Invasion on Chestnut Ridge Page #3

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The object looked

and spun like a top,

and was bathed in a redish glow.

After several minutes, the

top-like anomaly shot up

into the sky and was gone.

The witness faced ridicule

from her family and friends

when she spoke about

what she had seen.

Later that same year, two women

were approaching Adamsburg

on Route 30 when they noticed

a strange aerial craft

almost touching a series of

high-tension power lines.

As they drove closer, the object

went under the power lines

and began to dive

towards their car.

Fortunately there

was no collision,

and as it flew off, the women

observed its dark-colored

oblong shape with a

type of tail in the back

and deep groves on its surface.

The driver of the car, who,

to that point had

been a UFO skeptic,

suffered repeated nightmares

about the incident.

In the months and

years to follow,

reports like these would

become more and more common

along the Chestnut Ridge.

Eye-witnesses were

left to speculate about

what they had seen and wonder

what normal life was going

to be like now that they

knew something was out there.

I know what I saw, it stayed

with me all these years.

I haven't told a lot

of people about it.

At this point in my

life, it happened,

and I'm just here to

tell you about it.

I grew up in Derry

on Ridge Avenue.

This happened back in,

it was either the late fall

of 67 or early winter of 68,

it was still dark, but

daylight was coming.

I was sitting at the

table in the kitchen,

when my mother was

in the living room.

I heard her call,

"Tom, come here."

When I walked into the living

room we were looking out

the picture window in the living

room, above Chestnut Ridge,

out of the picture

window, we saw a circular

UFO is what I'm gonna call it.

Multiple lights spinning

around the bottom, red, green,

white, orange, it

was just strange.

It was something that I had

never seen or experienced before

and while we're standing

there, it was in the one spot,

and then all of a

sudden it shot across

and you never saw it shooting

across, but it was in

another position in the sky

above the Chestnut Ridge.

This went on I thought for

a lifetime, but it probably

wasn't that long, I'm gonna

say one minute to two minutes.

And we just stood

there in amazement,

neither one of us said

anything to each other,

we just stood there

and watched it.

All of a sudden, it just shot

straight up into the sky,

and it wasn't like a sparkler,

but there was a trail

of red and silver lights that

came off the bottom of it

and it just disappeared.

I've looked into the sky

in the last 50 years,

looking for something

similar to this.

I've never witnessed anything

like that since then,

although I keep looking.

[Narrator] Strange sightings

around the Chestnut Ridge

have never been

limited to the skies.

There's a long history of

earthbound bizarre activity,

especially on the

Westmoreland, Fayette,

and Indiana County

side of the Ridge,

with witnesses reporting

subterranean sounds,

strange lights, black panthers,

and unusually large birds.

And then there's Bigfoot.

Accounts of hair-covered

man-apes can be found in

Pennsylvania newspapers

dating back to the 1800s,

and these creatures have

never really gone away,

reemerging from time to time

in the southwest

highlands of the state.

In the late 1960s, a young

man named Stan Gordon

began to actively research

the Bigfoot phenomenon.

Like many, he was

excited by the search

for an unknown primate living

in the Pennsylvania forest.

So it was my determination

to set up a volunteer group

of research people to go out

to investigate these reports.

So that's what I did

and I decided in 1969

to set up my own

hotline for the public.

So I'm getting calls on

haunted houses and ghosts

and flying saucers and

Bigfoot and strange creatures

and weird noises,

anything unusual,

the calls were coming in.

By 1973, we expanded to cover

the whole state of Pennsylvania.

To our surprise, we were

beginning to get referrals from

the state police and from the

news media and other agencies,

so when they getting reports

they would refer the number

of my group to

investigate the report.

And it was very lucky that

we were already established,

because 1973 comes around

and here's this major UFO,

Bigfoot wave which nobody

could have ever predicted,

and we were extremely busy

during that time period.

[Narrator] It was

fortunate that Stan Gordon

had assembled the Westmoreland

County UFO Study Group

prior to the events of 1973.

The volunteer unit would

come to include medical

professionals, law enforcement

officers, pilots, educators,

engineers, former military

specialists and scientists,

and they were united by a

desire to gather information

as quickly and

thoroughly as possible

about the odd happenings

on the Chestnut Ridge.

Researchers like Barry Clark

could be dispatched to the

scene of a strange occurrence

within minutes of it happening

thanks to Gordon's state-of-the-art

two-way radio system.

The group's field work

was conducted as often

as their full-time

jobs permitted,

and many risked their

professional reputation

by being associated

with this pursuit.

But, with their

aptitude for technology,

and their vast range of

vocational expertise,

the members of the Study

Group shared a basic optimism

that they would eventually

uncover the truth about

the outlandish sightings that

seemed to multiply by the day.

(moody electronic music)

Barry Clark, I went out to

investigate different sightings

and events for people

who saw Bigfoot, UFOs,

that type of thing

back in the early 70s.

Somewhere along the line,

I bet you if you talked,

in the Derry area especially,

Derry to Lake Tiberias,

you'll talk to somebody who's

either friends with, related

to or know somebody that had

some kind of an experience.

Of course, 1973,

Bigfoot was the big story.

There were multiple reports

of Bigfoot sightings

all along areas of the

Ridge, especially along

the Westmoreland County

side and Derry township.

What's interesting about

those reports from the 1970s,

73, 74, some of those

reports literally took place

a couple miles

from where I lived.

An older lady lived kind of,

not secluded but by herself,

and the state police were

there the night before,

I got to go there the

next day to talk to her.

She had a little yappin' dog,

and it was carrying

on and carrying on.

She looked out and

she saw this thing,

and the more the dog

barked, the more agitated.

It literally picked the end of

her trailer up on the corner,

and dropped it, and there's

no skirting around it.

When I looked the next day,

you could see that it was

not back in the same

position it was.

[Narrator] In the early

70s, the nation was still

enthralled by stories of

the Abominable Snowman,

but was now even more enamored

of his homegrown cousin,

Bigfoot, whose presence

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