Number 281, September 1991
(Mutual UFO Network, Seguin,
Texas)
The article, “Looking Back” (by
Bob Gribble) contains a UFO case report about a 7 September 1976 radar/visual
UFO incident that involve radar operators of the 754th Radar Squadron at Port
Austin (Michigan) Air Force Station (now closed) and NORAD officers:
The whole UFO case report:
“1976 • ‘Radar operators
of the 754th Radar Squadron at Port Austin, Michigan Air Force Station,
reported tracking five unknown objects for about 30 minutes early on the morning
of the seventh,’ according to Major William Frensley, an information
officer at North American Aerospace Defense Command headquarters in
Colorado Springs, Colorado. He also confirmed that two police officers and a
civilian who observed the UFOs from the ground were questioned by NORAD. The UFOs
were first reported to the police at 9:30 p.m. on the sixth by Carl Bailey, 28,
one of the witnesses questioned by NORAD. He said the objects were ‘shaped like
bat wings. There were a lot of them. It seemed like a whole fleet. It was
amazing.’
Bailey said he got a phone call
at home from the radar base at about 2:30 a.m. on the seventh. ‘They
asked me to go outside and see if I could still spot something. I took a look and
they were still up there.’ When Bailey reported what he saw, he was connected
with the senior officer in charge at the 23rd NORAD Region Headquarters in Duluth,
Minnesota. ‘He asked me what the objects looked like. I told him and he asked a
couple more questions and then said: ‘Well, the Air Force doesn’t investigate
UFOs anymore, Mr. Bailey,’ and he thanked me.’ But Huron County sheriffs
deputies Greg Gordon and Gary King were also interviewed about what they saw.
Gordon, 24, reported: ‘We observed one object ... It would descend very
rapidly, looking as though it was going to land. It would then return to its original height.’
At 5 a.m., two men from the 754th Radar
Squadron came out to the scene. Major Frensley said it’s not unusual for NORAD
to question people who’ve reported seeing UFOs. ‘We like to talk to as many
people as possible so we can correlate these sightings ...’ But the Port Austin
UFOs remain a mystery. ‘We ‘know what the objects were,’ Major Frensley
admitted. Major Richard W. White, station information officer, later said, ‘Our
scope covers hundreds of square miles. At
any time of day, we may have as many as 100 to 150 ‘UFOs’ on the screen.’ ”
The 8 September 1976 issue of the
Huron Daily Tribune (Bad Axe, Michigan) is the first source of Gribble’s case report.
Map of Huron County, Michigan,
highlighting Port Austin
(wikimedia.org image)
