Just past midnight on January 12, came a much-reported incident from a farm near Curtis, Washington, not far from Blaine AFB. A family reported seeing a glowing, circular, domed craft land in a snowy field. The object soon left, but melted the snow in a thirty-foot circle, and even scorched the earth. Air force authorities told the family not to discuss the incident, and the ground itself was plowed under. Additional confirmation of the incident came from Blaine itself, where, just before the landing, radar had tracked a thirty-foot object which had buzzed the car of Department of Justice officer Inspector Robert E. Kerringer while he was driving to the base. The man saw the object and even got out of his car and watched it hover for a minute or two before flying off. He described it as a “huge shining thing [which] swooped down, right over the car,” then shot upward. As he reached for his radio microphone, the object climbed faster than any jet, into the clouds and out of sight. Kerringer was also told by Blaine officials to keep quiet about the incident. Later on the same day, an Oregon woman and her two sons reported seeing a triangular UFO coming slowly out of the southeast and “suddenly plunge into the seas” some miles offshore at Tillamook Head. It left two trails of fire behind.40
Following this, a wave of reports came from Virginia. At midnight on January 14, in Norfolk, Virginia, a man saw a bright, circular object rise from the ground. On January 19, 1965, in Brands Flat, a man cutting wood saw two hovering, saucer-shaped objects, one hundred feet and twenty feet in diameter. The smaller one landed and was so highly polished that the man said, “I would bet on a clear day you could not see it at five thousand feet.” A door opened, and three human-looking pilots emerged, except that their skin was reddish-orange, they had “staring eyes,” and one of them had an unusually long finger on his left hand. They spoke incomprehensibly and reentered the object. When the door closed, its outline became invisible. On the morning of January 23 in Williamsburg, a driver experienced engine failure at the intersection of U.S. Highway 60 and State Route 14. At the side of the road, he saw a huge metallic, light bulb-shaped object, perhaps seventy-five feet high, hovering very low over the ground. Something, presumably its engine, was making a noise, and it had a reddish and blue light on either side. It took off rapidly toward the west.41
Two days later in Williamsburg, a “top-shaped” metallic object descended rapidly from the sky, causing engine failure in the car of a real estate executive. It hovered low above the ground about half a minute, then shot up at tremendous speed. The Virginia State Police took the report. A few miles away on the same night, an object matching the same description descended near another businessman, whose car stalled as the object landed. On January 27, near Hampton, Virginia, two NASA engineers, one a former air force pilot, saw a UFO descend with flashing lights. One of them told NICAP that the object zigzagged to a brief landing, then rapidly climbed out of sight.42
THE WAVE OF 1965
On January 19, 1965, NICAP’s acting director, Richard Hall, met with a CIA agent and obtained a direct telephone line to that agent’s office. A CIA memorandum dated January 25 discussed the meeting
at which time various samples and reports on UFO sightings procured from NICAP were given to [blank] for transmittal to OSI. The information was desired by OSI to assist them in the preparation of a paper for [blank] on UFOs.
Later, Hall wrote that he used this line only one time, “to report some high-quality UFO sightings” to the CIA. That would appear to be in addition to the meeting described in the CIA memo. Hall was the subject of a CIA security clearance, without his consent or knowledge, he wrote. He obtained several previously known documents after an appeal through FOIA, but the CIA refused to release the security clearance paper trail.
Barry Greenwood and Lawrence Fawcett wrote that the memo showed “an inordinate amount of interest in [NICAP], considering that the CIA’s function is foreign intelligence.” Exactly right, but it should be no surprise, given the longtime CIA interest in UFOs. A more pertinent question might be, what was the relationship between Hall and the CIA? Hall recently stated “emphatically” that “there was no CIA (or any other intelligence agency) influence on NICAP” while he was at the center of NICAP affairs during the mid- and late 1960s.43
