NUFORC Sighting 36157

Occurred: 1960-07-04 21:30 Local
Reported: 2004-04-10 08:22 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 5

Location: New Berlin, WI, USA

Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

Large, slow moving craft, above the clouds, blinked out like a lightbulb before reaching the horizon

NEW BERLIN, Wisconsin , July 4th,1960 I'm surprised that no one has reported the BIG UFO sightings from 1960 in Wisconsin . The first one occurred on the evening of July 4th, 1960 at dusk while we were standing high on a hill in New Berlin, WI waiting for the fireworks to start. The sun had gone down. We could see spotlights searching the skies over Milwaukee about 15 miles away. There were some clouds in the sky, but not many. All of a sudden, I saw movement over my head. I looked straight up and a saw a white circular craft moving slowly from behind me from south toward the north. It moved very slowly. It was above the clouds. I double checked to see if there was a possibility of the searchlights from Milwaukee to be making a search way out here in New Berlin, but it wasn't. The white craft was above the clouds. It was about the size of a quarter held at arm's length. It moved slowly toward the north, never deviating from its course and never changing speed ... very slow. The strange thing was that before it got to the horizon, it blinked off like a light bulb. I called my sister on the telephone who had been about 25 miles away and she said that she had seen the same thing, so we reported it to the Hynek Institute in Chicago, giving a written report within the week. Hundreds of people have had to have seen that, but we never met any. The very next day, on July 5th, during the afternoon, there was another sighting by hundreds of people on the Lake shore of Lake Michigan. I just happened to be standing inside the house by the window facing north. Off to the east I saw a greenish white craft going downward towards the north quite aways off. It was about the same size as the one I had seen the night before. I found out the next day in the newspaper that hundreds of people had witnessed the UFO dive into Lake Michigan with an aircraft chasing it over the lake which had been scrambled by Billy Mitchell airfield. It was published in the two Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel newspapers the next day, but researchers have not been able to find it in the newpaper archives.

Posted 2004-04-27