From Roswell, New Mexico, to Circleville, Ohio, UFOs and aliens have been part of American myth and legend for some 75 years.
The U.S. government last year released three videos of UFO sightings by Navy pilots — one from 2004 and two from 2015. Later this month, a Pentagon task force is expected to deliver a report to Congress on what government officials now call "unexplained aerial phenomena."
The report may suggest the possibility of Chinese or Russian spycraft, or it could confirm thousands of conspiracy theorists' suspicions: Humans may not be alone in this galaxy. Or not.
The Buckeye State has had its fair share of UFO sightings and close encounters. Here are five of the most popular in Ohio lore:
1. Portage County, 1966
On April 17, 1966, two Portage County Sheriff's deputies stopped to investigate an abandoned car about 5 a.m. near Ravenna, Ohio, about 144 miles northeast of Columbus.
According to a report from The Beaver County Times in western Pennsylvania, the two deputies saw a UFO come up from behind some trees and chased the flying saucer from Ohio across the state line into Pennsylvania during an 86-mile chase that at times reached 100 mph.
At one point, a dispatcher instructed the two deputies to shoot the object, but a sergeant countermanded that, saying it could be a government weather balloon, the story said.
One of the Portage County deputies, Dale Spaur, told reporters then that the object was roughly 40 feet wide and 20 feet tall by his estimation.
"Somebody had control over it," he said. "It wasn't just floating around. It can maneuver."
The deputies gave up the pursuit in Conway, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, home of a massive rail yard. The UFO hovered then sped off into the night, but hundreds of people reported seeing the saucer and hearing its steady hum.
"We were close, closer than I ever want to be again," Spaur said.
At one point, a dispatcher instructed the two deputies to shoot the object, but a sergeant countermanded that, saying it could be a government weather balloon, the story said.
One of the Portage County deputies, Dale Spaur, told reporters then that the object was roughly 40 feet wide and 20 feet tall by his estimation.
"Somebody had control over it," he said. "It wasn't just floating around. It can maneuver."
The deputies gave up the pursuit in Conway, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, home of a massive rail yard. The UFO hovered then sped off into the night, but hundreds of people reported seeing the saucer and hearing its steady hum.
"We were close, closer than I ever want to be again," Spaur said."My headlights are shining on the vehicle because we're looking straight at it," one of the women said in the recording. "There's nothing in the actual cab of the truck ... as we became parallel with the truck this is where we had different experiences. I felt like something was turning my head, making me turn and as I turned in the opposite direction there was this ... it glowed like white power, that's the only way I can describe it."
"There are no eyeballs," the second woman told RUFOS members. "Very thin, hairless, bald and so thin ... no definition of (nose and mouth). But it was glowing."
Three Circleville residents who are members of the Roundtown UFO Society(RUFOS -- from left, Jon Fry, Pete Hartinger and Cameron Jones -- visit what used … Show more
3. Pickaway County, 1958
Dispatch reporter Holly Zachariah documented RUFOS director Pete Hartinger's close encounter that he said took place on Feb. 27, 1958, when he was 17 and on his way to the Pickaway County Fairgrounds. Hartinger told The Dispatch about the incident last year following the U.S. government's acknowledgment and reports. Hartinger said he saw a saucer-shaped object floating over the local feed mill near Circleville before drifting out of sight.
Then something else returned.
"A
totally different object came back. It was a reddish-orange object, a
circle just like the setting sun. It stopped and hovered in midair … and
the top half folded down onto itself," said Hartinger, who is now in
his 80s.
The occurrence has stuck with Hartinger his entire life and led him to found RUFOS.
4. South Bloomfield, 2006
In March 2006, a member of RUFOS spotted "slow-moving, hovering lights" on the commute to work. Michael Moore, the member who submitted the sighting, said that the lights traveled low and hovered above a gas station in South Bloomfield, a village in Pickaway County located about 20 miles south of Columbus, before jetting northeast.
"I pulled into Speedway since I needed gas and when I got out of my car I saw it hovering almost directly overhead," Moore wrote in a full account on the RUFOS website.
"The lights were so bright that the glare prevented me from seeing an actual shape of the object. To describe what I saw on the bottom of the craft between the lights, I want to compare the gray dull metallic-looking plates to skid plates," Moore wrote.
Moore said he only got a glimpse of what he said was the underbelly of the craft, before the UFO shot off into the sky.
5. Canal Winchester, Circleville, 2019
Two more interesting encounters occurred in June 2019 and November 2019 – with the same witness for both incidents seeing a similar UFO or light.
The November sighting occurred around 4 a.m. on Nov. 15, when the witness told RUFOS he saw an object in the sky near Marcy's Diner in Canal Winchester. It appeared to him as a "white light and oval in shape ... it was heading east" the account reads. The witness said it was in view for less than five seconds before disappearing.
On June 13, 2019 the same witness said he saw a similar object that was also oval shaped and white near the intersection of Routes 674 and 22. The witness stated that he saw the object nearly land – but emit no noise at all – on Route 674 before disappearing. The sighting occured around 3 a.m.
Joe Dandron
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