Project UFO/Project UFO (Disk 1 of 6).adf/BOYS.UFO

Text File | 1980-01-09 | 18KB | 315 lines

     (The following account will appear in the July/August 1988
     issue of the International UFO Reporter, 2457 West Peterson
     Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60659.  Please contact CUFOS for
     permission to make copies.  Reproduction without permission is
     strictly prohibited.  Copyright (c) 1988 by the J. Allen Hynek
     Center for UFO Studies.)

                   AN UNUSUAL CE-III UFO REPORT
   FROM THE BANGOR NAVAL SUBMARINE BASE, BREMERTON, WASHINGTON

                                   by
                           Donald A. Johnson, Ph.D.
                              P.O. Box 161
                           Kirkland, WA 98083-0161

           DATE:              August 31, 1987
           TIME:              11:00 p.m. (PDT)
           TYPE OF SIGHTING:  CE-III
           WITNESSES:         Dennis Mauer, age 10
                              Randy Springsteen, age 8
                              Charlene Springsteen, age 26
           LOCATION:          U.S. Navy Trident Submarine Base
                              Bangor, Washington


           I received a phone call from Bob Gribble of the UFO
      Reporting Center on September 1st, 1987, saying that he had
      received a report of a UFO sighting by two boys, ages 8 and 10,
      who live in base housing with their families at the Bangor Naval
      Submarine Base.  I called the mother of one of the boys,
      Charlene Springsteen, and she related the following account.

           Her son Randy, age 8, and her neighbor's son Dennis Mauer,
      age 10, were spending the night together and she allowed them to
      go outside for a few minutes to play on the playground
      equipment.  This was at approximately 10:55 p.m. on Monday
      evening, August 31st.  The two boys were outdoors for about 10
      minutes and came running back in, "as white as ghosts".  The
      boys reported that they had seen a big circular-shaped object
      hovering 20-40 feet over her house, shine a beam of light down
      on the house, then come directly over the boys on the playground
      equipment, stop, and shine a larger beam of light down on them.
      After a few minutes, during which they reported seeing two
      cat-like humanoid figures aboard the craft, the object moved
      away and the kids ran home.  After hearing from the boys, the
      mother went outside and saw an "aircraft" with many--"10 to
      20"--red and blue lights arranged in a row in the Northwestern
      sky.  She knew that airplanes had red and green running lights
      so concluded that the lighting arrangement was not that of an
      airplane.  She then saw the object make a quick turn and zip
      away.  She looked around the immediate neighborhood to see if
      any of her neighbors also witnessed the event, but none of her
      neighbors were out.

           The boys reported that they saw an occupant--"some sort of
      creature"-- through a door or opening in the bottom-middle of
      the craft with big long, "cat-like" ears.  It was standing up,
      and they saw it bend over something that looked like a
      searchlight and shine the light down on them by pulling a
      lever.  They saw a second occupant similar in appearance to the
      first in a second doorway, in the bottom-lower left of the craft.

           Mrs. Springsteen had the boys draw sketches of what they
      had seen the following morning.  Her husband is an enlisted man
      in the Navy with the rank of E-6, and works with the base
      security forces.  She told me he was skeptical of the boys'
      account and reluctant to have them report the sighting to any
      officials.

           Mrs. Springsteen called the Bremerton police to report the
      sighting, and had a friend call the private security force, Pam
      Am, that provides security for the base housing, on her behalf.
      The Bremerton police, who incidentally would have been out of
      their jurisdiction and so can't legally investigate in response
      to a call from the Bangor base, suggested she call 911 if she
      felt the incident warranted the attention, and the Pan Am base
      security guard did not regard the UFO report as a serious matter.

           I suggested that she probably should report the sighting to
      the base commander, because the UFO was an unauthorized aerial
      object in a restricted, Federal area.  However, I emphasized
      that it wasn't my intention to pressure her to do so, and I left
      the decision up to her.  She told me she would think about it
      and meanwhile she would talk to Dennis's mother and have her
      call me.

           About half an hour later I received a phone call from Linda
      Mauer, Dennis's mother.  At first, Dennis did not tell his
      mother about his encounter the night before because he wasn't
      sure she would believe him.  When she did learn about their
      encounter from Charlene Springsteen, she had Dennis draw
      sketches of what he had seen and the sketches were identical to
      those drawn earlier.  This convinced her that the boys were
      reporting a real event and not making something up.

           Mrs. Mauer also reported that she had had a previous UFO
      sighting in New Mexico and was more willing to accept the boys'
      account of the events because of it.  Her previous sighting
      occurred at her home at a time when they were living in the
      desert, "30 miles from anything", and as she was hanging a
      bedspread on the clothes line she noticed three bright, red
      columns of light move through the sky.

           I called Jim Clarkson in Aberdeen, a police officer and
      MUFON field investigator, and asked him to check with police and
      sheriff departments in the Bangor area to see if they had logged
      any other UFO reports.  He reported back that he had talked to
      the Kitsap County Sheriff's Department and they had received no
      reports.

           I interviewed Mrs. Springsteen, Randy, Dennis Mauer, and
      Linda Mauer in person on Sunday, September 6th.  The base is a
      high security restricted area not open to the public and a
      visitor requires special permission from someone living on the
      base to visit base housing (see the enclosed copy of my
      visitor's pass).  Base housing is south and about a quarter of a
      mile away from the top security military installation where the
      nuclear submarines are docked and nuclear missiles stockpiled.
      I arrived at their home on F Court of Albacore Circle in the
      early afternoon.

           The immediate neighborhood consists of approximately 25
      housing units, grouped into four or five-unit townhouses that
      are approximately 25 feet apart (see sketch prepared by Linda
      Mauer).  The playground is shared by 50-60 families and the
      swingset on which the boys were playing at the time of the UFO
      encounter was estimated by Mrs. Springsteen to be 75 feet from
      the Springsteen house.  I later measured the distance and found
      it to be 82 feet.

           On the night of the encounter Dennis Mauer was staying
      overnight at his friend Randy's house.  This was the last week
      of summer before school started and the boys were up late.  In a
      private conversation with one of the neighbors, I learned that
      it is not uncommon for the children in the neighborhood to be
      out playing very late at night.  According to Dennis:

                "I asked Sherri if we could go out in the backyard
           and swing on the swings and she said "no" and we begged
           her and begged her and she said yes.  And we went out
           there, and it just flew over this (the Springsteen) house
           and then it went over the park."

           The boys were sitting on the swings and trying to spook
      each other by talking about Freddy, the demon-monster from the
      movie "Nightmare on Elm Street".  Neither one of the boys had
      ever seen the movie, but it was common for the neighborhood
      children to tell stories that "Freddy is going to get you".  It
      was at this point that they first noticed the "spaceship, with
      red and blue lights going around it", coming in from due East at
      a height of two stories above the rooftops.  The object stopped
      and hovered over the F-court townhouse, shown a beam of light
      down on the house, then moved directly over the boys and shone
      another, brighter beam down on them.  When the object moved
      towards them it moved oddly, with a jerking motion:  move and
      then stop, move and then stop.

           When the boys first sighted the object, a few meters over
      the house, Randy's mother was inside sewing at her sewing
      machine, and she had the drapes in the dining room and kitchen
      closed, with only one drape partially opened through which she
      could keep an eye on the boys.  The sewing machine was around a
      bend in the wall that separates the dining room from the kitchen
      and partially blocked her view of the window that looks out on
      the playground, so this is why she believes she did not see the
      light beam.  Mrs. Springsteen reported that the boys described
      the light as "telescoping".  The light beamed on, beamed off,
      and then a wider or brighter beam was shown on the boys.  The
      beam of light came from the bottom-center of the UFO.  The
      bright beam apparently had a levitating effect on the swings the
      boys were sitting on, lifting them up towards the craft.

           Although the object was reported to be quite low to the
      ground--40 or so feet when it passed over the roof of the
      house--it made no noise and there was no sand or wind blown up
      as would occur from the downdraft of a helicopter.  The boys
      estimated the height of the object as two building heights above
      them, which would be approximately 80 feet.  They estimated the
      object's diameter to be as wide as the sand filled area of the
      playground, which I later measured to be 52 feet wide.

           The object was described as having a round bottom with many
      blue and red lights on the outside edge in alternating colors.
      The lights were rotating or sequencing around the object,
      possibly in a counter-clockwise direction.  The boys only saw
      the bottom of the object, and some type of peak or antenna
      projecting from the top.  The rest of the object was obscured
      from their view by the angle at which the object presented
      itself.  Dennis's first sketch shows eight lighted,
      square-shaped windows across the upper third of the bottom of
      the object.  However, Randy's sketch and Dennis's subsequent
      sketches show five square-shaped windows.  There were two
      "doors" or openings, one in the center of the craft and one in
      the lower left.  In each doorway stood an occupant.  The
      creature standing at the center doorway was observed operating
      the searchlight, which was directed on the two boys.

           Dennis and Randy described the two entities as over six
      feet tall ("taller than Randy's dad"), with over-sized heads and
      thin, spindly bodies.  They were covered with greenish fur and
      wore no clothing that was visible.  They were humanoid,
      appearing to be bipedal.  The creatures had unusually long
      spindly arms, and bodies and legs that seem biologically
      improbable, i.e. unable to support such large heads.  Dennis'
      described the size of the principal creature's torso as no
      greater around in circumference than his thigh, which I judged
      to be less than 6 inches in diameter.

           Both creatures had large pointed, cat-like ears on an
      oval-shaped head.  The eyes were described as blueish-green and
      round, with unusually long eyelashes.  The mouth was wrinkled,
      "like an old grandma's".  The fingers and toes of the creature
      in the central doorway were described by Dennis as unusually
      long and had suction-cups on the tips.  Dennis didn't recall the
      word for suction-cups, and described them as "like the things on
      the front of darts".  Randy's drawing didn't have suction cups
      but he went along with Dennis's assertion about them.  Dennis,
      whose description is more elaborate than Randy's, described the
      feet as "frog feet" and felt that both the hands and feet were
      webbed.  Both boys drew sketches which showed a creature with
      very big, pointed ears (estimated to be 12-14" long), eyes with
      unusually long eye brows, a wrinkled mouth, and a skinny body.

           Mrs. Springsteen reported that when she returned to the
      house after going out and seeing the UFO depart, she noticed the
      sliding glass door in her dining room was open and the wind was
      blowing the curtains out through the door.  She was certain she
      didn't go out that way and doesn't recall anyone else opening
      the door.  She regarded it as somewhat odd and possibly
      connected to the incident.  In fact, the more she thought about
      it the more she became frightened that someone or something
      might be in the house, and got down her husband's rifle for
      protection and sat with it until he came home from work.

           The next door neighbor, residing at F-17 Albacore Circle,
      saw a bright white, stationary light in the eastern sky at
      sometime after 10:30 p.m. that same night from her bedroom
      window, and she thought she may have seen the UFO before it
      approached the boys on the playground.  However, a check of star
      and planet guides revealed that the woman most probably had
      watched the planet Jupiter, which was in the Eastern sky in
      approximately the right place to be mistaken for an unusual
      light.

           Both boys related their stories with some excitement in
      their voices but in an otherwise matter-of-fact manner.  They
      tended to lose interest towards the end of my interview with
      their mothers, and asked to be excused so that they could go out
      and play.  It is my belief that they were not lying or
      concocting the story, but were trying to relate as best they
      could some unusual event which they believed had happened to
      them.

           While reasonably certain that the boys were not making up
      the story, I am not certain to what degree the facts of the case
      are exagerated or distorted.  We need to keep in mind that the
      boys were in a receptive state of mind to have a spooky or
      bizarre event occur, because they had just been trying to "psych
      each other out" with tales of "Freddy".  It's undeniable that
      the creatures they described were unbelievably strange, even
      goblin-like in their appearance, like storybook characters.  The
      link between saying "Freddy is going to get you" and seeing
      these frightening creatures has to be listed as more than a
      coincidence.

           Furthermore, it is difficult though not impossible to
      believe that a UFO could penetrate an extremely sensitive
      military installation and not be detected.  If the incident had
      gone on for much longer it would certainly have stretched the
      bounds of believability to have it go unnoticed and not be
      responded to by security personnel.  The fact that the encounter
      was relatively brief in duration tends to lend some credence to
      the possibility that some type of physical object could manuever
      in at tree-top level and then depart so quickly that it could
      evade detection.

           The lack of any noise or downdraft makes a military
      helicopter explanation unlikely.  The multiple red and blue
      lights that Mrs. Springsteen observed would also make a
      helicopter or conventional aircraft explanation unlikely.  An
      advertising plane might seem at first to be a good candidate for
      the boys' sighting, but there are no ad plane companies still in
      business in the area, and besides, they have no business flying
      around in military restricted airspace.  The biggest argument
      against an aircraft misidentification is that no civilian
      aircraft are allowed anywhere near the area.  The Trident
      submarine base had been the site of numerous anti-nuclear
      demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience in the early
      1980's, and the Navy security forces get very touchy if anyone
      flies anywhere close to the base, let alone buzzes it at an
      altitude less than 100 feet.

           The fathers of the two boys, both Navy security personnel,
      joked about how seriously their wives were taking the boys'
      accounts, but didn't dispute their stories or offer any
      explanations, other than suggesting somewhat facetiously that it
      may have been the Russians.  That seems an extremely unlikely
      explanation, given the severe diplomatic repercussions that
      would result should they get caught.  The families decided not
      to report the sighting to anyone in authority at the base, and
      to this day I don't believe the Base Commander knows anything
      about it.  It remains a perplexing story, open to either an
      unusual psychological explanation, or interpretation as a truely
      anomalistic aerial phenomenon.