Cruttwell also reported that between June 26 and 28, there were several UFO sightings at nearby Giva, Baniara, and Sideia. Allen Hynek also interviewed Gill some fifteen years later and found him to be completely credible.
Donald Menzel and Philip Klass wrote debunking pieces on the sighting. Menzel did not impugn Gill’s integrity, but theorized that the whole thing was an optical illusion of the planet Venus caused by Gill’s bad eyesight. The malleable natives merely wanted to impress “their Great White Leader” who had a “god-like” status with them. True to form, Klass did impugn Gill’s character. He claimed that the reverend invented or imagined the encounter in order to please Cruttwell. Considering the incredible nature of the claims, it is interesting that these were the most damaging arguments skeptics could come up with.98
The expanses of the Pacific Ocean continued to be the scene of UFO activity that summer. On July 11, 1959, about nine hundred miles northeast of Hawaii, a Pan Am Airways crew saw a strange craft with satellite objects make sharp turns. For a time, the crew feared the possibility of a collision, although the air force privately told interested congressmen that the crew only saw a meteor. Just two days later, a farm woman in Blenheim, New Zealand, saw a domed disc descend and hover. She said it was about thirty-five feet in diameter, had two intense, green lights and two rows of jets around the rim, and gave off orange flames. She also claimed to see two men in metallic suits inside a clear dome. The craft took off rapidly with a high-pitched sound, giving off heat. The next day, July 14, a group of hunters on Australia’s Prince of Wales Island saw a red object land on the island. Other hunters claimed to see a similar object nearby.99
GETTING UP-CLOSE AND PERSONAL
The nature of UFO sightings changed from the 1940s to the late 1950s. Reports in the 1950s continued, as in the previous decade, to describe impossible objects seen in the sky. Increasingly, however, they also included vivid descriptions of craft at close range, encounters with the beings operating them, and physical effects. The phenomenon had always been global but somewhat dominated by American sightings from 1947 to 1954. After 1954, however, quality reports came in large numbers from around the world, often overshadowing the American reports.
In 1959, the trend continued and provided some remarkable alleged encounters, in particular during the late summer. On August 9, in Sombrero, Tierra del Fuego, a petroleum engineer and two other witnesses stopped their car when they ran out of gas; they then saw a large, bright light descending like a pendulum, making a swishing sound. One of the men aimed a rifle at it, but the object zoomed away. In Brion, Spain, on August 12, a farmer saw an object land in a pasture, take off vertically, and fly away. On the thirteenth, in Freeport, Texas, a bright, low-flying object passed over a car, whose engine stalled, and landed in a wooded area. Six people in two separate groups saw the object and called the police, although the dense underbrush prevented an investigation. On August 17, a low-flying UFO appeared to cause a power interruption in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Late morning on August 25, in Werdehl-Eveking, Germany, a man approached a bright object in a forest but fainted when he got too close. As he regained consciousness, it took off silently and vertically. It was round, had a tripod landing gear, two rows of bright openings, and was about one hundred feet in diameter. On September 7, in Wallingford, Kentucky, a postal worker saw a bluish, disc-shaped object at ground level; it flew away horizontally, leaving a stained ring on the ground.100
Meanwhile, the air force once again reassigned UFO investigative duties. In July 1959, the 1127th Field Activities Group stationed at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, replaced the 1006th AISS as the main field investigative unit. According to Jacobs, the group made few investigations. In September, AFR-200-2 went through another revision, which again emphasized that “unidentifieds” must be reduced to a minimum—something which had been the policy for quite some time.101
REDMOND, OREGON: SIX JETS ATTEMPT AN INTERCEPT
