25 November 1977
(Arkansas Democrat, Little Rock, Arkansas)
Sources: U.F.O. Newsclipping Service, Plumerville, Arkansas
and AFU.se
The whole article (Page 10):
“The pursuit of ‘flying saucers’ can be a difficult
thing for a scientist, especially if he becomes convinced he has found what he
was looking for.
‘It’s changed my life completely,’ Dr. Harley D. Rutledge,
physics department chairman of Southeast
Missouri State
University in Cape Girardeau, said. Colleagues call him a
man not prone to exaggeration.
Rutledge began as a skeptic in 1973 when it was
suggested that he investigate a rash of sightings of unidentified flying
objects in southeast Missouri.
Now, after more than four years of firsthand research and observation, he has
reluctantly admitted he cannot debunk the stories.
The information gathered by Rutledge, including more
than 700 photographs, resulted from hundreds of nights spent in the air, in
fields and on hillsides, accompanied, always, by other observers and equipment
which includes telescopes, cameras and a spectrograph.
At 51, married, with five children, he is laying his
reputation and career on the line and saying that there really is something up
there that cannot be explained by conventional logic.
‘Now I know they are up there. What they are or where
they came from, I have no way of knowing. But they are there,’ he said in a
recent interview.
Rutledge himself has made more than 140 sightings, both
in broad daylight and at night. At least 25 of those sightings he labels as
‘incredible.’
Three of the most convincing sightings occurred within
two weeks of each other in May 1973. The first, from the air, involved what he
calls ‘a 45-second metamorphosis'’ involving 10 balls of light that had no
business being where they were, in the air near the small town of Piedmont, Mo.
The second and third sightings, which he believes to
be conclusive because he was so close to the objects, were made near Farmington, Mo.,
about two weeks later. On the night of May 24 Rutledge and several other observers
spotted an object with a triangular shaped light pattern passing over them.
Rutledge tentatively labeled the object as an airplane, but said later evidence
discounted that possibility.
The next night, he said, he and his colleagues
observed a huge object that had nearly passed over them before they spotted it.
‘It had four lights, two red and two white,’ the
professor said . ‘It was dose enough that I could see parts of it through my 80-power
telescope. It had a metallic skin and I could make out a ribbed pattern in the
red lights.’
Because of the delicacy of his position, Rutledge said
he has been reluctant to talk about the phenomena. Now, he said, he believes he
can survive the scoffing he will hear — and he says he believes he has an
obligation to tell the public what he knows.
Rutledge’s colleagues point out that he is an intense
man, but rational and conservative.
‘Anything he does has lots of effort put into it,’
said Dr. Donald Fromsdorf, dean of the College of Sciences
at SEMO. ‘Everything is done professionally, scientifically.
‘I have no qualms about his professional integrity or
the way he goes about things. But he has taken on a momumental task.’
Much of the work has been funded through grants from
the university and a special grant from the St. Louis Globe-Denocrat [sic].
Rutledge reviews, but will not include in his research
data, reports from laymen. He also refuses to associate with amateur UFO clubs,
which he says he has learned are usually run by persons seeking no more than
cheap thrills or publicity.
‘I really didn’t ask for the position in which I now
find myself,’ Rutledge said . ‘But now if I am to perform a service, I suppose
it must be to prepare people for the various possibilities.’
The professor emphasizes that he does not know the
origin of the objects he has seen. But he does say he has documented evidence
that they have performed aerial gymnastics that seem far beyond what any known
manmade aircraft can do.
‘Not only have I seen strange vehicles and lights by
both day and night,’ he said, ‘but they appear to be intelligently controlled
and seem to interact with human beings.’
Have the experiences frightened him?
‘I don’t like the word frightened,’ he said. ‘They
have made me uneasy. When I returned from Piedmont
after the first conclusive sightings, I was in the dumps for about two weeks.
But I got a lot of support from the university and from my family and I was
finally able to say, ‘If this is the worst, well, then we’re all in it together.’
‘But it has changed my life. I have no social life to
speak of because of the time required for the research. But I guess I can’t
stop now. I feel I must try to make people gain a little better understanding of
it.’ ”
Related posts:
realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=1973
The late Dr. Harley D. Rutledge, U.S. Physicist & UFO Researcher
(kplcblogs.typepad.com photo)
