Sent in from John Smith, Thanxz John !

This is from the 10-15-96 Tennessean:
Close encounters of odd kind leave residents, police baffled By Beth Warren, staff writer

First Williamson, Sumner and Warren Counties and now Rutherford. Could the unidentified lights reported hovering in the sky be visitors from another planet on a tour of the Midstate?

Maybe the aliens, scoping out a new hometown are comparing rural countryside, affluent suburbia and life in a college town. Reports in the four counties — so far unexplained — detail a bright, stationary light adjacent to red and green — and sometimes blue — lights.

Witnesses wonder if the sightings are connected. But police are investigating the incidents separately.

"It's still a mystery and there's no definite answer as to what it is," said Janet Sharpe of the Upper Cumberland Mutual UFO Network. "Because the sightings are very similar it could very well be the same craft that is crossing the various counties."

Police in Hendersonville, where strange sightings were reported last week, believe other explanations are more probable.

"The officers were unable to determine what the complainant saw," said Lt. Terry Frizzell. "Lights in the sky in this area aren't unusual because we're in the flight pattern of Gallatin and Nashville airports." Murfreesboro resident Jennifer Robinson said her father was skeptical too, until Friday night when her mother spotted the bright lights as she put the dog outside.

"It's not a star and it's definitely not a plane," she said. Robinson grabbed the video camera while her mother went for the binoculars.

"The sky was dark except for a bright light and a few little stars. ...All of a sudden this cluster of lights start forming to the right....It looks like this thing is flying in real fast and it's leaving a trail then it stops. Then the smaller one that was sitting still goes straight back — zip, an evident move — like someone threw it in reverse."

A sheriff's deputy and two others saw something unusual in the night sky Thursday in Williamson County. Sharpe said the UFO network also received calls about sighting in McMinnville that night. "These things seem to happen in cycles, flare-ups of activity," Sharpe said.



Email Comments to UFO Folklore !

230