi- lar “spontaneous gas emission” from the planets cited, of the necessary magnitude, had ever been noted, particularly on this weekend.

In the course of the follow-up investigation by Dell'Aquila and Wedge, a Coast Guard incident report was found which states that Coast Guard personnel responded to several calls reporting UFOs over Lake Erie on the night of March 4, 1988. When the Coast Guard arrived, the report confirms that a large object “dispersed 3-5 smaller flying objects that were zipping around on them rather quickly. These objects had red, green white, and yellow lights on them and strobed intermittently. They also had the ability to stop and hover in mid-flight.” The incident report confirms Mr. and Mrs. B's reports, including the abnormal cracking of the ice as the object came closer to it and apparently landed. “The smaller objects began hovering in the area where the object landed (about 1/4 mile east of the CEI power plant) and after a few minutes they began flying around again.” The report states that, “One of the small objects turned on a spotlight where the large object had been, but the Coast Guard personnel could not see anything, and then the object seemed to disappear. Another object approached these personnel approximately 500 yards offshore about 20 feet above the ice, and it began moving closer as the Coast Guard began flashing its headlights, then it moved off to the west.”

By the next night, a subsequent report states that the sightings are misidentifications of the planets Venus and Jupiter and that “the flashing lights are gases in the atmosphere…. Request incident closed this unit.”

In response to a classified advertisement placed by the investigators, other witnesses contacted Dell'Aquila and Wedge, and were interviewed as the investigation continued.

At about 10:30 P.M. that night T.K. (name withheld) took a photograph in his back yard, within a few miles of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant, showing a portion of a brightly lit triangular object travelling across the sky. This object was later confirmed by Mr. and Mrs. B and another witness to be identical to the triangular objects they were also observing about the same time a few miles away.

T.K. and his friend were outdoors on the night of March 4, observing the stars through his telescope. Venus and Jupiter were reported to be in the western sky behind a stand of trees. While looking southward through the telescope, out of the corner of his left eye, T.K. noticed a bright, moving object in the sky. He and his friend were awe-struck by the triangular object, but he did have the presence of mind to take 3 photographs with a small “snapshot” type camera loaded with Kodak 110 film, with which they had intended to photograph stars through the telescope. Only one photograph turned out. It is the last in the series, taken while panning ahead of the object, and shows the front portion of the triangle. The object was described as about 3 - 4 inches tall at arm's length and glowing an intense yellow/orange to white, with a bright orange/red glow behind it. It seemed to pulse brighter and dimmer, moving in a roughly southwesterly direction until it was obscured by trees. As it moved, it accelerated, slowed and accelerated again. No sound or smell was noted, although his dog had a strong reaction, running in circles and tugging on T.K.'s sleeve, apparently in an attempt to urge him away from the object. More investigation continues on this case.

Uploaded with permission of Christopher Evans of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on an article entitle “Space Case - The Night The Coast Guard Got Buzzed,” dated July 12, 1988.

They keep it in the “Classics File” at the Coast Guard's 9th District Headquarters downtown: a single-page incident report issued by the Fairport Harbor station on the night of March 4, 1988. The subject: Unidentified Flying Objects.

“None of those guys are around anymore and I wasn't there,” says Chief Quartermaster Leo Deon of the Search and Rescue Data Section. “They saw something, but who knows what.”

Sgt. Greg Reid was the executive officer at the Fairport station before he retired and joined the Lake County Sheriff's Department.

“I believe my guys,” he says. “They were definitely sure of what they saw.”

S.B.sits in her kitchen, sunlight streaming through the windows, a black, prune-faced Shar-Pei snoring on the floor.

“I'm a typical Jewish mother with three kids,” she says. “I go to temple. I believe in God.”

She fingers her ponytail. Then leans forward.

“I know,” she says. “I saw it.”

Friday, March 4, 1988, started cold and got colder. There were light snow flurries throughout the day, but by the time the sun set at 6:21 the clouds had broken up and the night sky was clear and star-studded.

S.B. and her husband, H., drove north along Ohio 91 into Eastlake and then turned east on Lake Shore Boulevard. They had taken the kids to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner and were almost home. As they neared the lake, they saw the blink of red warning lights on the two smokestacks that towered over the CEI plant.

S. liked the lights, the way they rose 500, 600 feet straight up those cement chimneys like the fins on a rocket ship. But tonight they looked different. The kids noticed it, too. At first S. thought some of the lights had burned out. But as they drove closer she could make out a shape. Something in the air. Out over the lake. Motionless.

“There's something out there,” she said to H. “See, over by the stacks.”

H. couldn't see anything. “You're pregnant,” he said. “You're probably hallucinating.”

S. was thinking it could be the Goodyear blimp. It kind of looked like a football, but what would the Goodyear blimp be doing out on a night like this?

“Go down to the beach,” she told H. “I wanna take a look.”

Instead of arguing, H. passed their house on Hiawatha and drove down the hill to the beach. He parked at the base of a wide ridge that climbed some 30 feet in front of them, dirt and chunks of concrete that acted as a breakwall.

A well-torn path led around it to a small, sandy beach that curled into a corner at the feet of the two smokestacks.

S. got out of the car.

The moon was bright and full, and the ice on the lake looked eerie. S. could hear it cracking. Loud. Like

claps of thunder. In between the claps, nothing. A dead calm. Not even a dog barking. Everybody around here had a dog and one of them was always barking.

“That's weird,” S. thought, reaching the beach, the night sky bursting above her, limitless, going up and up and up, and there it was. The Goodyear blimp times 10. But with- out the cabin underneath it. This thing was slick. A football the size of a football field. Gunmetal gray. Blinding white light poured out of both ends, but the thing itslef made no noise, the ice beneath it grinding and exploding like a string of M-80s.

S. figured it was about a quarter-mile above her, just off shore. It rocked back and forth like a teeter-totter. She knew what it was. She read the Weekly World News. She saw “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” but she didn't believe it. It couldn't be real, and yet there it was, moving now, one end swinging ponderously toward shore, dipping down, closer and closer toward her.

S. started running and she ran right into H., who swore and started running, too. They beat it back to the car like a couple of hicks in a Martian move. H. hit the gas. S. locked the doors and told the kids to get down.

“You don't think they're going to come and get us?” S. asked.

H. was oblivious. “Wow,” he said. “This is great. I'm gonna get the binoculars.”

Three minutes later, S. had hustled the kids out of the car and into the back bedroom. She opened the closet door.

“Get in there,” she said and shut the door before they could argue. She pulled down all the window blinds, turned off the lights and locked the bedroom door. Then she walked into the living room.

H. was standing by the window that faced the lake. The object had moved out over the ice. It seemed to be descending. Red and blue lights were now flashing sequentially along its lower edge. S. picked up the phone and called the Eastlake police.

“I want to report a UFO,” she told the cop who answered.

He seemed insulted.

“There's something out there,” she said. I'm watching it now.“

He told her to call Lost Nation Airport in Willoughby. Probably an advertising plane, a helicopter. S. called the airport. The guy in the tower told her they had nothing taking off or landing. She asked if there were any weird blips on his radar screen. He said no. He figured maybe it was the planets, Venus and Jupiter. She should call NASA.

All the time S. was watching it. It was about five miles out now, still descending, red and blue lights flashing as if it was going to crash. She called the cops back. They told her unusual activity over the lake was the responsibility of the Coast Guard. S. called Fairport Harbor. They suggested Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

“Everybody thinks I'm nuts,” she told H.

Suddenly a series of bright triangular yellow lights shot out of the center of the object. These triangles, there were five or six of them, it was hard to count they moved so quickly, looked about the size of a single-seat Cessna. They hovered point-up around the object. Then darted north, then east, heading inland toward the Perry Nuclear Power Plant. S. had never seen anything move that fast. Zero to warp-speed in less than a nanosecond. Without making a sound. She called the Coast Guard again. This time they said they were sending a crew by the house. S. let her kids out of the closet, but made them stay in the bedroom with the door locked.

Mobile Unit 2 was a 1984 blue Chevy Suburban and the two guys in it were gung-ho. Seaman James Powers and Petty Officer John Knaub said they could see the lights from Fairport Harbor. They figured they were flares. Fishermen trapped out on the ice, that kind of thing. They were towing a 22-foot Boston Whaler just in case.

S. and H. pointed to the object they now thought of as the mother ship. A couple of the triangles were zipping around it. Powers and Knaub didn't say a word. Instead of driv- ing onto the beach, they four-wheeled the Chevy up the ridge. The ice was going nuts, rippling and rumbling and roaring. S. and H. got out. The windows were down and they could hear Knaub and Powers talking to the base.

“Be advised the object appears to be landing on the lake,” they said. “Be advised there are other objects moving in around it. Be advised these smaller objects are going at high rates of speed. There are no engine noises and they

are very, very low. Be advised these are not planets.”

All of a sudden one of the triangles zoomed toward the Chevy, low, just above the ice, a blur of light blistering straight at them. Knaub quickly rolled the van back down the ridge. The triangle veered east, then went straight up and came down beside the mother ship. S. told Knaub to turn his lights off.

“Why attract attention” she asked.

Fifteen miles to the southeast, not too far from the Perry plant, Cindy Hale stepped outside to walk her dog. She noticed a triangular light hovering above her. The dog began to whine and cower. Cindy took it back inside. But she came out again. The triangle flashed a sequence of multicolored lights and Cindy responded by flicking her Bic. This went on for about 30 minutes, then the triangle accelerated and was gone. It didn't make a sound.

T.K. was observing the stars through his telescope when a bright triangular object caught his eye. Luckily, T. had his camera with him. It wasn't a great camera. In fact, it was a little plastic number he had gotten free from Burger King. But it worked, and he took a picture of the triangle before it disappeared silently over the horizon.

Back at the lake, the mother ship was almost on the ice. For an hour, H. had stood on the ridge and listened as Powers and Knaub communicated with their base. They said things like, “You should be advised that the object is now shining lights all over the lake and it's turning different colors.”

The ice thundered. Powers and Knaub had to yell to be heard. H. thought the big ship was in trouble. So did S. She had gone back to the house. The kids were still locked in the bedroom and she watched from the window. Suddenly the triangles were back. They shot one by one into the side of the mother ship as it seemed to set down on the howling ice.

It flashed a sequence of red, blue and yellow lights. S. thought they looked beautiful. Then the white light that poured from the front of the object turned red and the triangles reappeared, hovering over it. The ice boomed, louder and louder, and then suddenly it stopped. The lights disappeared. So did the triangles. Now there was nothing. Darkness and silence.

Powers and Knaub drove off white-faced. S. and H. stood watch through the night. In the morning all that remained were scattered chunks of broken ice. But that evening, the triangles returned.

Sheila called the Coast Guard. This time they sent three people. But they arrived too late and the triangles were gone. To reassure the B's, they called Lost Nation Airport and talked to Elizabeth Mele in the control tower who told them the two bright lights in the sky were Venus and Jupiter, and the flashing lights were gases in the atmosphere.

That was Saturday. On Monday, The Plain Dealer ran a short item headlined “Cozying of Jupiter, Venus light up sky.” The Lake County News-Herald ran a similar version with the caption “Sky-gazers mistake planets for UFOs.”

S. called Fairport Harbor. Powers and Knaub weren't there. She left a message. They didn't call back. She called again and again and again. Nothing.

Four years later, she's still confused.

“The government flat-out denies it happened and I was standing there with two government employees watching it and they saw it and then they disappear.”

Chief Leo Deon said the Coast Guard had no official policy in regard to UFOs, and since there were no more sightings that was the end of it. All personnel assigned to Fairport Harbor in 1988 have been rotated out. Deon said he couldn't locate Powers, who had left the service, or Knaub through personnel records, because those records have been archived in Washington.

“It was big around the station for a while,” says retired executive officer Greg Reid. “Then it just fizzled out.”

S.B. frowns and points a finger.

“You start to worry,” she says.

This case was originally investigated by Rick Dell'Aquila and Dale Wedge who were members of MUFON in 1988. The case has been getting some attention after all this time and we shall report on any new developments.

The next portion of the upload will be the “official” Coast Guard document as it appeared when we received it from the Coast Guard.

                                                           
#209=file Number                                           
COG:          INFO                                         
OPC          DCS DGP DPA B M O OLE OSR                     
FP D9AW                                                    
D9 AW DE FP                                                
ISN-FP021                                                  
P 051405Z MAR 88                                           
FM COGARD STA FAIRPORT OH//CO//                            
TO AW/COMCOGARDGRU DETROIT MI//OPS//                       
INFO D9/CCGDNINE CLEVELAND OH//OSR//                       
BT                                                         
UNCLAS //N16144//                                          
SUBJ:  INCIDENT REPORT:  UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS       
1. UNIDENTIFIABLE FLYING OBJECTS 1/4 MILE EAST OF CEI POWER
PLANT.                                                     
2. AT 2035 LCL THIS STATION RCVD A CALL FROM S.B. [BLANKED 
OUT THE NAME AND ADDRESS] RPTNG A LARGE OBJECT HOVERING    
OVER THE LAKE AND APPARENTLY ON A SLOW DECENT.  THE OBJECT 
HAD A WHITE LIGHT AND WAS APPROX. 1/4 MILE UP AND SHE WAS  
UNABLE TO DETERMINE HOW FAR OUT IT WAS.  THIS UNIT SENT 2  
CREWMEMBERS TO INVESTIGATE.  BEFORE THEY ARRIVED O/S, WE   
RCVD 2 MORE CALLS RPTNG THAT THE OBJECT HAD APPARENTLY     
DISPERSED 3-5 SMALLER FLYING OBJECTS THAT WERE ZIPPING     
AROUND RATHER QUICKLY.  THESE OBJECTS HAD RED, GREEN, WHITE
AND YELLOW LIGHTS ON THEM THAT STROBED INTERMITTENTLY.     
THEY ALSO HAD THE ABILITY TO STOP AND HOVER IN MID FLIGHT. 
WHEN MOBILE 02 GOT O/S, THEY RPTD THE SAME ACTIVITY.  THEY 
WATCHED THE OBJECTS FOR APPROX. 1 HOUR BEFORE RPTNG THAT   
THE LARGE OBJECT WAS ALMOST ON THE ICE.  THEY RPTD THAT    
THE ICE WAS CRACKING AND MOVING ABNORMAL AMOUNTS AS THE    
OBJECT CAME CLOSER TO IT.  THE ICE WAS RUMBLING AND THE    
OBJECT LIT MULTI-COLOR LIGHTS AT EACH END AS IT APPARENTLY 
LANDED.  THE LIGHTS ON IT WENT OUT MOMENTARILY AND THEN    
CAME ON AGAIN.  THEY WENT OUT AGAIN AND THE RUMBLING       
STOPPED AND THE ICE STOPPED MOVING.  THE SMALLER OBJECTS   
BEGAN HOVERING IN THE AREA WHERE THE LARGE OBJECT LANDED   
AND AFTER A FEW MINUTES THEY BEGAN FLYING AROUND AGAIN.    
MOBILE 02 RPTD THAT THEY APPEARED TO BE SCOUTING THE AREA. 
MOBILE 02 RPTD THAT 1 OBJECT WAS MOVING TOWARD THEM AT A   
HIGH SPEED AND LOW TO THE ICE.  MOBILE 02 BACKED DOWN THE  
HILL THEY HAD BEEN ON AND WHEN THEY WENT BACK TO THE       
HILL, THE OBJECT WAS GONE.  THEY RPTD THAT THE OBJECTS     
COULD NOT BE SEEN IF THEY TURNED OFF THERE LIGHTS.  ONE OF 
THE SMALL OBJECTS TURNED ON A SPOTLIGHT WHERE THE LARGE    
OBJECT HAD BEEN BUT MOBILE 02 COULD NOT SEE ANYTHING, AND  
THEN THE OBJECT SEEMED TO DISAPPEAR.  ANOTHER OBJECT       
APPROACHED MOBILE 02 APPROX. 500 YDS. OFFSHORE ABOUT 20    
FT.  ABOVE THE ICE, AND IT BEGAN MOVING CLOSER AS MOBILE 02
BEGAN FLASHING ITS HEADLIGHTS, THEN IT MOVED OFF TO THE    
WEST.                                                      
                                                           
                                                           
                                                           
                                                           
3. THE CREWMEMBERS WERE UNABLE TO IDENTIFY ANY OF THE      
OBJECTS USING BINOCULARS AND AFTER CONTACTING LOCAL POLICE 
AND AIRPORTS, THIS UNIT WAS UNABLE TO IDENTIFY THE OBJECTS,
AND RECALLED MOBILE 02.                                    
BT                                                         
TOR-03:05:14:44                                            
COGARD STA FAIRPORT OH//CO//            P 051405Z MAR 88   
/LB