4 March 1976
(Daytona Beach Morning Journal, Florida)
The whole article:
“An unidentified flying object, ‘neither an airplane
nor a star,’ was sighted in Southwest Volusia Monday (2 February 1976) by
several persons, including two sheriff’s deputies.
A Deltona woman was apparently the first to sight the
object and she notified the sheriff’s office at 5:49 a.m., according to a
report released by the sheriff’s office Tuesday.
Two deputies on routine patrol near Taylor Road south
of DeLand, heard the call. They pulled over and watched the object through
field glasses for 20 minutes as it moved about the southern sky.
‘It was very strange,’ said Deputy Richard Samuels,
who watched the UFO with his partner, Deputy L. R. Schneider. Samuels said
there were two objects about treetop level and they seemed to change color,
climb, come together, separate and finally stablize.
Samuels said his shift commander, Sgt. Ben Johnson,
also viewed the UFO as did Florida Highway Patrol personnel in DeLand.
The object was reported to the control tower at
Daytona Beach Regional Airport, according to the report, and the sheriff’s
office was told it was ‘neither an airplane nor a star.’
The FHP sighting could not be confirmed and Bert
Chambers, head of traffic control at the airport, said there was nothing in his
logs about a UFO Monday.
A Deltona resident, Winifred C. Stavracos, who called
in the original report, described the object as being 20 times as bright as a
star and said it looked as if it were moving in a circle with a pulsating
light.
Mrs. Stavracos said her daughter also witnessed the
UFO and said she had seen another one less than a month ago.
A DeLand resident, Bill Dunn, reported Tuesday he had
seen a ‘round light that came up from the ground, made a half circle and went
back down again’ while on an early morning paper route two weeks ago south of
DeLand.
‘It was odd,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t think much of it
until I heard about this one in the same area.’
Samuels said he had kept a lookout for the UFO again
Tuesday morning, but saw nothing and has heard no further reports concerning
it.”
Satellite photo of DeLand, Florida (tageo.com)
(tageo.com photo)
