SUBJECT: ALABAMA SIGHTING REPORT FILE: UFO1271 Msg# : 4485 Sat 4 Mar 89 11:39a From : Meade Frierson To : Sysop Subject: fyffe Status : -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Birmingham Post-Herald,Feb.17,1989 Transcribed by Meade Frierson By Kathy Kemp, Post-Herald Reporter FYFFE [AL] -- Fred Works does not fit the stereotype of a fellow who encounters UFOs. He doesn't live in a trailer, he has all his teeth, and his friends don't call him Bubba. But Works, the assistant police chief in a rural Sand Mountain community of 1,400, realizes some people just won't be convinced. "You know how it is," he said, sitting in a booth during the lunch hour rush yesterday at King's Grill. "It always happens in some small town in Alabama that has a sheriff named Bubba or Junior." Works, 35, and Fyffe Police Chief Junior Garmany were checking out reports of a peculiar-shaped object in the sky last Friday night when -- as their patrol car cruised in the area of Gilbert's Crossroads -- they looked up and there it was. "It was about 1,500 feet off the ground, and we could tell it was big," Works said. "I'd say it was triangular shaped. It didn't have any wings. We never heard an engine, and it flew right over us. There was this white light on the bottom that was shining up against the thing. Seems like there were also some red lights." Works realizes such a tale is bound to prompt whoops from the skeptics, like J. W. Boggs, a chicken farmer who was having coffee yesterday in a King's Grill back booth. "I've been trying to find some of the stuff they was drinking that night, but I hadn't been able to find it," Boggs said. Added Edward Carroll, a retiree seated across from Boggs: "I wouldn't-a told it if I'd-a seen it." The assistant police chief seemed to take the good-natured ribbing in stride. "I don't drink at all," Works said. "I don't even take an aspirin. And the chief, well -- we definitely wouldn't be drinking on duty, anyway." When they spotted whatever it was they spotted Friday night, Works and Garmany -- who make up half the Fyffe police force -- were responding to a telephone call from Donna Saylor. A homemaker in the Kelly's Chapel community near Fyffe, Mrs. Saylor had reported seeing a brightly lighted "banana-shaped" object hovering over a neighbor's pasture just after 7:30 p.m. "My sister and I had gone to Fyffe to the grocery store about 7 o'clock -- we was getting some Alka-Seltzer Plus -- and when we were going home we saw this bright light in the sky just over the trees," she said. "It wasn't moving, but it was too big to be a heliocopter. It just about scared my sister to death. And then it disappeared, just like if you were standing here and all of a sudden you disappeared." A few minutes later, the women spotted the object flying in the distance, she said. They ran to the house to get their husbands, and the whole group took turns with a pair of bino- culars. "It was far enough away that we could see it was shaped like a banana, and it had red lights on the end and green lights all across the bottom. Every so often it looked like it was turning, and then it looked like a big ball with green lights coming out of the bottom, kind of like fireworks." The mother of a 2-year old, Mrs. Saylor -- like Works -- is a responsible-looking person who hardly seems the type to make a habit of hunting UFOs. Sitting in the living room of her brand-new log cabin, she seemed both amused and concerned. "I have two conclusions," she said. "First, it's a UFO from outer space. The other is, it's something the government is testing, and they do it in these little out-of-the-way places where they think nobody but hicks live." Garmany, who joined the police force in 1972, wasn't sure what it was, but he's sure what it wasn't. "What we seen, it was no kind of hoax," he said. "A UFO is what it was." Mrs. Saylor and the officers pooh-poohed the noKion the object could have been a weather balloon. And a National Weather Service official said any weather balloon that drifted into the area would have burst by 7 p.m., a half-hour before the sightings. Airport officials in Huntsville and Birmingham had no ex- planation, Garmany said. And Dominic Amatore, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, said he couldn't figure it out either. "We don't have any tracking here of celestial objects, and we don't launch or fire anything." "Redstone Arsenal does some testing of missiles, but I can't imagine them flying off the installation." Whatever it was, it's stirred up more excitement in the town than Garmany's seen in his 17-year career. He said he's had telephone calls from reporters in Canada, Oregon, California and Texas. And TV crews from Atlanta and all over Alabama have trampled into town with their cameras. The hoopla has triggered a few rumors, such as the unconfirmed report of a terrified farmer firing his 12-gauge shotgun at the object in the sky. Pranksters sent Works and Garmany identical T-shirts that say "Welcome home, E.T." And some devilish soul poked Christmas tree lights into a banana and hung it by a string in the police station -- right over Works' desk. It has been the inspiration for Charles Bailey, a 31-year old construction worker and lifelong Fyffe resident. Bailey and his brother Jeff, 23, are selling their "I survived the Sand Mountain UFO" T-shirts for $10 apiece. Pictured on the shirts is a rural scene, with a black top road running toward a mountain. On the road is a police car, and standing beside the car, pointing toward a gigantic banana in the sky, is a policeman with red hair. Guess what color Works' hair is. =================================================================== ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************