The Low memorandum quickly made the rounds among project members, then went back into the file. Before the year was out, however, Saunders would also show it to Keyhoe, who in turn would tell McDonald about it-all without knowledge of Low or Condon (who did not even know the memo existed). By then, the problem would be beyond repair.50
APRO SUMMER CASES
Two cases that reached APRO during the summer of 1967 illustrate the up close nature of many UFO sightings at the time. One occurred at 4:20 A.M. on July 5, near Coventry, Connecticut, on Route 31, when a motorist saw what appeared to be an orange ball of light hanging from a tree. When police arrived, the area was deserted. APRO investigator Lawrence Fawcett notified the Colorado Project, which sent off two investigators. With Fawcett, they found a grassy area that had been compressed and swirled flat. No presence of radioactivity was established, and the photo taken by Fawcett came out completely blank. Several similar sites were found in the area at the time.51
Near Whitehouse, Ohio, at 11:30 P.M. on July 13, Robert Richardson was driving with a friend, Jerry Quay. As the car turned around a bend, the two saw a brilliant bluish source of light blocking the road. Richardson slammed on the brakes, closed his eyes, and felt an impact. The object, however, was gone, leaving both men shaken but unhurt. Local police dismissed the incident, but state police returned with them to the scene. All they found were Richardson’s skid marks. The next day, Richardson found a lump of metal and noticed various dents and scratches on the hood of his car, and that some chrome on the bumper had been stripped off. On the fifteenth, he sent a telegram to the Lorenzens and gave his phone number.
At 11 P.M. on the following night, Richardson received a visit at his home from two friendly young men, who stayed about ten minutes to ask some questions but did not identify themselves (Richardson did not ask their names). He did check their car, however, a 1953 black Cadillac with license 8577-D. He later learned that the plate had not been issued. A week after this visit, Richardson received a classic Men-in-Black visit. Two men, different from the others, arrived at his door. They wore dark suits, had dark complexions, and were “foreign-looking.” One had an accent of some sort but spoke fluent English. At first, Richardson thought these men were trying to convince him that he had not hit anything in the road. However, they soon demanded his two pieces of physical evidence. Sorry, said Richardson, but he had handed both pieces over to APRO for analysis. Is there any way he could get it back, the men asked. No, he replied. Just before leaving, one of them said, “If you want your wife to stay as pretty as she is, then you’d better get the metal back.” He saw them drive away in a 1967 Dodge sedan but could not make out the license plate. What disturbed him, other than the threat, was that the metal had only been discussed on the phone twice: once between himself and Coral Lorenzen, and once between himself and APRO researcher Nils Paquette. Coral Lorenzen believed her phone call was monitored.
The case reached the Colorado University Project. In March 1968, Roy Craig conducted a test of the material, along with the fibrous metal taken from the front bumper of Richardson’s car. The metal pieces were of iron and chromium, with traces of nickel and manganese. The fibrous metals on the bumper were 92 percent magnesium, not what one would expect to find on one’s bumper, but nothing definitive, either.52
In 1967 there was yet another global wave of UFO activity. South America appears to have generated the most reports, most of which were collected by APRO. Sightings were so frequently characterized by multiple craft that the Lorenzens referred to it as the “fleet phenomenon.” Several of these were seen by military personnel, such as a June 24 sighting of about ten silent, disc-shaped UFOs over Puerto Neuvo, Argentina. Venezuela and Brazil reported a great deal of UFO activity as the summer progressed, including many landings and sightings of small beings in silvery clothing.53
Many cases involved unknown craft in the sea. One of the more widely reported occurred about fifteen miles north of the Venezuelan town of Recife on the morning of August 4. Dr. Hugo Sierra Yepez, an engineer, was fishing on a beach when he felt a vibration and saw large bubbles in the water. A grayish-blue, metallic, flat disc, about twenty feet in diameter, emerged from the water. It briefly hovered just above the surface, dripping water, then rose slowly toward the east, ascended in a curve, and shot upward and away. Yepez discerned a “revolving section with triangular windows” on the craft. The entire sighting lasted less than one minute.54
