Invasion on Chestnut Ridge Page #2

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allegedly dropping hot

metal debris over Michigan

and Northern Ohio before hitting

the ground near Kecksburg.

All sorts of explanations

were proposed.

Some thought they were

witnessing an airplane accident.

Others thought a missile

test had gone awry

or that a satellite was

re-entering the atmosphere.

The most common assumption

was that a meteor was

the brilliant light in question.

None of those, however,

seemed to square

with what was happening

near the Chestnut Ridge.

Local witnesses reported

feeling the impact

of the object's crash landing,

seeing a wisp of blue smoke

rising from the woods,

and some even claimed

to discover what it was

that had fallen to Earth.

An object shaped like an acorn,

approximately the

size of a small car,

with hieroglyphic-like

writing around its base.

The ravine in which it fell

quickly became the center

of curiosity and controversy.

And it got more exciting

during the evening as reports

were coming in that the

military was now arriving in the

Kecksburg area to search for

an unidentified flying object.

We started watching

out the windows and stuff

and I seen people coming in

and out and going down into the

field down to where it was at.

And then we started

seeing people come in.

We seen cars lying

in our driveway.

People going up and

down through the fields,

and then people

coming to the house.

They used our house

as a command post.

People actually believe

that they saw a small military

presence within maybe the first

hour after the object fell.

But it was during the next

few hours during the evening

that most of the military

begin to arrive on the scene.

And many people throughout

this area reported seeing

what looked like a military

convoy, military trucks

coming in from different

roads into the Kecksburg area.

So what we learned

was the fact that,

as reports of this object coming

down in the Kecksburg area

began to circulate on

Pittsburgh area radio and TV,

hundreds of people descended

on the small rural community

to try to get a look at the

object down in the woods.

[Narrator] An alarming

scene was beginning to unfold

around the crash site, residents

of Kecksburg claimed that

armed soldiers were present

and were preventing people

from approaching

the wooded ravine.

In one instance, a witness

reported that a member

of the military instructed

two neighborhood boys

to deliberately misinform

curiosity seekers.

And the youngsters gladly

complied by giving people

false directions

to the impact site.

Things took a decidedly

more serious turn, though,

the closer one came

to the downed object.

A well-known jazz musician

from the Pittsburgh area

claimed that US soldiers

aimed their rifles at him

and his friends, ordering

them off a country lane,

as an army flatbed truck

hauling a tarp-covered,

acorn-shaped object made

its way out of a field.

Others, who were

teenagers at the time,

reported that the

military response

left them fearing

for their lives.

Some of the local residents

who saw this object come down

that afternoon, they went

down into the wooded ravine

to see what had fallen from

the sky and they came across

this large metallic

acorn-shaped object

semi-buried in the ground.

There was actually two important

locations, there was one,

it was on top of the hill,

what is now called Meteor Road,

which is where hundreds of

people were jamming the road

that night, that's where

most reporters were,

that's where some military,

other authorities were.

Far on the opposite side of

the woods was an old dirt road,

a farm lane which a number of

people found themselves on,

that was closer to the

crash site, the impact site,

and that's where a lot

of the military presence

and other authorities were

on that lane over there.

There was people in

black suits came in,

and those people,

they was actually

seemed like they was

in charge of everybody.

We see some people coming

down in a white suit

carrying a big box.

One had a NASA patch on his

arm and they took this box

down into where that was at.

I seen him go down

in with the box.

Never seen it come back out,

but I seen the truck go down in

and I seen it come back

out with something on it.

There was a lot of talk

around this community

that people had seen a large

military flatbed trailer truck

carrying a large tarped

object out of the area

late that night, but

that was in the news.

The next day, me and my

brother went down in the woods.

We seen where they

had covered up a hole.

It was a different kind of dirt,

and seeing all the trees

broke off and walked there

over to the other side of the

hill and it was all burnt off.

There was some guy over

there with a Geiger counter.

At the time we thought

it was a treasure-finder.

We was kids, we didn't

know any better.

He asked us what we

was doing down there,

told him, "oh, we live here,

we're down here all the time."

He says, "well, you know

there's a chance of radiation

"being down here."

"What the heck is radiation?"

You know, we didn't know.

So, we sort of ignored him

and went along our way.

So, early the next morning

I went to the local news stand

to see if there was any of the

stories about what was seen

last night in the local

papers and there it was in all

the local papers, the Pittsburgh

Press, the Post, Gazette.

The Greensburg Tribune

Review had two editions

and the early morning edition

had "Army Ropes Off Area.

"Unidentified Flying Object

Falls Near Kecksburg."

The later edition of the paper

had several different stories

including one that caught

my attention which said,

"searches failed

to find object."

And it went on to say that, yes,

there was a search in

the early morning hours,

but they found

absolutely nothing,

and that the official

explanation was that

it was people's imagination,

they had seen a bright

meteor in the sky, but nothing

had fallen to the ground.

And that's officially where

the case remains today.

I can picture it in my head.

The people coming in.

People keeping quiet

about things and

people I know that was there

and seen it and denied it.

I'll never forget that,

you know, it's something...

Something that sticks with you.

Kecksburg to me seems like

it was almost the catalyst

for people becoming comfortable

enough to share their

experiences and the newspaper

media following these

encounters and

reporting on them.

[Narrator] The Kecksburg

experience turned the eyes

of those who lived in the

area to the skies over

the Chestnut Ridge and what

they saw over and over again

was more mysterious

than they ever expected.

What they saw was unidentified.

In the spring of 1966, a

woman in Latrobe was awakened

from sleep by her dog which

had become highly agitated.

Upon taking the dog outside,

she saw a silver object

hovering no more than 80 feet

above the roof of her house.

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