LOOKING FOR THE STORY: Saucers at the Cinema (A Drive-In)

Project Blue Book closed in 1969, the office packed up by 1970 and yet the reports of people seeing things in the skies continued. Sometimes they garnered no story of their own but were merely mentioned in another news piece. Events common knowledge by word-of-mouth in a community sometimes never made into the pages of the newspaper. 

That was the case of the CIGAR SHAPED OBJECT over a drive-in theater in Norman, Oklahoma in 1971.

Having lived in the university town when there was no drive-in, I was intrigued. To my amazement, there were actually two drive-ins in the town plus three traditional movie theaters. There was the Rancho Drive-in managed at one time by OU Alum Jim Shrewberry.  It was located in the area of Alameda and 12th Street.  The one most people seemed to remember was on that remained open into the 1980's and the Riverside Drive-in Theater, 1 1/2 mile southwest of Norman.

The incident was briefly recounted in an article of November 1971 in the college newspaper, Oklahoma Daily, discussing a science fiction literature class deciding to do a survey of campus and public related to the UFO phenomena. In passing it was mentioned that several different people had reported seeing the same object over a local drive-in theater. It was described as "cigar shaped", and of "lighted metallic" material and that when it disappeared, it did so by raising straight up. 

CAN YOU HELP? Anyone have any personal, first-hand information about this event? Use the contact form on this page to send it to me. The volume 2 of SOONER SAUCERS is coming to a close but your information just might make the publishing date!

A final note, those who like to argue that most UFO sightings of the 1950-1960 period were caused by movies at the theater or the drive-in or on television. Turns out there were more horror movies made in those years than UFO movies and so with that logic there should have been a lot more "monster" sightings in that time frame. Oddly, there were not.  Also, a comparison of sighting details and reports indicates the same re-occurring shapes and movements from 1947 were consistently reported through the years of Project Blue Book.  Good, academic-sounding, reports on the topic but deeper looks into the facts appear to indicate something else. 

Thanks, and "keep watching the skies!"

Marilyn A. Hudson