Vol. 90, No. 144, 11 June 1982
(Douglas County
News-Press, Castle Rock, Colorado)
Source: coloradohistoricnewspapers.org
The whole article:
“ ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ may have been
an exciting film to view – but unexplained phenomena in the night sky can be
rather frightening. Just ask Elizabeth
area residents Mike and Sue Hopkins, who were witnesses to an unexplained event
May 27 (1982).
The couple was traveling down County Road-5, near the
LeRoy Evans ranch, when they suddenly viewed a brightly lit object hovering
approximately 20 feet
off the ground.
‘It was unexplainable,’ Sue reported, ‘a UFO, I’d say.
There was no other description for it.’
Sue described the object as having ‘three big white
lights, two straight across from each other, but wide across and another up
high.’
‘On the bottom there was a row of lights: red, yellow,
red, then two bright white ones – I mean really, really bright,’ she continued.
Sue said the object ‘sounded like a jet, but it was
really, really low – no more than 20 feet above the ground.’
‘My husband stopped the car. I asked him why he
stopped and he said, ‘Because it’s coming right toward us.’ ’
‘The lights were incredibly bright,’ Mike confirmed.
‘It was pitch dark and I said, ‘What the heck is that?’ We stopped and watched,
then it banked. It sounded like a jet motor, but only when you got up close.
When it crossed over real close to us, it sounded like a jet, but it was going incredibly
slowly. Where I was, where it turned, was only about 300 yards and by that
time that thing was going too fast to be any airplane I know of. I don’t see
how it could’ve been a plane. It was low, just clearing the tops of the trees.
‘A helicopter makes a lot of noise when it banks and
out here on a quiet night sound travels forever. A jet or helicopter would have
been very distinct. There was no sound until it started banking,’ he explained.
The couple received a further surprise when they
arrived home, there were pictures ‘all over the place the kids had drawn on
napkins’ of an unusual object – bright lights and all – which had flown over
the house.
‘The kids were a little nervous. They said it passed
over close to the house four time [sic],
headed east and turned. My son said it was so close when it crossed over the
house, he could have thrown rocks at it. When they went to the back door and
ponted [sic] out where
it turned, I said, ‘That’s where we saw it.’ If I didn’t know better I’d say it
turned almost deliberately, banked,’ Mike added.
‘We had just seen this thing – it was a UFO, there’s
nothing else to it. The kids wre [sic]
home, we just stepped in the door and the kids were scared to death,’ Sue
continued.
‘Jeff, the youngest was kind of upset,’ Mike agreed.
‘He kept telling us to carry in all the dirt you can – remember the movie? I
knew I’d seen something, the kids just backed up that I’d seen something.’”
The article contains a drawing of the UFO (drawn by
Brian Hopkins, 13).
Wikipedia article: “Elizabeth, Colorado”:
Related posts:
(no results as of 7 March 2019)
realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=1982
Satellite photo of Elizabeth, Colorado
(tageo.com)
(tageo.com photo)
