UFO mania hit Muncie hard in 1973

MUNCIE, Ind. — With recent news reports of a secret Pentagon investigation of flying saucers and Unidentified Flying Objects going back over a period of several years, it’s important to note that Muncie — all of East Central Indiana, really — got there first.

Muncie's dramatic 1973 brush with UFO mania was recently cited in a magazine article and, of course, 2017 saw the 40th anniversary of the release of Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," which was set largely in Muncie (although it was not filmed here).

Before any of that happened, however, in October 1973, Muncie newspapers ran daily stories about sightings of UFOs around the country.

And then the flying saucer sightings began in earnest right in our own backyard.

RELATED STORIES: 'Close Encounters' with Muncie, 40 years later From USA TODAY: Pentagon tracking UFOs

October 1973 began with a United Press International story, played on page 16 of The Muncie Star, about UFO reports in Tennessee, where a county sheriff said he had personally seen three UFOs. Twenty people called police down there, noting they had made similar sightings.

The next day, another UPI story appeared, this time on the front page of The Star, expanding on the Tennessee sightings. Two brothers, 13 and 9, took refuge in a chicken coop when they were buzzed by a UFO in Chester County, Tennessee.

Two days later, according to a story published in The Muncie Star, police found a weather balloon that was likely responsible for UFO sightings north of Indianapolis.

For several days in a row, Muncie newspaper readers saw account after account of UFO sightings elsewhere. “Reports rampant in the south,” read one headline.

Then, on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 1973, the UFO craze came to Muncie. The evening before, The Muncie Star reported, “mysterious multi-colored lights” were seen by “several hundred” people. About 100 people called police, sheriff's Sgt. Richard Cranor said, over the course of two hours. Another 50 to 60 people called Muncie police.

Police theorized that weather balloons were to blame. Newton Sprague, director of Ball State University’s observatory, offered the balloon theory too.

Then on Oct. 13, local newspapers carried a UPI story about two shipyard workers in Pascagoula, Mississippi, who said they were abducted and taken aboard a UFO by “silvery-skinned creatures with big eyes and pointed ears.” The reported encounter became one of the most famous of the UFO era.

The floodgates were opened for UFO sightings in the Muncie area.

On Saturday, Oct. 13, 1973, “four or five” Indiana National Guard helicopters were blamed for a rash of UFO reports over Muncie and Delaware County. The choppers prompted 40 calls to police.

The next day, in Dayton, Ohio, a woman told police that “an oblong object with blinking lights killed two cows when it landed in a field.”

In the meantime, UPI reported that hypnosis supported the stories of the two Mississippi men who said they were abducted. Northwestern University researcher J. Allen Hynek, upon whose cases Spielberg's movie was partially based, said there was no doubt Earth was being visited by aliens.

On Oct. 17, The Muncie Evening Press reported on a few days of Muncie UFO encounters. “More UFOs reported in Muncie,” read the headline.

“A Mrs. Pierce at 226 N. Davis called police at 8:54 p.m. Tuesday to report that a UFO had landed behind her home. Patrolman William Kirby, who was at the scene, said, ‘That lady did see something because she was terrified.’” A neighbor had heard clicking sounds at about the same time.

“There are people out there that are not people,” one caller to police said about an incident near the town of Wheeling, north of Muncie.

“I’ll believe in one when it flies through my living room,” Muncie’s Deputy Police Chief, Jack Turner, told The Evening Press.

In every day’s newspaper, more reports of UFO sightings were reported, from Texas to southern Indiana.

“It was UFO night for Hartford City,” The Muncie Evening Press reported on Friday, Oct. 19. Blackford County Sheriff’s Deputy Ed Townsend reported a “strange looking” object with arm-like extensions over a manufacturing plant.

Jay County was next, The Star reported on Oct. 20, with strange lights near Portland. Another sighting, near Dunkirk, turned out to be … farming equipment, specifically a tractor and two combines. The area was not new to UFO sightings, however. Dunkirk Police Chief Gerald Kirby recalled a few years earlier, when a woman who was “white as a sheet” reported a basketball-sized unknown object. Two state police officers confirmed the report.

By Oct. 27, sportswriters were comparing UFOs to “a bit of Alexandria High School’s defensive machines that fell victim to a fourth-quarter blitz by Blackford’s Bruins.” (Yeah, we didn’t get that either.)

Before October closed, newspapers reported besides traditional Halloween costumes, the current UFO reports drew some “outer space” outfits for trick-or-treating at Muncie Mall.

UFO sightings, in East Central Indiana and elsewhere, appeared to have dramatically dropped in number by the end of October.

By November, the local UFO craze was over and done with, except for a bit of marketing.

“UFO LANDS AT NORTH DAIRY QUEEN!” screamed a newspaper advertisement promoting something called "Horrible Creature Sundaes."

There were sundaes out there that were not sundaes, apparently.

Keith Roysdon is government watchdog reporter for The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5828 and kroysdon@muncie.gannett.com.