Old timers- share your UFO stories from the 1960s and 1970s

After reading many UFO reports over the years I have a feeling that the 1960s and early 1970s in particular had many genuine UFO sightings.One of the reasons behind this is I noticed the phenomenon of older people first-time reporting UFO sightings from decades ago that cluster around this time period (I guess due to access to the internet, age and anonymity making people less fearful of ridicule or criticism). The reports share quite a lot of similarities too and are often pretty unambiguous rather that 'lights in the sky'.

I have doubts over any sightings made beyond that time, almost all seem to be of black ops aircraft (triangle sighting/phoenix lights) or misidentification of objects such as satellites or Chinese lanterns or natural electrical phenomena. It is rare to hear a report of classic saucer or close up sightings. Even on here which has more than it's share of hard-core 'believers', very few claim to have had a daylight up close sighting.

So, babyboomers, any of you care to share your personal sightings or accounts from trusted friends or relatives from that time period?

reply to post by ManInAsia


Great idea ManInAsia , im looking forward to hearing some decent UFO stories again instead of the youtube crowd and their fuzzy dots in the sky S&F

Bring on the good stuff..

Nice idea, but I resemble that oldtimer statement. Try for 1956 when I was in about the 10th grade. I lay back on a picnic table and watched a silver disc appear to the south and fly north right over where we were. It was quite high, silent and going like hell. It only took a few minutes to make it from the south horizon to the north in a matter of minutes.

Again in 58 at the farm, I watched late at night a low flying something go over real fast. I was very low and had visible red flames going off the leading edge, I could clearly see the arms of the flames, yet no noise.

Now into the 70's. Helping a boat anchor late at night in N. Lake Huron, Drummond Island. Four of us watched this light going over and commented that it might be a satellite. But then it took at high speed right turn and then another, this one straight up and into space. There is more leading up till today, but they happened and they were real. Also I feel that a lot of good reports are discredited due to the fabrication going on today. Also I would not come on here, I don't think, because of the self appointed debunkers ready to strike down any honest person. We, my wife and I are having interesting experiences, but I hesitate to write them down and submit for that reason.

While im not an old timer, I'll relate what my mother told me often when I was a kid about her own sightings.

When she was a young girl in the late 1930's she grew up in the logging forests for the Kinleith Mill near Tokaroa well away from the local township (literally in the woods where the felling and logging took place, in a small house with her parents and other siblings) she would often claim she had seen on occasions large triangular formations of bright lights (ie 1 in the front, followed by 2, then 3 then 4 etc) flying high in the night sky over the forest at various times during the years. It was these initial sightings that made her become interested in the subject of UFOs years latter and at the time such a subject like UFOs more or less didn't exist within the cultural mindset especially for a little girl living out in the wilderness of New Zealand.

On one occasion she also mentions she witnessed a similar formation over the town during the daytime while out for her primary schools lunch time recess. She says she looked up while in the play ground and saw the formation high up speedily disappear out of view (becoming obscured by the classroom buildings).

All of her sightings took place decades before the space race, even the first orbital satellites, and WW2 was still a few years off so aircraft in general where pretty rare occurrences in the area (I would say the nearest city of Hamilton wouldnt have even had an airport at that time, most of NZ's commodity movement was done by ships from coastal ports back then) so any type of airplane would have been quite a rare sight and definitely not in formations over obscure Waikato logging forests many kilometers from the nearest city. Not to mention the technological levels of New Zealand at the time in terms of an air force along with the far more increased global isolation it had back then compared to now was significant. Her only forms of media were radio and her access to books and the like on such subjects (if any actually existed) was virtually nill.

While such sightings are vague and purely subjective stories told second hand, given the time period they took place id say they are genuine observations of things possibly not of earth origin. I also wouldnt think my mother would lie about such things, she doesnt lie as a rule to begin with.

Sorry I couldn't elaborate on it further beyond 'She saw lights', since thats all I know of her sightings myself also they arent 60-70 sightings, that being said id say sightings before the 60's are even more genuine since it was during the 60's and onward that UFOlogy became rather pop culture...which could cause problems with reports.

It was the summer of '76 when I saw two disc shaped objects flying from east to west across the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't spotted some thick smoke first coming from behind a small hill. I was curious so I hiked up and saw a home completely engulfed in flame. Following the smoke column straight up into the air, I noticed my uncle was watching too, from his red Citabria airplane. That's about when I noticed the two discs...all three in perfect alignment. My uncle happened to be the only atheist in the family. Some believe UFO's are demonic. The theory does support what I saw, when you understand that demons are here to deceive and destroy. First UFO story ever shared on air with Art Bell, and boy did it get his show rolling!

I am sixty-one, and have seen them, but this is not about me,

My father was born in 1904, he use to tell us a story about a UFO he saw when he was a young man, around the 1930s,

He was fishing alone late in the evening and watched as a UFO hovered over the lake right in front of him, that's all I can remember.

I wish I would have thought to ask him more.

reply to post by BigfootNZ


Oh goodness, BF, about the same time as my father, I hadn't read your post before I posted.

Illinois late 1970s-to-1980 a friend and I liked to skywatch at night, on these sports bleecher benches in this darkened school gym class field. This is because one of my brothers and me, one clear mild night in 1978, were sitting outside in our backyard of our house, and watched a V of about 50 white lights, extremely high up, like a close knit V of satellites, go over, from East to West. So, later, me and my friend watched this come over us: From West to East, a clear mild summer night in 1979, -about- 7 round things. They looked -about- as high as a kinda low small airplane. If you held a penny out at arm's length. Each one was an overall dim orange glow, like heated steel cooling, and they had a fluttery effect round their peremiters. They were in a strait line formation, abreast, side by side. Totaly silent.

I will fire this post out, then tell about more stuff, so it won't be one massive honkin eye-crossing text.

It was the spring of 1980, same location and situation as my previous post. Only I was alone this time, for some reason, outside in our backyard. I'm walking around and looking up, (at night, a nice partly clear I think, mild night) and I see six of these really strange things. They are crescent shaped, as opposed to boomerang or v. 3 leading the formation side by side abreast, and 3 behind, the same. They were ghostly milky translucent, gray. Like ghosts, I guess. Not entirely solid appearing. Again, with that outer fluttery-peremiter effect. Traveling over me and the house from South to North.

reply to post by ManInAsia


I'm an old timer and used to see all kinds of strange UFOs out driving the back roads of New Mexico. Disc's, orbs, silver spheres, black spheres, green ball lightening, lights moving very strangely on the mesa, etc...
Even today I see weird **** almost everytime I drive up to the 4 corners on hiway 550 thru the rez.

I've also experienced some strange events in Southern Colorado it could have been paranormal, black ops, Ufos, cults, or all wrapped up in a big high strangeness package together.

www.tmv.us...

Throughout the early to mid 1970's in Illinois, when I was a kid ages about 8-through-11, and living at home with parents, strange ufo occurrences. One summer night, my youngest brother and my mom were sitting outside in the backyard on the patio deck, and they watched a star like thing travel, make dead stops, make extreme-angle turns.
One night, my dad and I were in the living room watching TV. No lamps were on, just the light from the TV. suddenly, blinding white light completely engulfed everything, from the window over the TV facing the backyard. Everyone was freaked out by it, and one of my family members went running outside, and some neighbor kids said they saw a great white ball of light descend nearby, but I don't know what they saw it do after that.

Missing time: My family and I lived in an apartment building on the other side of town in 1966 when I was 6, before we moved to the house with yard, in 1968, on the opposite side of town across this main river. So, at the apartment, me and a brother go wandering away down the street a few blocks. There was an old rickety childrens play area, but it was unsafely close to the river. Nestled close to a grove of trees. Some swings and teeters. This was a summer evening. when it gets totaly dark out, very late. But when we arrived there, it was still bright sunshiney. So we are playing there. All I remember NEXT is this. It is totaly dark out, with the stars out. I am looking at my brother on his swing, from on my swing. He is just sitting there like a statue, like in a state of suspended animation. Then he 're animates' and we walk back home. I saw people wandering about around home, and my sister points to us and yells, "There they are!!!" Then my mom runs up to us and is crying, and says they had the police out looking for us, because they thought we had been kidnapped. The days and weeks following that event, I became obsessed with drawing people and animal figures with big black shiney sunglasses on them, and had nightmarish dreams that 'Arabs' in white headresses and black sunglasses, driving around in a big black shiney car, were trying to get me.

I don't know if that was ufo related, or it could have been about something else.

I'll share mine. Couple of nights ago, when California claimed they shot a missile down, was the night, I saw, at 4:30am on the East Coast, a bright white light go in a straight line towards the west coast, like a speeding bullet. I don't know, if it was the missile or a UFO. But everyone says, if it was the missile, I shouldn't of seen it, considering it wasn't suppose to be on my end, then Texas, filming the same white light that I saw, the following the night or before. I don't know. Was it a UFO or bug? All I know, is that I saw a 4x4 or a 5x5 object streak through the sky faster than lightening and superman, in straight horizontal line. If it was a meteor or a comet or a falling star, I would suspect it would descend. Which it did not. Plus, I have no proof because it was unexpected and I didn't think to have my camera ready. I never believed in UFO's either until that night. Could be a missile or a UFO. I don't know.

Originally posted by Manhater
I'll share mine. Couple of nights ago, when California claimed they shot a missile down, was the night, I saw, at 4:30am on the East Coast, a bright white light go in a straight line towards the west coast, like a speeding bullet. I don't know, if it was the missile or a UFO. But everyone says, if it was the missile, I shouldn't of seen it, considering it wasn't suppose to be on my end, then Texas, filming the same white light that I saw, the following the night or before. I don't know. Was it a UFO or bug? All I know, is that I saw a 4x4 or a 5x5 object streak through the sky faster than lightening and superman, in straight horizontal line. If it was a meteor or a comet or a falling star, I would suspect it would descend. Which it did not. Plus, I have no proof because it was unexpected and I didn't think to have my camera ready. I never believed in UFO's either until that night. Could be a missile or a UFO. I don't know.

edit on 31-7-2011 by Manhater because: (no reason given)

Check out this video, it's actually a animation of a UFO concept craft I am developing but when I read your post it seemed strikingly similar.
My purpose with my concept is to think of craft that we are not conditioned too. Like metal type disk craft that were seen in the 50's to the triangles that got famous in the 90's, to balls of light that we see. Instead of a energy ball UFO, think of an open cylinder with sort of the same concepts of the energy ball.

Here is a very short clip that it's hard to see the UFO so you may have to replay it several times or down load it.

Originally posted by Manhater
I'll share mine. Couple of nights ago, when California claimed they shot a missile down, was the night, I saw, at 4:30am on the East Coast, a bright white light go in a straight line towards the west coast, like a speeding bullet. I don't know, if it was the missile or a UFO. But everyone says, if it was the missile, I shouldn't of seen it, considering it wasn't suppose to be on my end, then Texas, filming the same white light that I saw, the following the night or before. I don't know. Was it a UFO or bug? All I know, is that I saw a 4x4 or a 5x5 object streak through the sky faster than lightening and superman, in straight horizontal line. If it was a meteor or a comet or a falling star, I would suspect it would descend. Which it did not. Plus, I have no proof because it was unexpected and I didn't think to have my camera ready. I never believed in UFO's either until that night. Could be a missile or a UFO. I don't know.

edit on 31-7-2011 by Manhater because: (no reason given)

Check out this video, it's actually a animation of a UFO concept craft I am developing but when I read your post it seemed strikingly similar.
My purpose with my concept is to think of craft that we are not conditioned too. Like metal type disk craft that were seen in the 50's to the triangles that got famous in the 90's, to balls of light that we see. Instead of a energy ball UFO, think of an open cylinder with sort of the same concepts of the energy ball.

Here is a very short clip that it's hard to see the UFO so you may have to replay it several times or down load it.

Guys- last few posts are way off topic. The thread title is very clear.

didn't read any posts here.

my friends and i were hanging out, where we usually do when the old guys weren't there playing cards.

i looked west and saw something.

it was steady and kept coming our way.

i was watching it and my buds were messing around as usual. this was along a main drag.

i thought it was too slow for a single engine plane and too steady for a zep.


the kicker was when it got closer it was on fire, i mean i saw flames AND drips coming off this thing.

steady as she goes!

i pointed it out to everyone and a drip seemed to fall over our elementary school, it kept going at the same pace and we ran toward the school.

this was at night and we were teens in the 60's. didn't find anything.

we watched it for a while, coming our way and it was flaming! we could see the flames, it was engulfed.

nothing could burn like that for so long and not go down, besides the drips!

it reminds me of the uk resham thing.

this was first.

way cool!

Sounds like a rocket or satellite re-entry to me.

year 1960, Hershey Pa., date: a summer night in July
many of the other kids were away on summer vacation, the handful of us remaining at the orphanage were staying at the 'BuenaVista house a 3 storie tall place that slept 40 kids had a gym and was directly down hill from the elementary school some 80 yards away,

It was a clear night, say 10PM (22:00) when suddenly from my position on a picnic bench i could see a string of lights in the sky in the distance..... (yeah thats what it looked like at first [..............] a line of dots)
as the lights approached.... i'd say i watched for maybe 25-30 seconds..... i found that there were 13 lights
and as the lights went directly overhead, there was no noise of engines...
and one could see that the lights were in a 'V' formation, with 6 lights on either side of the center light.

I spoke first telling the other kid there in the yard that it was likely a military 'Flying Wing' craft
and we probably seen a secret flight
.....over our place in Hershey Pa, flying very low...say about 100 yards up in the sky, traveling west to east

nothing much was said of that incident as it was soon forgotten by the 30 some kids outside playing that July night back in 1960... i'm likely the only one that remembers the mysterious, silent flying wing



1972, close to Labor Day, Orlando/Apopka Fla..... daylight, right after the daily 2PM rain storms that pass over central florida like clockwork...
i was walking between the 3 story apartment buildings that were set in clusters of 5 buildings...

suddenly i saw what looked like a car sized object flying in the still misty sky (from the fog that rises from the recently wet asphalt) the object was only visible for a split second in the view area between these buildings, but from that observation i determined that the craft was similar to the prrofile of a American Motors Gremlin auto
en.wikipedia.org...
it was, to my mind, the same size shape and was airborne not much more than 80-100 feet up,,, and not more than 200 feet away from me....

i was walking with a friend & co worker, Dick Hippensteel, he did not see it...but i had a notion to be looking at the sky, in between the buildings, at the moment that object appeared ever so briefly...


those are two of my sightings in the 60's & 70's...
i won't talk of the 'brown mountain lights' because they looked to me to be a weather phenomena and not strange crafts


thanks

reply to post by St Udio


Interesting recounting of yours, and completely appropriate and appreciated for this thread title/request.

Yes; lets have no more "I saw a missle like light thing the other night, even though somewhere it said a missle was launched." Or, "I have vid animation to promote here." WTF!?

Please, thanks.