[The April 1, 1997 edition of CNI News carried a story about extensive UFO activity reported in the vicinity of Cincinnati, Ohio on the night of March 26. A local research organization called T.A.S.K. (Tri-State Advocates for Scientific Knowledge) collected numerous eyewitness accounts, and spokesman Kenny Young said at the time that the cause of the sightings remained undetermined. However, Young's report, summarized in CNI News, clearly suggested that flares used in aerial military maneuvers probably explained the events. To this suggestion, CNI News replied:
"The military maneuvers explanation for these sightings seems inadequate, given the information presented by T.A.S.K. in this report... CNI News wonders why neither the military nor the press saw fit to make a simple announcement concerning the alleged military maneuvers, when hundreds or even thousands of witnesses were asking for an explanation... We respectfully call upon T.A.S.K. to dig deeper and submit a further report of their findings when available."
On April 3, 1997, CNI News received a letter from Terry Endres, Director of T.A.S.K., which read in part: "Bear in mind that T.A.S.K. is neither a flying saucer club nor a den of debunkery. We have been following whatever leads have come our way wherever they take us. That we choose to err on the side of caution should not be seen as a policy to swallow whatever official lines are thrown our way. We take our investigations seriously since the only good UFO database is a clean one. We are simply being as responsible as possible."
On April 7, Kenny Young issued a statement titled "Questions About the Flare Theory," acknowledging that more information was coming to light that might cast doubt upon a simple military flares explanation. In that statement, he wrote:
"Clearly, the objective reader must not be fooled into thinking these happenings are 'routine,' as was indicated by the Air National Guard Sergeant from Springfield, Ohio, who was interviewed by T.A.S.K. Hence the mass UFO SIGHTINGS reported from Ohio and Arizona indicates the happening was anything BUT common. Routine maneuvers involving flares would not engender the outrage which ensued, as any 'routine' practices of this sort would be recognized by the general populace."
Then on April 14, Young issued a longer statement presenting new eyewitness testimony. Prefacing this statement, Young wrote: "The reader is kindly reminded that T.A.S.K. seeks to use the best conventional explanation to account for this event. Only after all rational possibilities have been discounted will this event be listed as unexplainable." However, he also declared: "Although T.A.S.K. had previously held that the March 26th UFO event witnessed by thousands over Southern Ohio was explainable according to comments made by a Springfield, Ohio Air National Guard Sergeant, we cannot now maintain such a stand without complete review of witness statements that contradict the attempted explanation."
The following text is excerpted from Kenny Young's latest compilation of eyewitness reports. CNI News thanks Kenny Young, Terry Endres and T.A.S.K. for continuing to pursue this investigation and keeping us informed of their progress. T.A.S.K. maintains a web site at http://home.fuse.net/task/ and Kenny Young may be emailed at task@fuse.net.]
by Kenny Young
The following information is considered KEY DETAILS regarding the March 26th happening over Southern Ohio.
At 9:45 p.m. [Sunday, April 13] a phone call was placed to the Mayor of New Vienna, [Ohio], Mr. Ed Brown. Mr. Brown acknowledged being a witness to the event on March 26, but added that he felt more comfortable if his wife would discuss the matter. Mrs. Brown willingly provided the following details regarding the objects she observed on March 26 around 8:00 p.m.
"...it lasted for a good 45-minutes, longer than I expected. You would see the lights off and on. And then all of a sudden these four planes came from the left of us and went heading toward the lights there. These planes were flying so low, I had never seen anything like it before...
"My nephew said that he was outside playing basketball, and he saw something drop from the sky and bounce back up off of the ground in that area... Other people also saw this light drop from the sky and bounce back up, and the word my brother received was that 'these planes were testing some kind of secret weapon' of some kind, and that they was using some kind of secret missile, and the missile dropped and hit the ground and distintegrated, and there was a hole in the ground by Leesburgh, between Highland and Leesburgh on Underground Road. But they said the missile rose back up into the sky again. I don't know if it was reported to the Sheriff's department... The object hit the ground. My nephew saw it and also Steve Garren, who saw it and drove by it. He said it hit the ground and went back up into the air again...
"And then later that night, there were helicopters flying around, more so than I've ever seen out here before. The helicopters were circling around Route 28, and I've seen Airborne Express and other planes out here a number of times, but these were helicopters, and there were quite a few of them, and it seemed like they were looking for something, I could speculate. I went driving after 11:00 p.m., and that's when I saw them. I was driving north on 28, and they were everywhere. I saw them and I heard them. I don't know what kind of helicopters they were."
At 10:30 p.m., [Sunday, April 13] a phone call was made to Steve Garren of New Vienna, Ohio. Garren is an official with the New Vienna Fire Department and also E.M.S. (Emergency Medical Service)... What follows are comments made by Garren:
"Before we seen it hit the ground there were three triangle-type lights in order, not flashing... an exact pyramid shape in the sky. There was one object behind the three that was flashing. I couldn't tell, they just looked like a large ball of light that kept getting brighter. You wouldn't see it and then all of a sudden there it was again.
"We hunted for the area. It was towards Greenfield and Hillsboro. We could never find it. We saw a cop, we stopped and talked to him, and he radioed his dispatcher. I'm on the fire department too, and was monitoring the radio traffic and that's when I heard it was Wright Patterson Air Force Base, but we could never find the area. [Note: A Wright Patterson spokesperson denied any knowledge of these events.]
"Have you ever seen a real bright, bright light... it just kept travelling real fast and went straight down. We thought it was a shooting star at first, but it just dropped and hit the ground, and went straight back up in the same way it came down. There was no sound or flash or anything that we could see.
"There were jets in the area... and they would fly by real quick, and it was getting dark, but you knew they were planes. We would see something shoot out, which followed out for a little bit, and it popped and exploded and more would come off of it... That was as plain as day that they were coming off the planes.
"The one that dropped didn't come out of the plane. That was really weird. The three lights in the triangle shape was travelling east, with the blinking light behind them, but we never seen that again.
"The Hillsboro policeman didn't want to give out any information whatsoever. There were many calls. I talked to a guy who works at Airborne, and he was monitoring the traffic on their high-band radio, and he said there were many calls. The cop was very tight lipped, though. The cop told us at first that it was flight simulating during night practice that they do once in awhile, and then he left, and came back a few minutes later and said "we're not sure what it is yet" and he left again. He didn't really want to give any information out whatsoever, and that's when I got on my radio and called one of the guys I knew, and that's when he told me Wright Pat was in the area."
[Concluding commentary and questions by Kenny Young]:
The testimony of Garren is a pivotal element which forces a re-evaluation of the flare theory which had been previously advanced. To his credit, Garren did acknowledge that flares were seen being shot from overflying airplanes. What complicates the matter would be the testimony of an object hitting the ground and launching back into the air, only to then make a rapid course change to the north. The A.N.G. Sergeant specified: "These exercises are no big problem because the flares don't hit the ground."
The nature of the helicopter activity is unclear. Mrs. Brown stated that the helicopters were "circling" over Route 28. Could the helicopters have been searching for the object which hit the ground? Could they have been looking for any markings on the ground where the object hit?
Where did the helicopters originate? The Sergeant at Springfield A.N.G. advised that all aircraft operating in the BUCKEYE M.O.A. were catalogued, and furthermore gave me a list of all aircraft used. None were helicopters. Consider also that the helicopters were present around 2 hours after the sightings.
It is known that the CINCINNATI ENQUIRER contacted WRIGHT-PATTERSON Air Force Base after receiving phone calls about the aerial disruption. Wright Pat reportedly denied having any knowledge of the events. Could it be that Wright-Pat, unaware of the training maneuvers from Springfield, sent out helicopters looking for the cause of the sightings?
Could the helicopters be in the area looking for UFOs? If so, what agency is responsible for their operations?
[T.A.S.K. continues to pursue this complex investigation. CNI News will report new developments as they become available.]
Original file name: CNI - Ohio UFOs.more
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