UFO ROUNDUP Volume 2 Number 23
Volume 2 Number 23
June 8, 1997
Editor: Joseph Trainor
E-mail: Masinaigan@aol.com
TWO UFOLOGISTS FOUND DEAD IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
On Tuesday, June 3, 1997, at about 3 p.m., investigating state police officers found the bodies of two prominent ufologists in a campground in northern New Hampshire (N.H.).
The bodies of George W. Perry, 50, of East Providence, Rhode Island and Keith Begnoche, 22, of Blackstone, Massachusetts were found in a tent at the Dolly Copp Campground, located off Route 16 in Pinkham's Grant, N.H.
Relatives of the dead men called the police on Monday after Perry and Begnoche failed to return from their weekend camping trip to Mount Washington.
Perry, born in Pawtucket, R.I., was an electrical engineer and inventor and the owner of Alpha Scientific Associates. He was also assistant director of the Rhode Island chapter of MUFON.
Begnoche was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Begnoche of Blackstone, Mass. and was a freshman at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Mass.
According to Sgt. John K. Scarinza of the New Hampshire state police, investigating officers found a sales slip in the tent. As a result of this find, the "troopers surmised that the friends died either Saturday night (May 31) or Sunday morning (June 1)."
"One of Perry's two sisters, Claire Bussiere, of Cumberland, R.I. said his death was puzzling because 'He was so methodical about things. Something just went wrong.'"
"She speculated that he might have altered his routine after buying a new tent. Ordinarily, he would turn on a heater to remove the chill, then place the device outside. For some reason, the heater was still inside when the troopers arrived."
"The device was tethered to a 20-pound propane tank. The controls were on and the tank was empty. Medical tests found carbon monoxide in both men's bodies. Apparently, the friends fell asleep before they were poisoned, police said." (See the Providence R.I. Journal-Bulletin for June 6, 1997, pages B1 and B4)
Perry and Begnoche had told friends before the trip that they were going to Mount Washington (elevation 6,288 feet) to do some skywatching.
"David Rannacher, a friend of Perry...said he doesn't think the two campers who set out on their camping trip Friday (May 30) ever made it to Mount Washington, although no one can say for sure." (Providence, R.I. Journal Bulletin, June 6, 1997, page B4)
A memorial service for Perry was held at 2 p.m. today at the American Legion Hall, Post 311, in Seekonk, Mass.
TRIANGULAR UFOs SIGHTED IN UPSTATE NEW YORK
On Wednesday, May 28, 1997, Ed Granoski and a few friends were on the south shore of Oneida Lake in upstate New York, approximately 16 miles (25 kilometers) east of Syracuse when they spied strange lights in the sky.
The sightings "started at 10:45 p.m.," Ed said. "Viewed for five minutes. All lights appeared amber/ orange similar to sodium vapor lights. We did not see any structures other than lights. The objects were approximately four to five miles (6 to 8 kilometers) across the lake from us and cast light reflections on the lake."
Ed estimated that the lights were situated "over a small town of Jewel, N.Y. and Camden, N.Y. (population 2,667) on the north shore of Oneida Lake." The UFOs were "approximately 20 to 30 degrees on the horizon and what appeared to be 2,000 to 3,000 feet up."
Grabbing a videocamera, Ed's group shot footage of the lights that night.
"This continued for at least six different viewings at different time intervals until 12:30 a.m. (Thursday) May 29, 1997. Formations ranged from three (lights) in triangle, to four straight line, to five just scattered, to twelve...two to the left, five to the right on top and five just below them. No speed noted--objects were stationary, except for one sighting when four were present in a row. Two flew in from a higher altitude and then stopped and remained stationary. No approach or departure--lights appeared and disappeared usually in five to six minute intervals."
"A neighbor stated that on May 26 and May 27 they viewed similar lights in the same area," Ed added, "Our sightings were viewed by 10 people we know of, some as far away as 12 miles on top of a hill."
Local police attributed the strange amber/orange lights to "military parachute flares." (Email Interview)
DAYLIGHT DISC SPOTTED IN GLENDALE, ARIZONA
On Saturday, May 31, 1997, Rick C., age 49, was working in the backyard vegetable garden at his home in Glendale, Arizona (population 96,988) "when I heard a jet engine. We don't hear many this far north because the Sky Harbor Airport corridor is south, along the Salt River."
"I saw the jet just north of my house when suddenly I caught a white oblong object directly overhead. It was at a very high altitude and was moving faster than anything I've ever seen. It was moving from east to west. There was no trail and no sound...and it was gone in less than three seconds."
"I just stood there, unable to move, and whispered, 'What the hell was that!?' I looked at the sky for several minutes, hoping--and not hoping--to see another one," Rick reported. "What bothers me about the sighting is that it was at 11:28 a.m....and nobody else reported it. My wife and I watched ALL the news that evening. This is a big city (the Phoenix metro area) and someone else HAD to have seen that object besides me." (Email Interview)
UFO SEEN NORTHWEST OF LAKE TAHOE
On Saturday, May 24, 1997, at about 9:30 p.m., Peter H. and Chuck L. were "poking around in the hills between Kings Beach (California, on the north shore of Lake Tahoe) and Interstate (Highway) 80, close to (California) Highway 267" when they saw a mysterious light in the sky.
"I was looking south by southeast towards the lake," Pete said. "The lights were at about a 45 to 60 degree angle from where I was."
"There seemed to be some sort of hazy, amorphous cloud of light (barely noticeable if looked at directly) between the lights, as if the lights were surrounding something," Pete said, adding that the estimated speed of the UFO was "about 20 or 30 miles per hour as far as I could tell. That's hard to say, though. Have you ever seen a 747 landing? They look really slow because they are so large. They are really moving quite fast. There could have been the same effect here."
Pete added that the lights were going "west by northwest" and described the condition of the sky as "clear." (Email Interview)
DAYLIGHT DISC HOVERS OVER RUINS AT MESA VERDE
On Monday, May 26, 1997, four adults from White Wind Ranch decided to spend their Memorial Day holiday on a tour of the Anasazi Indian ruins at Mesa Verde National Park, 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Durango, Colorado.
As their tour finished at 12:30 p.m., "my visiting sister and I noticed a stationary silver 'circle' in the sky hovering below a vapor trail," Mrs. W said, "This is what made it so noticeable."
"It was quite high," she added, "The other two in our party were in a discussion so just my sister and I conferred on this. We observed it for about five minutes."
"Last night, when I retrieved me email, I noticed that (radio talk show host) Art Bell and his wife gave an identical description of what we saw--same day, same time, same length of observation, two states away." (Email Interview)
The night of May 26, Art Bell told his listeners that he and his wife, Rachel, had observed a daylight disc in the clear blue sky above their home in Pahrump, Nevada (population 1,000).
Art and Rachel Bell were walking across the yard to close a gate when he noticed "two contrails in the sky." Bell estimated that the object was above 40,000 feet (12,121 meters) and moving from the east-southeast to the north-northwest. Their sighting took place at approximately 11:40 a.m.
Retrieving a pair of powerful military surplus binoculars from the house, Bell reportedly spied what looked like "a round object, gleaming like a 100-watt bulb. The sun was behind us so it would not have been a reflection. The color was silver." The couple observed the UFO for about six minutes. (Many thanks to Steve Wilson for forwarding the Art Bell report.)
CIGAR-SHAPED UFO SIGHTED OVER SOUTHERN ONTARIO
On Thursday, May 22, 1997, at around 10:30 p.m., amateur astronomer Nicholas K. set up his Schmidt- Cassegrain telescope in his backyard in the town of Tillsonburg, Ontario (population 9,404). The town is 94 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Toronto.
Nick was looking around the sky "to find galaxies in the Big Dipper" when he spied "a giant white cloud and against it as a background saw a cigar-shaped object about the size of an aeroplane, black or brown in colour."
The UFO was "unlit" (not illuminated in any way) and "it had four or five 'wings' at right angles to and along its body." The object passed right over the witness, who kept it in view for 30 to 40 seconds.
"Flew at speed of plane," he reported, "No sound from the object. No idea of height but beneath cloud (under 12,000 feet--J.T.). It hadn't rained. Intermittent view of stars and planets. Close to full moon time. Didn't see craft through telescope." Nick's daughter "was with him at the time, but 'since it was near bed time, she didn't have her glasses on.'"
According to UFO investigator Joe Daniels, the witness "drew a picture of the object and showed it to his colleagues at work. One said it was reminiscent of 'a picture of craft from '60s in Belgium.'" (Many thanks to Joe Daniels for sending us this news story.)
ANOTHER UFO SIGHTED IN FRESNO, CALIFORNIA
On Thursday, May 29, 1997, at around 10 p.m., Mrs. Liv S. went outside to check the stars from the patio of her home in Fresno, California (population 218,202).
"It was a nice cool evening with a good breeze going," Liv reported. "I looked up and saw a clump of stars in the southeast portion of the sky. One of those stars was moving rather peculiarly. It traveled at differing speeds...across the sky heading northeast (towards Clovis--J.T.). I watched it intently, and saw it would go for a bit slowly...then stop for a sec, then do a jag and then pick up speed and zip a bit faster. That was no star. It was also unlike any satellite I'd ever seen before. With the weird way it would move in spurts. It continued on in a definite north-northeast direction" before finally disappearing on the horizon. (Many thanks to Steve Wilson for this news story.)
MULTIPLE UFO SIGHTING IN ANASCO, PUERTO RICO
According to the Puerto Rican newspaper El Vocero, "flying disks" were sighted by several eyewitnesses during late April 1997.
People living in the Playa section of Anasco, P.R. "reported the presence of strange flying objects over Anasco's skies. Although some of the residents declined to be identified out of fear of being laughed at, they stated that the flying disks crossed the sky in a south-north direction."
"A worker at a filling station located near State Highway #2 explained that one of the objects was circular in shape, extremely shiny, and moved at a prodigious rate of speed. 'It stood still for a moment, and six more lights came out of that thing. They flew off in different directions,' noted the witness."
"Following this, he explained, the strange flying discs fell into formation and returned to the larger object. 'They flew two-by-two and reentered the large light,' he indicated. This version was confirmed by an Anasco farmer, who claimed having seen the strange lights as he traveled along State Highway #2 from Mayaguez to this community (Anasco)." (See the Puerto Rican newspaper El Vocero for April 26, 1997, "UFO Traffic Jam in Skies Over Anasco" by Julio Victor Ramirez. Many thanks to Scott Corrales for sending this newspaper article.)
from the UFO Files...
1974: UFO IN THE HIMALAYAS
On June 15, 1974, Tibetan mountain climber Keo Wha Unan was inspecting a rock formation on the upper slopes of Mount Dahjar in the Himalayas. As he emerged from a cave, he "spotted a silvery disc hovering behind a crest of high rocks."
"It was windowless," Keo reported. "Shiny, silvery, spotless. There seemed to be no ridges or protrusions on the craft. It was hovering 1.3 meters (four feet) off the ground."
"Gathered about the strange UFO were three humanoid figures," Keo said. "They seemed to be gathering snow and ice particles and well as rocks and putting these things in their ship."
"Within five minutes after my initial sighting, they climbed aboard by means of a ladder-like device that descended from the center of the thing (saucer), and when they were inside, the machine started to hum," he added. "It rose several more feet into the air, and like a flash, shot straight up and disappeared behind a variety of thick snow clouds. It was the last I saw of it."
(See UFO UPDATE #5, Winter 1980 issue, "The Bizarre Ancient Astronauts of Tibet" by Harry Hill, page 64)
FUN UFO WEBSITES:
For the latest on the new crop circles in the Netherlands and at Ceska Lipa in the Czech Republic, drop in at Circles Phenomenon Research (CPR) Canada's Website. They're at this URL: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3310
The Centre of ET Studies can be contacted at http://members.aol.com/asmorrison. This site has a good selection of material on the Hudson Valley, New York UFO sightings.
Don't forget our parent site, UFOINFO. You'll find them at http://ufoinfo.com/
Back issues of UFO ROUNDUP are available for downloading at our site, which can be found at http://ufoinfo.com/roundup/
ROUNDUP CORRIGENDA:
In last week's issue, we ran a story on the UFO hoax in Sligo, Eire. Just to clear up a matter of addresses, the Fortean researchers who exposed the hoax were Daev Walsh of Dublin, Eire and Joe Harte of Sligo Bay, Eire. For more on UFO sightings in Eire, check out Daev Walsh's great newsletter, Blather, at http://www.nur.ie/blather/issue/no3.html
If you see a UFO story in your local newspaper, clip it out and send it to our snail-mail address:
Joseph Trainor
UFO ROUNDUP
2501 Leonard Street, Apt. 104
Duluth, Minnesota
USA 55811-2964
If you have a UFO to report, contact us online at Masinaigan@aol.com.
That's it for this week. To our readers in the USA, don't forget to pick up a present for Dad this week. Father's Day is June 15. We'll be back again next Sunday with more saucer news from "the paper that goes home--UFO ROUNDUP."
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1997 by Masinaigan Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post news items from UFO ROUNDUP on their Websites or in newsgroups provided that they credit the newsletter and its editor by name and list the date of the issue in which the news item first appeared.
