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   PID: Synchronet 3.19b-Win32 master/a2a9dc027 Jan  2 2022 MSC 1928   
   TID: SBBSecho 3.14-Win32 master/a2a9dc027 Jan  2 2022 MSC 1928   
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   SUBJECT: WYTHEVILLE, VA UFO SIGHTINGS                        FILE: UFO1202   
      
   PART 1   
      
      
   Sb:  APtn 10/19 0859  UFO Sightings   
      
      
   By DIRK BEVERIDGE Associated Press Writer    
      WYTHEVILLE, Va. (AP) -- Wythe County sheriff's deputies have seen the lights   
   in the sky that are causing a local UFO craze, but they are not preparing to   
   battle space aliens.    
      "I'd rather have something else put us on the map," chief deputy Herb Cooley   
   said. "This brings all the weirdos out. Before this is over, somebody's going   
   to   
   have to see some little green men."    
      Cooley said the department has received more than a dozen calls about UFOs   
   in   
   the past few weeks, but he pointed out that many more people who have seen the   
   flying lights probably keep their mouths shut so no one will question their   
   sanity.    
      He has heard reports of the objects swooping down and running cars off the   
   road, but the department has not received any such complaints.    
      Sheriff's Sgt. Cihmer Collins, who spent 22 years in the military before he   
   became a civilian lawman, has seen the mysterious craft and says they are   
   probably with the armed forces.    
      "I've seen a bunch of them, and all I've seen is refueling," a manuever that   
   involves two aircraft joined in what appears to be a stationary position before   
   suddenly bolting off in different directions. That matches the behavior of red   
   and white lights seen by some of the UFO witnesses.    
      "They did the same thing in Vietnam," Collins said. "There ain't no UFOs."    
      But three military spokespersons in the Norfolk area said by telephone that   
   the silent airships described over Wythe County do not sound like anything in   
   the U.S. arsenal.    
      "I don't have anything that doesn't make sound," said Ace Ewers, a spokesman   
   for the Naval Air Station Oceana. He said A-6 Intruder bombers from Oceana fly   
   in the Wytheville area, but they make a lot of noise.    
      "If it wasn't making sound, I don't have any explanation for what they're   
   talking about," Ewers said. "If the government's working on something like   
   that,   
   I don't know anything about it."    
      Nobody else contacted by The Associated Press had a good explanation,   
   although eyewitness accounts of the UFOs are easy to come by around Wythe   
   County.    
      A waitress in the Country Kitchen in Rural Retreat said a crowd watched a   
   UFO   
   from the parking lot one night last week. She described it as round, like a   
   Frisbee, with bright red and white lights cutting silently across the sky.   
   Other   
   witnesses have reported green lights on objects of varying shapes.    
      Jack and Carolyn Ellison told reporters about their sighting of two flying   
   objects, one shaped like a saucer and the other like a large arrowhead that was   
   following it at a rather low altitude.    
      "We just stood right there where that Oldsmobile is and it went right over   
   that maple tree," Jack Ellison said.    
      "An airplane wouldn't have been that low, and it would have made noise,"   
   said   
   Carolyn Ellison. "I said, `Maybe it's the Goodyear blimp,' but Jack said, `No,   
   that makes noise."'    
      She had no idea what the things might be.    
      "I've heard of UFOs, but I don't know," she said. "When I turned the radio   
   on   
   and found out other people saw it, I began to wonder."    
      Wytheville radio station WYVE has received numerous calls about the UFOs.   
   News Director Danny Gordon has been recording and airing some of the accounts.    
      "Eighty percent are probably natural lights, Jupiter, the moon -- eyes   
   playing tricks on them, the bottle," Gordon said. The other 20 percent sound   
   believable, he said.    
      His callers have described objects including a silvery cigar shape, a green   
   camouflage cigar shape, a floating triangle and pairs of lights that hover for   
   a   
   while before splitting apart and quickly vanishing.    
      Gordon said he has talked with people who seriously keep up with UFOs, and   
   they have warned him to be on the alert for government men in black suits who   
   will try to get him to stop publicizing the sightings. UFO followers have said   
   the government has for years hidden its knowledge of UFOs to avoid widespread   
   public panic.    
      "I haven't heard anything from the government to tell me to stop doing the   
   story," Gordon said. "If they're down here, they're down here incognito."    
         
         
   Copyright 1987 by the Associated Press.  All rights reserved.    
      
                    
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