The Kecksburg UFO Incident
On December 9th 1965 a object from space landed in Kecksburg PA, about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Hundreds of eye witness from Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania observed what they believe is a UFO landing. The object appeared to be on fire but under intelligent control.
One little boy claims he saw the object land, his mother says she saw a wisp of blue smoke coming from the woods and called the police. A state police fire marshal and a undefiled man went into the woods to investigate. They went in with a Geiger counter, and a few minutes later, sealed off the area. They must have found something. Reporter and news director for WHJB, John Murphy investigated the incident after several calls from concerned residents. One such citizen is Frances Kalp.
Map of Kecksburg PA
Kalp stated that she saw an object which appeared to be on fire as it crashed into the woods not far from her house in Westmoreland. Murphy interviewed Kalp and her four children, while the state police searched the crash site, in the woods. Murphy waited to get the police departments report, but neither Carl Metz nor Paul Shipco, whom headed the investigation, would talk to Murphy. Pilots claimed they were struck by a shockwaves as the object raced passed them. Witness on the ground also felt shockwaves and claims of sonic booms.
Other witness’s including members from a local volunteer fire department; claim they saw an object the size of a Volkswagen Beetle with Egyptian hieroglyphics written on the side. There are people who claim they went down to the woods where the crash happened, before the authorities arrive and claimed they saw a large metallic acorn-shaped object partially buried in the ground. They say the object was big enough for a man to stand in.
Weeks later, while becoming engrossed with the incident, Murphy made a radio documentary called “Object in the woods.” Shorty before the document was to air, Murphy was visited by “men in black”, or government officials. A WHJB employee, Linda Foschia claims the meeting lasted 30 minutes behind closed doors, and when Murphy emerged, he appeared agitated, he altered the program, which ended up revealing nothing important. The men took several minutes of audio tape and photographs.
Murphy aired a watered down version of the documentary, which revealed nothing important. In fact it didn’t even mention an object at all. Murphy claimed the edited version was censored due to interviewees who didn’t want to get in trouble with the police or army.
After Air Force authorities disproved such theories as a plane crash, back fired missile test, or satellite debris, they concluded it to be a meteor, and nothing was ever found.
In February 1966 Sky and Telescope reported that the fireball was seen over the Detroit area about 4:44 am. The FAA had received about 23 reports from aircraft pilots, about that time.
In March 1966 Ivan Sanderson, a noted UFO researcher interviewed a number of eyewitness. He concluded the object had a clear path moving from northeast to southeast, a journey that lasted no more then 6 minutes, moving at a top speed of a little more then 1,000 MPH. Sanderson discovered that the object had changed course and headed east.
It is also believed that what fell that day was really debris from a Soviet satellite, Kosmos 96. The satellite fits the size and description seen by most witnesses. The problem, Kosmos 96 crashed over Canada 13 hours earlier.
Chief scientist at the NASA Johnson space center, Nicholas L. Johnson, said in a statement, “I can tell you categorically, that there is no way that any debris from Cosmos 96 could have landed in Pennsylvania anywhere around 4:45 p.m., That’s an absolute. Orbital mechanics is very strict.”
In 1990 two witness came forward who came forward claim to be part of the military who claim they wee told “shoot any body who got to close.” They also claim that the object was being transported to Wright Patterson Air force base.
In December 2005 after they reexamined the metallic fragments NASA released this statement “The object appeared to be a Russian satellite that re-entered the atmosphere and broke up. NASA experts studied fragments from the object, but records of what they found were lost in the 1990s. A story released to the Associated Press:
“As a rule, we don’t track UFOs. What we could do, and what we apparently did as experts in spacecraft in the 1960s, was to take a look at whatever it was and give our expert opinion,” David Steitz, A NASA spokesman said. “We did that, we boxed (the case) up and that was the end of it. Unfortunately, the documents supporting those findings were misplaced.”
On October 26, 2007 NASA was ordered by a court to search for the missing records, most of which we found to have been destroyed.