Lexington. Missouri, March 1967

 March 12 about 5:00-5:15 p.m. a fifteen year old snapped some photos of an object viewed around his house in Lexington, Missouri. It was coming out of the WNW heading toward the SE at a good but slower than a jet pace, "it shot over the house from the west" the witness stated , and it was a dull gray. The witness estimated it to be 15-20 feet wide and about 5 feet in height and it made no noise and had no lights showing. He observed it, snapping several photos, for about 3 minutes.    The file is an undated file (xxxx xx 7471144, 22 pages) in the illegible forest of Project Blue Book hiding interesting trees.

The sighting was reported. The photo was duly submitted to photo analysts by the Air Force who reported finding "panning" that seemed to indicate the object was rising or falling and not simply "floating" as the witness alleged. The report also alleged some smearing that might, they  said, have come from trying to track an object tossed into the air.

The terse explanation was that the "photo does not substantiate statement by witness" and someone had suggested a "polygraph needed."

Another attempted "Hoax"and the Air Force could close its books. Two things are strange. In previous reports by such photograph analysts there was far more detached tone to the report. They were often like the chemical analysts, who clearly left interpretations to others.  Here it appears they were determined to clearly, and strongly, assign the label.  Secondly, there were too many people across the country in 1967 who were seeing some strange things.

One aspect of the report that bears close examination is the illustration of the witness about the object he had captured on camera.  The way that shape of the object changes in response to movement and the presepctive of the viewer has something that was slow to gain a foothold in UFO research.  There are charts of a great variety of shapes for UFO's; a fact that only added to the hurdle of recognition for UFO researchers. "How would be crazy enough to believe in something with so many different shapes?" That was a hard one to answer. The possibility that people were responding not to dozens of different shapes but to a common range of shapes, viewed from differing perspectives, and interpreted by various individual experiences or cultural settings, reduces the vast numbers of shape to a smaller, more workable, range of shapes. The witnesses sketch illustrates this point very clearly:

IF - this was an isolated case - the hoax story might be more believable. Instead, this is part of a cluster of unidentifieds reported in early 1967 along two distinctive pathways across Missouri. On the eastern borderlands of Missouri on February 8, 1967 in Crawford County is Bourbon, Missouri.  There, several witnesses reported seeing reddish flowing light(s), size of a small grapefruit, hovering, using a large white light as a search light back and forth over the landscape  at a low level.
April 17 sightings by several witnesses will emerge from the Cedar City and Jefferson City areas. These are across the state but on a similar path for an object traveling from Lexington (outside of Kansas City, Missouri) and headed toward St. Louis and points east from there).

To be continued...