Indiana UFO Sightings in 1973

Full Report Text:

2 miles East of Bufkin, IN (near Mt. Vernon) This incident involved three witnesses who reported two orange-red balls of light that hovered low to the ground in the west for about six minutes. The main witness was very shook up by the incident and contacted the UFO Filter Center while it was occurring.

One object was larger than the other and was more "orange and red speckled". (UFO Filter Center Files, FI Fran Ridge, MUFON SSD).

Full Report Text:

Police put the squad car spotlight on it again and it immediately moved away and out of sight. Police Chief Wilfred Clerk and Officer John Tucker were on a pursuit of a drunken driver in Point Township. The driver had gone off the road and into a ditch.

Waiting for a wrecker, the officers observed an object in the southwest that approached them, then stopped. It was a strange-looking object which we now refer to as an "OBOL" (Orange Ball Of Light) and their spotlight placed on it caused the light to get brighter and closer. After about a minute and a half, they put the squad car spotlight on it again and it immediately moved away and out of sight.

((NUFORC Note: Report by Mr. Francis Ridge, very experienced UFO investigator. PD)).

Full Report Text:

It was "about six blocks away", 60-80 feet in the air". The object was orange and wedge shaped. Two warehouse men at Mt.

Vernon Milling Co. saw an object. "I went to check my hopper cars.

Climbing up onto the car I happened to look back. I stood on top and watched the object until it disappeared." In 15 seconds it was gone.

It was "about six blocks away", 60-80 feet in the air". The object was orange and wedge shaped.

Full Report Text:

Blue and green object with humming noise observed near Mt. Vernon for 10 minutes. First went from west to east, then north to south, moving up and down and back and forth.

Last seen at Meade Johnson plant at Mt. Vernon. (UFOFC, Ridge files) ((NUFORC Note: Report by Francis Ridge, UFO investigator.

PD)).

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MADAR Event No. 4 ((NUFORC Note: Report submitted by Mr. Francis Ridge, experienced UFO investigator.

PD)).

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Fireball above tree line The date given is approximate because it was over 30 years ago. Back in that day they didn’t have computers, the Internet, or any other way that we were aware of to report such things as this. In order to understand the event it is necessary for me to describe the circumstances.

At this time in that area jobs were difficult to come by and those that were available barley paid enough to live on. We lived on a farm and grew our own vegetables and hunted and fished in order to survive. My friends and myself would sometimes supplement our meat supply by hunting rabbits on the roads outside of town at night.

It’s not as dangerous as it sounds because as this was mostly large farms at the time the houses were two to three miles apart in places so there was little if any chance of hitting anyone or anything with a small 22 cal. rifle. I had become an expert marksman and it was not uncommon for me to make shots of 150 to 200 yards.

Hunger makes you a good shot I guess. I can approximate the year because I was 16 at the time, The month, November, coincides with the beginning of rabbit season, about the 15th. Obviously we weren’t all that concerned about the law as it was illegal to hunt from a car but if you took rabbits outside of season for consumption you ran the risk of contracting what we called rabbit fever.

I estimated the time to be around 2300 hrs. because we didn’t go out any earlier to lower the risk of running across the police, and we had just started. OK, all of that being said, here is the story.

On the night in question myself, and two friends, were cruising around in my car with the top down. It’s cold in November but the top of the windshield made a perfect shooter’s ledge to steady the rifle. The older of the two, a fellow about 25 years old and a Viet Nam vet, was driving.

He was a large individual and was pretty much scared of nothing. My other friend, the same age as me, was in the back seat, and I was in the front passenger seat. We had driven a mile or two East of town and had just turned South onto a long straight road.

I don’t remember the name but could probably locate it on a map. After traveling about a block or two I saw a rabbit about 200 yards in front of us. I told the driver and he slowly proceeded to with about 150 yards and shut off the engine so the vibration would not throw off my shot.

I took my position, acquired the animal in my scope, accounted for bullet drop and windage, held my breath, and squeezed the trigger. The rabbit dropped immediately. A perfect shot.

As I put the rifle back between the seats the driver got out of the car, to relieve himself I think. My friend in the back wanted out too so I had to get out being it was a two door. We were facing South and to our right was a field approximately 400 to 500 yards wide and I would guess about ¼ of a mile long.

At the West edge of that was a line of trees ranging from about 75 feet high to 50 feet high that ran the entire length of the field. I was facing East and my friend from the back was facing West. I heard him say “look” and as I turned around I saw this orange ball floating just above the tree line.

I would estimate it to have been approximately 75 to 100 feet in diameter. At this point I’m not scared, just interested. I came around to the driver’s side and just leaned on the trunk and watched.

The ball was moving very slowly from South to North just above the tree line. I followed the tree line exactly, up and down as it continued. The object made no sound of any kind.

It was completely silent. At this time my younger friend and myself didn’t know what a UFO even was. The object continued to glide along the tree tops until it was straight across from us at which point I got my rifle from the front seat and pointed it towards the object.

I wasn’t going to shoot at it I just wanted to look through the scope to see if I could see any better. At that point the object began to change from orange to a bright yellow. The light it gave off was almost like the sun as best as I can describe it.

My friend that was driving grabbed the rifle out of my hands, threw it in the car, got in and tried to start it but for whatever reason it wouldn’t start. I doubt it had anything to do with the UFO, it was just junk. Within a few seconds the object seemed to shrink and disappear towards the Northwest.

Looking back I doubt that it shrank but more probably just moved away so quickly it appeared that way. I estimate that this whole event occurred over a period of about 20 minutes or so. My friend was still trying to get the car started and I noticed that he seemed to be terrified.

Not scared, terrified. He was visibly shaking and I think he might have been crying. It was a long tome age.

I found this strange as he had seen combat in Viet Nam and would fight anybody at the drop of a hat. When the car finally did start, he put it in reverse and I had to jump over the door to get in because he wasn’t waiting. He wouldn’t even pull up so I could get my rabbit.

We headed back to town at well in excess of 80 mils per hour and I was more afraid of his driving than I was of the UFO. I finally got him to pull over and let me drive. I put up the top, turned on the heater, and headed back to town.

After he calmed down he began to explain to us about UFOs and having seen them before. I got the feeling that there was more that he wasn’t telling but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. We went and found my step-father, who was town marshal at the time, and started to relay to him what we had seen.

At first he thought we had been drinking (we hadn’t) or we were joking. After talking to us for awhile he decided we were serious and sober so he checked with the airport in Indianapolis to see if there any planes, helicopters, ect., in the area and was told that there were not and that nothing had shown up on the radar.

He also relayed our report to the Rush County Sheriff’s Dept. Of course nothing ever came of any of it. Let me end by answering the skeptics.

I spent a great deal of my time as a youth outdoors in the woods at night, coon hunting, trapping, ect. I have seen ball lightening, it wasn’t that. There are no swamps anywhere near that area.

There were no power lines overhead. You cannot see the airport search lights from there. I never saw anything like that before that time or since.

Later in life I move to Ohio and became a police officer where I served for 20 years and worked a lot of midnight shifts. I spent a lot of time looking but never saw anything like that again. To this day I don’t know what to make of it but there it is.

((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD)).

Full Report Text:

UFO stops a train near Mt. Vernon. The primary witness was a conductor on a L&N train that had an encounter with a UFO.

They had passed through Mt. Vernon and were headed E nearing the Lamont crossing, which is about 2-miles W of the outskirts of Evansville. A nocturnal light incident had preceded this close encounter.

When they neared Caborn (6-7 miles east of Mt. Vernon), the conductor told the rear conductors by intercom that they had seen a real bright light behind them. When they got near St.

Phillips, the rear conductor reported that there now was a train following them, on the same track, and the RR blocking system showed something approaching them. As they approached a steep hill at the Lamont Crossing, one of the diesel engine units overheated and the train was immobilized. When the object behind the train backed away, the blocking system showed the object retreating.

The diesel unit was now restarted and the train, loaded down with coal, made it up the hill and on into Evansville. See full report. (UFO Filter Center, FI Francis Ridge, MUFON SSD).

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Cigar-shaped body of lights with sound like ariver barge. The Lady had gone to bed but was disturbed by a noise, described as sounding like a barge on the river. She decided to go outside and check it out.

She saw an object over her garage and to the south, merely an outline produced by as many as 50 lights, not exactly evenly-spaced. It didn't appear to have any body, and it had a red flashing light on the rear, long and narrow, about 3 times as long as it was wide, moving real slow East to West. She observed the long side view about 3 minutes, and right in front of her house it turned south toward the river and she saw the end view, described as like a squared-off cigar.

At this time it was really low and she said she should have seen metal as it went past a tree. 5 minutes. MUFON SSD).

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sphere inside a ring In the fall of 1973, October, I was 12 years old, I was watching TV (the six million dollar man) it was a new TV show and the only thing my stepfather watched (until "The A-Team" came out). My mother asked me to take out the paper trash to burn, we lived on a dead end street beside a very large swamp area and separated our paper to burn out back. We had a large mowed field next to our house before the swampy area started, we always burned our paper trash at the edge of it before where the ground got too wet.

I reluctantly pulled myself away from the TV and ran out the back door grabbing the large paper grocery bag full of paper trash and a pack of matches. Planning to get this over with fast, I ran to the edge of the field, dropped the bag and flicked a few lit matches into it,waiting only a half second to make sure one would light the papers inside and ran back to the house eager to return to the new TV show. As i ran in my mother was still standing on the back porch holding open the screen door with her back,once i was in the kitchen but not yet to the living-room, and my TV show, my mother said "greg,what IS that?".

I turned around and she was still standing on the back porch holding open the screen door,I walked to where she was and she stood gazing off into the darkening night sky,it was just after sunset, maybe 6 or 7 p.m. I looked to where she was looking and saw some flashing light in the distance and said "oh thats just a.

" (ready to dismiss whatever and go back to TV). Thats as far as i got, I realized it was not a plane.it was too low, and wobbling ,and the wrong colors and too slow.

It was about a half mile away,at a spot where the nickle plate railroad tracks intersected with interstate 65. There was a viadock there where the highway went over the railroad tracks.From where we stood i could see the headlights from the traffic and this object just above all the cars and trucks.

The viadock was made on 2 hills maybe 80 feet tall with a bridge over them so the train could pass underneath I-65 on its way thru the swamp.I-65 is pretty much north-south and the nickle-plate railroad that went under it was pretty much east-west. The object looked about the same distance above the traffic as the viadock is tall, making its altiutude about 160 feet.

I stared a moment,thinking, before stepping down off the porch onto the driveway to escape the light from the kitchen and see it better,and also to move toward it a bit.let my eyes adjust to the dark,it was not a plane,too slow,too low,a helicopter? no sound, not a blimp, too fast. I realized rather quickly it did not fit any category of flying things I knew of.

I stared at it intently , it had green, red and blue lights rotating around it, the 3 lights forming a triangle, and some whitish light.and they were pulsing not flashing, and it seemed to wobble forward kind of,due to the elliptical rotation of the triangle of lights,from a distance it looked like 2 steps forward one step back, but now it was closer and I could see that's how it moved, the center was sliding forward into the space between the center sphere and the outer rotating ring with the 3 lights mounted on it,as if you were walking while hoola-hooping, and each time the hoola-hoop was touching your back you would take a step forward.but it was a very smooth motion,and silent.

It was headed our way,and as it got closer I felt an overwhelming sense of awe and wonder and inside I knew this was unidentified, and flying. and an object !.my heart was beating but I felt calm.

Hoping it! was true but thinking any minute it would reveal itself to be a helicopter or something else mundane. It didn't, it came directly at me and then this huge craft silently floated directly above me and my yard and my house and was now so low I felt sure it intended on landing in the field next to our house (it wouldn't have fit). Looking straight up at its underside I could see now the center sphere had a larger unattached, or loosly attached, ring around it and the 3 colored lights were mounted on that rotating ring,I think I could see the night sky in the space between the sphere and the ring as it went around.

I was thinking love and peace and I want to meet you, and let me see inside your ship.and it seemed to be in agreement as it approached,I squinted to look for windows in the center sphere, I think I saw some ports or something but they were small and blended with the surface, with all the glare and lights and it being night I could not be sure, but I did feel watched,from there . More than that I felt "telepathy-ed at" or heard.

or understood, or "linked to" whoever was there,inside.i felt in a dreamy state. It was almost as big as a football field,if anyone was really in it they were in the center part,it was about 80 feet up.

It took up 30% of the visible sky.My neck was bent back as far as it would go to look up at it.I felt the same feeling you get when you daydream.

It felt good,euphoric. It was going to land,I just knew it. It hovered there for 5 minutes or so, I felt euphoria and I had to concentrate hard to keep thinking clearly and study it, to remember everything, and not fall under its spell,it took effort,to keep 'snapping myself out of it'.

The bottom seemed to be mirroring the night sky above it,like it tried to be invisible. I realized it was so close I could hit it with a rock!. or my BB gun.

or the 22 rifle behind our back door and make it crash here!.and call channel 7 eyewitness news and be famous!.and the very next rotation of that glorious ring rotated to the east, away from me.

it was leaving!.they heard my thoughts! I was already regretting letting my thoughts go from 'peace,land,come here,i want to meet you' to 'get proof and be on TV'. I ran in the house and the gun was not behind the door where it ALWAYS is.

I ran to the living room and yelled for my stepfather to come look, but he wasn't interested i ran past my mom and back outside. My mom was still frozen at the back door looking up with her mouth hanging open, I knew even then the euphoria had gotten to her,she was mesmerized. Back outside it was really leaving.

it slowly did its rotate slide, rotate slide to the east, away from me and my chance to meet them, I blew it. It slowly hoola-hooped due east and back over I-65 again, about mile north of where It first crossed west over the interstate, and disappeared into the distance. I felt sad as i watched it another 15 minutes floating away.

I didn't know what to do,I called state police,they said nobody has reported anything,that left me with not much to say,I tried calling a small local airport but nobody answered.It was so low,going over I-65 and all the neighborhoods,willow street,old ridge road,surely someone else saw it,all west Hobart should have seen that thing,surely anyone outdoors between ridgeview elementary school and I-65. For the next week I watched the news and read the post tribune looking for anything, nothing.

I was never the same after that,maybe there really is a God, I didnt know everything or have a logical explanation for everything anymore. After all these years I have come to some conclusions. It was held aloft the same way a magnet is when held over another magnet with matching poles facing each other- I could "feel it".

it was not anti-gravity,it was suspended inside the earths magnetic field somehow, it was manipulating the magnetic fields around itself,silent,smooth, efficient. But it had lights even tho it seemed to try to broadcast the night sky on its' underside., why cloak itself but have bright pulsing lights.

why would aliens need or care to follow FAA regulations or any earth laws.why have lights at all if you want to sneak? Was it trying to look like our air traffic? Why come out of your way to look at me and hang out here and let me see you if you are trying to cloak yourself? Did it see the flashes from me throwing matches in the garbage, it surely went out of its way to come over here and look at me. It did not want some normal plane or something to crash into it,thats why the lights.

thats the only thing that makes sense, or maybe it was just taken for granted when building it that of course anything flying, at night especially, needs lights.right? .by humans this logic holds.

I was amazed at the technology of that thing, hundreds of years ahead of mankind if not more!.but i think the lights were man-made,and the more i think about it the more i think it was a ufo for sure, but not from distant space,it was too "mechanical". I doubt that thing could make it from one star system to another no matter how amazing it was compared to a jet or helicopter.

Maybe the original idea or some tech inside it was from outer space, but we were the ones who had it now, reverse engineered. We were the ones "hundreds of years ahead of man kind". now after seeing the tic tacs with the pacific fleet, in comparison my old 1973 ufo seems like an old fashioned clunky version, almost a laughable funny flying machine, like how we now look at old black and white movies of early attempts at flight.

Maybe the telepathy thing was just my emotional state. Maybe.

Full Report Text:

Three large bright white craft interacting & manuevering rapidly accross a quadrant of night sky. The year is 1973, and the month is Oct. It is around 8:00 PM, clear skies and a full or nearly full moon.

The location is southern central Indiana. I was attending graduate courses at Indiana University. I was a passenger in the front right seat and my children ages 4 & 5 yrs.

were in the back seat. We were returning from an afternoon in nearby Brown Co. state park, having already stopped for food.

I was looking at the sky out the window to see if I could discern any constellations to point out to the children. I was startled to see three bright white large objects moving at great speed across approximately a quadrant of the sky. I asked my friend driving to pull over and stop, which he did; and we all got out to observe.

The objects appeared to be at a quite high altitude but definitely within the orbit of the moon as they several times crossed in front of the moon and were quite visible as they were much brighter. They were equal in size and appeared to be one sixth to one eighth the size of the moon. Their movements remained within a quadrant of the sky, exhibiting incredible speed even during right angle turns.

My son commented that they were playing tag, which was an accurate description of their movements. Several times two of the objects approached very close and began to spin about one another. This maneuver reminded me of videos I’ve seen of eagles who lock talons in flight and spin about each other.

This activity continued for about 20 minutes, then they all departed outward toward space and within seconds were no longer visible. During this event two other cars stopped to observe, so a total number of witnesses was eight. When it was over everyone looked at each other somewhat wide eyed, and shrugging shoulders got back in their respective vehicles and departed as well.

No one spoke to each other. I didn’t know any of the other witnesses and never saw any of them again. ((NUFORC Note: One of three very nice reports from the same witness.

PD)).

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We saw a large glowing sphere that looked like the moon, but was obviously not since it was very close to us and could manuver. While laying awake one night listening to the police scanner, I heard a report stating that a lady in our town had just spotted a UFO. I got in the car and headed to the south end of town where I saw what at first appeared to be the moon.

I realized that what I was seeing was not the moon, but a large glowing off-white sphere that was hovering at tree top level. It was moving east to west until it came to the Wabash river, then it started following the river north towards the bridge. I wanted to see what happened when it reached the bridge, so I sped up.

I had been pacing the object at about 10-15 mph. When I got to the bridge the object was no longer over the river. It was moving rapidly to the south west to the town of Hillsdale.

As it approached Hillsdale, which sits low in a little valley, the object made precise turns to manuver through the valley and was soon out of site. After trying to chase the object, I returned to town where I spoke with the town marshall and a county deputy sherriff. Both had seen the object.

The deputy stated that he had initially seen the object a few miles east of Montezuma and thought the moon looked large and close that night. He paid no more attention until the radio report came in a couple minutes later. At that point he looked out the window and did not see the moon.

He realized then, that it was not the moon he saw, but something else. We all agreed that what we saw had navigational abilities. The lady who made the initial call had just left the tavern and was somewhat inebriated at the time.

Needless to say, she was very hysterical for a while. ((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that date of incident is approximate. PD)).

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we where driving down a country road when the driver of the car noticed it first. it was just above the tree line flying no more than seventy miles an hour.it was disk sha-ed,grey,and had blue,green and amber running lights flashing all around it.

we followed it for about five minutes on the main road then had to go down a dirt road for a few minutes more.the saucer finally came to a halt and was just hovering over the trees.the saucer did not make any noise and had a dome at the to- and a smaller dome at the bottom.

as we watched it,shields rose u- and a large window could be seen on the u--er dome.at first we could only see shadows,as if someone was walking around inside,then a humanoid a--eared in the window.we watched her for several minutes then she saw us.

this humanoid had no hair,no ears,was grey colored and was wearing a silver form fitting suit.the reason i said it was a she is because of her reaction when she saw us;a look of sur-rise then she -ut he! r hand over her mouth and backed out of our sight.the shields came down and the craft rose u- about twenty feet then slowly moved to the left about twenty more feet,then shot into the air and made its own cloud as it ascended.

yes we lost about twenty minutes of time and our curiosity turned into fear and wonderment ((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date is approximate. PD)).

Full Report Text:

What I thought was an airplane flying at a distance, wasn't an airplane at all. This happened many years ago. A neighbor pounded on my door and asked me to come out and see a "UFO".

We were on the north shore of High Lake, Noble Co. , IN looking south. I saw what appeared to be an airplane traveling from east to west at quite a distance.

I told my neighbor it was just an airplane. Suddenly it appeared to stop and I told him it was turning and either coming toward us or going away from us. Suddenly it shot upwards, looking like a "shooting star" only in the wrong direction, until it disappeared.

Assuming it was originally traveling around 350 MPH like an airplane would, it had to take off in the upward direction at least 1500-2500 MPH. That was the night I became a believer in UFOs. The only discription I can give is that it looked like an airplane at a great distance, but what it did could not be explained by any air craft I know of.

((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD)).

Full Report Text:

Medaryville, Indiana A UFO Remembered By Three Ladies But Never Was Able To Report It When I lived in Medaryville Indiana in the country my sister and I started watching some very odd lights in the sky. They were often moving to each other and back and when a car would drive by they would move toward the cars . I remember the children on the school bus on the way to work had inspired us to see this odd appearance in the sky.

It was often a nighty watch of hours of lights outside in the sky. My sister was older than me. My father said we were only watching weather balloons and would go back inside our home after he would check on our excitement of the nightly lights following each other and at times cars.

We became so fasinated with the objects that my mother would start to come home after work and join in observing this strange array of moving lights. One evening has haunted my memory the most. We never usually spoke of the scary experiance after it happened.

I had run upstairs to get a better view of the lights from the 2nd story window of our rented house. Suddenly the cat jumped off my brothers bed.cows started mooing , every animal in the area made noises of alarm.

That was the time a huge saucer shaped ufo appeared out of the sky and was so close I feared for my life. It was very odd and the noise it fineally made was more like a whooping sound very slow and paced. I never forgot the feeling in my heart when it made the noise.

My mother and sister never usually talk about it. I was around 13 at the time and am now 42 almost 43 years old. When I asked my mother the other day if she remembered the experiance she even was able to recall the noise.

It is something when people look at you if you even whisper you know there are strange saucers in the sky.and you know what you saw. So, all I can do is state to this report today that there were 3 of us.

We saw it as close as you see your neighbors house if you live next to anyone close. It was spooky and years later when I fineally saw a movie called close encounters I could fineally realize someone else has seen something.The saucer in the movie is larger than what we saw , but almost a perfect match.

The lights went around the object making it look like it was spinning. I used to be afraid to be alone.I know that people will one day see something in the sky.

and I can only hope they don't have the nightmares I have had in my lifetime. The occourance was one I know will never forget .it is something that stays with you.

I remember the tops of the trees swaying when it passed.Then the saucer shaped thing left as it had arrived.It really was beautiful.

But it was also very spooky. I am glad we left the country farm home after that.I am so very glad I now live in a town 5 miles down the road within reach of friendly neighbors.

But, on nights I look up and name a star.remembering the time a ufo came to Medaryville, Indiana.and I am so happy I don't live in the country anymore.

I never will again.Not after that. ((NUFORC Note: Date is approximate.

PD)).

Full Report Text:

Round floated above me I couldn’t speak or move until it was gone I was young. In the 70s we had to go to the laundromat with my mom. My sister, her friend and me went along to help.

We were outside playing. I look to the sky and see this round object coming from the east floating toward us. I try to talk and ask my sister if she sees it but I can’t move.

I can’t talk. I watch it go over head and go towards the west. There was a park behind the laundry parking area.

I watched it fly out of site and disappeared in to the west. When I could talk I asked them if they saw that. They said they didn’t .

Later in life I asked my sister if she saw it or saw me paralyzed not able to speak. She said she didn’t see it. The object was round and had lights .

I could see the lights it was so close. I have never forgotten it and how I wasn’t able to get anyone else’s attention. I was frozen but the people I have asked if they saw me frozen they say no.

I feel like they took me from the parking lot for a few seconds or mentally incapacitated me somehow.

Full Report Text:

black cigar shaped craft with smalles craft rising up to the bottom of it. those craft seemed to come and go My grandfather and I witnessed what we thought was a UFO over Lake Michigan Just North of Gary Indian. I was stationary and had several smaller craft coming and going from the underside of the craft.

It remained long enough for my grandfather to step into a dime store and purchase a small video camera. He filmed the craft for several minutes. The film has been lost.

However, it has always puzzled me as to what it actually was. Could have been part of an air show stunt involving a blimp launching small planes? I just thought it was unusual enough to mention, just to see if there were any reports from other people. I'm not solid on the date it was the early 1970's and it was a clear bright day.

we witnessed it from the small hotdog stand the my grandparents ran at the time.