Occurred: 1971-07-15 18:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2005-01-31 20:28 Pacific
Duration: 10 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Big Rapids, MI, USA

Shape: Oval


Flying object observed over Big Rapids, MI and eventually chased by SAC planes.

I was working as a student manager at Ferris State college when this event took place. I have looked for reference to it on the internet, but have not found any. It was reported in the local newspaper and I will relate in this story what the newspaper reported the next day.

A student manager was a quasi-security/manager that were used in the late 60's and 70's as an alternative to armed police. I was riding shotgun with a patrol officer that evening on the 2nd shift. We were travelling south on US 131, this was before the expressway went through the area. As we were approaching the M-20 westbound intersection, I had looked up and saw an object in the sky.

The sky was clear and the sun was in the lower western sky. The object was south and east of us travelling in a west-northwest direction. I asked John, the patrolman, what that was. He looked up and said, "Damn, I don't know." He then turned down M-20 heading west. The object seemed to be travelling at a pretty good clip. He sped up and turned on his lights to warn traffic and we started pursuit.

I radioed into to dispatch. We reached speeds up to 100 mph and the object passed us and then slowly went out of sight. We radioed our position and told them we couldn't see the object anymore and we were told it had been picked up by the State Police in the next county.

Description of object: It was oval and size was hard to determine. If it was high up it would have been very large. If it was close to the ground, it would have been 40'-50' feet front to back. Actually, John and I could never figure out the size of the object. It had an orangish color. It could have been a reflection of the evening sun or it could have been orangish. There was no pulsations. There were no individual lights. There was no details at all, in fact. Just an oval shaped, orange glowing object that seemed to be travelling at a high rate of speed.

The local paper in Big Rapids, The Pioneer, the next day reported the incident. They stated that the object had first been spotted in Big Rapids, then by State Police in Lake county, then by the Coast Guard radar and also Air Force radar located in Frankfurt, MI. Two jets were scrambled out of Minnesota and they intercepted the object over Wisconsin and chased it into Iowa, where it was reported to have simply just flown away from the jets.

I have not been able to find reference to this event, though I have searched. Many people saw this object and it was reported by many different government employees. In fact, two days after the event, John and I were questioned for about a half hour by two individuals from some vague agency, neither of us were able to understand what it was. When I first watched MIB and Tommy Lee Jones always made up an agence, like Division 6, I thought of these two guys that had questioned us.



NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that date of incident is approximate. PD


Posted 2005-02-08

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