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Mike Conley's Tales of the Weird: The great UFO scare of October 1973

By Mike Conley | The McDowell News

Published: May 6, 2009

In October 1973, folks across the country were worried and scared about a lot of things. The Yom Kippur War threatened the existence of Israel and it led to OPEC proclaiming an oil embargo. That in turn led to gas rationing in cities and towns across the United States. Meanwhile, the Watergate scandal continued to make headlines as the public learned more and more about the corruption in the Nixon administration.
At around that time, many folks throughout the country stepped forward with reports about weird objects in the sky. It came to be known as the great UFO scare of October 1973.
The wave of UFO sightings apparently started in the South. During the first few days of October 1973, mysterious flashing lights were reported by hundreds of Southerners. They were seen in Greenville and Charleston in South Carolina; Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga in Tennessee; Griffin, Macon and Columbus in Georgia; Tuscaloosa and Auburn in Alabama; and Tupelo and Starkville in Mississippi.
For example, a National Park Service ranger in Tupelo, Miss. said he saw a flying saucer the size of a two-bedroom house hover overhead for about 15 minutes flashing red, green and yellow lights.
"I've been dealing with the public for years and I know people exaggerate and see what they want to see, but I know I saw this," said Thomas E. Westmoreland, a ranger for the Tupelo subdistrict of the Natchez Trace Parkway.
Three other rangers and a deputy sheriff were with him when he saw the strange craft. Highway patrolmen, policemen and a sheriff all reported seeing strange flying objects over northeastern Mississippi that same night.
Westmoreland said the object had lights but they didn't look like those found on airplanes.
"I know this sounds strange, and I can assure you I'm sober," he said in a UPI report. "It was approximately 1,000 feet in altitude and roughly the size of a two-bedroom house or a little smaller."
In addition, a farmer in Georgia said a strange, glowing, egg-shaped object landed on his property and took off again. In Louisiana, sheriff's deputies chased five orange-red lights through 12 miles of piney woods. A woman in Rockville, Md. said she saw a huge craft, shaped like a "double-decked Ferris wheel," streaking over the town, according to a Web site.
One of the most famous episodes ever of an alien abduction also occurred in Mississippi that month. Charles Hickson, 45, and Calvin Parker, 19, claimed they were taken aboard a UFO and examined by silvery-skinned aliens with big eyes and pointed ears while on a fishing trip. This event was written about more extensively in an earlier Tales of the Weird.
Other reports from the great UFO scare of 1973 came from Ohio. For example, a Cleveland woman reportedly saw a UFO land in a field during the early morning hours of Oct. 1.
"When I first saw it," said Barbara Marquardt in the UPI report, "it only looked about a foot in diameter, but it was up high. It was a really loud green. Real bright. I never saw anything like this before."
Marquardt, 20, said the strange object traveled over her car and descended on a curve to the surface of the field. However, the local police couldn't find any evidence of what she saw.
On the night of Oct. 18, an U.S. Army captain and three Army reservists saw a mysterious craft fly past their helicopter as they were traveling near Mansfield, Ohio. The helicopter was flying about 2,500 feet and the crew first thought it was a radio tower. But the crew was startled when they realized the light was coming toward them. They got a better look at the UFO and later described it as a cigar-shaped object "unlike anything produced on earth."
Even Ohio Gov. John J. Gilligan got into the UFO phenomenon when he said he too had seen one. "I saw one the other night, so help me," he told startled reporters.
The governor described seeing an amber-colored beam of light while he was driving on Route 23. "I'm absolutely serious," he said. "I saw this. It was not a plane. It was not a bird. It didn't wear a cape. And I really don't know what it was."
Whether the great UFO scare of October 1973 was a case of mass hysteria or a series of actual visits by extraterrestrials is a question that may never be settled. But what is known is that people still talk about it even after 36 years.

Contact Mike Conley at 652-3313, ext. 3422 or e-mail nconley@mcdowellnews.com.