UFO
SIGHTINGS BY YOUNG PEOPLE
By
Philip & Susan Mantle
With this in mind we began such a study in l997. Our interest in young people’s UFO sightings stems back to l995 when a group of children from a school in Sussex contacted us via their teacher, to report a UFO sighting they had made during break time in the school playground. The school, and therefore the children in question, have asked us not to publish their names. The sighting itself was nothing spectacular, and quite probably had a conventional explanation, but it served to spark our interest in UFO sightings by young people.
To this effect we decided the time was now right to begin our research into young people’s UFO sightings. This research is on-going, and what follows are a few examples of the kind of UFO reports being made by young people. (All names have been altered to protect the identity of the witnesses).
LIGHTS
IN THE SKY:
In l959 Jean was 13 years old. Living in Portland, Oregon, USA, one of her favourite past times was the drive-in movies. On this particular night, Jean, her friend and her friends parents had gone to the drive-in movies as usual. The drive-in theatre was located in a really flat area which gave a good view both of the screen and the surrounding sky line. At some point during the movie Jean and her friend turned to look away from the screen and were gazing in the opposite direction when they noticed a bright light above the tree line. Hovering just above the trees at first the light shot off into the sky, hovered again, before zigzagging around the sky before it sped off into the distance. For some reason Jean and her friend didn’t inform her friends patents of the sighting although they did report it to the National Guard base the very next day.
Andre was 14 at the time (1976) and living in South Africa. One late afternoon, he and his friend Peter, along with his dad, were out in the fields flying a home-made kite. The sun was hidden behind the clouds, but it was still bright enough to see the kite. The kite by now was well up into the sky when Andre noticed a bright light moving behind the kite and above it, but obviously much further from the ground that the kite.
There was only one light to start with, a red pulsating light when it was first observed. The light moved slowly from west to east across the sky. The colour of the light began to change from red to green for about a minute, and then from green to orange. The light then separated into four small red lights which all departed in different directions. Andre, his dad and his friend gasped at the speed at which the lights departed. They were literally out of sight within a second.
In January l998, Matthew aged 13, and his friend were out tobogganing in the local park at around 5.30 pm near the town of Hamilton in Canada. Climbing up a small hill Matthew looked up to see a large neon-green light in the sky. Doubting his senses at first, Matthew was relieved to discover that his friend, who was close by, could also see it. Matthew states that this strange sight left both himself and his friend totally speechless. Both boys watched this spectacle for about five minutes before this strange neon-green light made a U-turn and flew off. Both boys described the object as looking like a cigar with four wings shaped like sharks fins. They checked at a nearby gas station to see if anyone else had seen it but were met with nothing but ridicule. Matthew has no doubt that he and his friend had observed a UFO.
CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS:
James was 12 years old in l976 and living in Dahlonega, Georgia, USA. It was July and he was with his 14 year old girl friend Dale. James and Dale were sitting on some monkey bars at an abandoned school playground in the late afternoon, maybe an hour or so before dusk. All of a sudden they noticed to the north, a silver-coloured oval shaped object in the sky some 300-400 meters away from them. The strange object was simply hovering motionless above the tree tops. Staring at this strange sight, James and Dale described it as looking like the flickering cursor on a computer screen. The object now began to move towards the two witnesses and when it got to within 100 meters of them James suggested that they should leave immediately. Dale wanted to stay and watch, but as it got closer both James and Dale took off running as fast as they could. At one point James slipped onto the paved road surface and tore a hole in his jeans, but he bounced right back up and carried on running until both he and Dale reached his great-grandmother’s house. James told both his great-grandmother and his grand-mother who was also there, about the sighting, but they did not believe them.
Now 92, James’s grand-mother still recalls the day when he told her the story of the UFO. To this day, she has never seen him so frightened. In adult life James became an officer in the Army and has no doubt that it was a UFO he observed that day back in l976 and not a conventional flying vehicle of any kind.
The Courier and the Evening Telegraph newspapers in Dundee, Scotland told of a remarkable UFO sighting by local children in February l996. On February 20th, l996, Mrs P.S. (name withheld) said her son Cameron and his friends Graham and Joanne, all aged 12, and pupils of a local school, had come running into her house around 7.30 pm, almost crying uncontrollably with only Cameron able to speak any sense at all.
Cameron said that they had seen something horrible in the park and Mrs P.S. automatically thought that they had witnessed an assault of some kind. Joanne was really upset and Graham wasn’t much better either. Regaining their senses somewhat, all of the children began speaking all at once about an aircraft which had hovered over them in the park and shone lights down on them. Mrs P.S. tried to calm them all down and sat then down separately and asked them to draw what they had seen. According to Mrs P.S., the resulting drawings, and the accounts of what had transpired, were so close that she had no doubt that the children had seen something that had severely frightened them.
Cameron, Joanne and Graham, all described a ‘burger’ shaped craft with domes shaped like pointed ends of a rugby ball top and bottom and a band of both static and flashing coloured lights around the middle. They said the lights were red, green and white, the last being very bright. They watched the object move silently in the air until it was almost above them and it shone three ‘triangular’ lights in their direction. Mrs P.S. explained that it was this incident with the lights that panicked the children sat which point they ran off because they got the feeling the object was following them. At no time during the sighting did the object make any noise.
Checks later with the local police, civil and military airfields and even a local astronomer failed to find anything that could have rationally accounted for the children’s sighting.
ENTITIES
AND ABDUCTIONS:
William was around six or seven years old at the time (mid l950’s) and living in Glasgow, Scotland. Lying in bed one evening he was recovering from a minor mishap. His father was working night shift and his mother was sound asleep in bed. William looked across the room because some movement had attracted his attention. Standing next to a table he saw a figure with another one standing behind the first. They were not very tall and the one the closest to him stared without blinking through round, quite large eyes, right at him. William noticed long snake-like things on the tops of their heads. He says snake-like because they appeared to move like snakes or works. Both figures were doing something at the table with one still staring directly at William while the other one moved around. William now observed another figure over by the window which also seemed to be staring at him. This third figure looked exactly like the other two. Then, in a type of voice that he’d never heard before, one of the figures said “go to sleep little boy”. The eyes and the voice seemed almost hypnotic to William and he gradually fell asleep. At no time did he ever feel frightened by these figures and William states that this is an events that he will remember for as long as he lives.
Angela seldom discusses her experience even though it took place almost forty years ago. It was during the summer vacation when she was outside at around 1.00 am. Looking over towards the rice field she observed a large green object approach and land in the field without making a sound. The rice field lay at the rear of her house and was only some 200 meters away. Out of curiosity Angela ran towards the object. Upon reaching it she described it as looking very bright with small ‘windows’ around its middle. There was an opening in the side of the object with stairs reaching down to the ground. She went up the stairs and into the object. It was very bright inside and her memory of events at this point becomes somewhat hazy. Angela remembers that she was now lying on a table with a bright light over her. Again, at this point Angela’s memory is rather vague. The object came back on consecutive nights although Angela did not actually see it land again. Perhaps understandably Angela has chosen not to speak much about this incident and has confided in only a few close friends.
WELL
KNOWN CASES:
16 year-old Ronald Johnson was working on his family’s farm on November 2, l971, at Delphos, Kansas, USA. At around 7.00 pm he heard an odd noise and looked up to see a very bright, mushroom-shaped object. It landed near him and after several minutes took off. Later, several witnesses were found who saw a bright object in the sky, possibly the same UFO. The validity of this case was established by the physical traces left by the UFO. The soil in the ring left by the UFO felt crystallised and the soil numbed the witnesses hands when they touched it. Chemical changes in the soil were also noted by British chemist Erol A. Faruk. When US UFO researchers and trace case specialist Ted Phillips visited the sight several months later, the area was still suffering from the effects.
One of the most well know UFO cases in the USA over the last twenty years is the so-called ‘Cash-Landrum’ case, named after it’s principle witnesses, Betty Cash and Vicky Landrum. One other witness was Vicky’s seven year old grandson Colby. It was on December 29, l980 near Huffman, Texas when Betty Cash, Vicky Landrum and Colby were driving home to Dayton, Texas, when they observed a diamond-shaped craft, as Colby described it, came hovering low off the ground over the road about 135 feet from the car. The craft was spewing out flames from its underside and it appeared to be escorted away by a large number of military looking helicopters. All three witnesses including Colby suffered a variety of illnesses after the incident.
These are just a few incidents that involve young people. Our research into young people’s UFO sightings is still in itself in its infancy, but if the above is anything to go by our future research certainly appears to be at least as fascinating as UFO sightings by any other category or group. As we have seen in some of the examples above, UFO sightings reported by young people can often be dismissed as over imagination, or tricks being played on their adult family members. But surely experience shows that in a lot of instances, this is simply not the case.
To continue with our research into UFO sightings by young people (aged 18 or under at the time of the sighting) we would like to ask for your assistance. If you have any information on UFO sightings made by people aged 18 or under, or if you yourself had a sighting, then I would ask you to contact us at the following address. Confidentiality is guaranteed for all those requesting it.
Philip Mantle is the former Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association and the former MUFON Representative for England..
Susan Mantle is the former Press Officer for the British UFO Research Association.
Philip Mantle |