Close Encounters of the Second Kind, physiological effects part five

Plugging along at these mysteries: cases #61-75, 1967 era. I'm going to try to be a little less "wordy" this time.
Cases # 61-65: a strong one and two pretty good ones in this five. The strong case is the famous Stefan Michalak/Falcon Lake case, which baffled the Colorado Study. The two good ones are essentially unknown. Let's say a bit about them first. Fishing Creek Valley PA is an animal effects case studied by NICAP and the police. The animal-effect amounted to dogs going nuts but settling down immediately when the object vanished. What really intrigues me about the case is the emitted light from the "globe". That "ray" seemed to originate in the air separate from the object, and was not normally spreading light, nor even linear laser light. It rather, had a shape to it: beginning narrow, then arcing out "fatter" then back in, forming an ellipse in the air. Quite boggling.

Minatare NE is one small part of a wild series of events experienced by a farming family. I probably shouldn't rate it so high, but the descriptions of all that went on [different days] are extensive, intelligent, and well-told as to credence. Six witnesses filled out NICAP forms, but, perhaps due to location, NICAP did not follow up. Several good old "nocturnal meandering lights" are in there, plus one which could have been an astro-alignment display. A close encounter exists wherein family members appear to be "knocked out" except for the woman who is scared to death, and a long duration thing which might be a CE3 [with footprints] is another. The clear [?] CE2p is a passing light source followed by eye-irritation, numbness, skin-peeling, aches, fever. Again, without NICAP actually going out there, I am probably over-rating but the case just draws you in.

The Michalak case is complex and written up everywhere, so you should read it in detail elsewhere. Thumbnail: he as amateur prospector was stumbling about in the woods when he came across an obviously technological object, landed or nearly so, hatch open and voices inside. He thought it was US and approached. The surface was quite hot. The thing suddenly rotated and emitted a very hot gas which burnt a pattern through his clothing. He was affected with fainting and weakness and ultimately [the craft long gone] made it back home. Many radiation-effect-like sequelae occurred, including the famous burn pattern. His case was investigated by the RCMP as well as Colorado, and Canadian UFO investigators. Michalak ultimately had to go to MAYO Clinic for a long battery of tests. He finally recovered though the sequelae would occasionally return after dormant periods. Colorado sent Roy Craig up to investigate and, as usual with him, he looked for any excuse to trash the case. He ended up assuming that Michalak burned himself and made the rest up, partly in cahoots with Canadian local UFOlogists. None of that brilliant investigation has tracked accurately with what we actually know about the case, except for one thing: persons found loose metal at the site melted into fissures in exposed rocks. Michalak never claimed anything about this--others brought it up as possible proof of craft presence and radioactivity involvement. It seems likely that this was a later plant by a small-time UFOlogist trying to make something for himself out of it. A letter from a very good Canadian UFOlogist bearing on the case appears at the bottom of the post---put there just because I thought you'd like to see an original document.

Cases 66-70: Include a strong one and two goods. The "goods" are the Roswell 1968 case---sorry I blew the year to begin with so this is out of order---and the Texas Creek CO case. The Roswell case is a husband and wife incident with intelligent witnesses and a local NICAP member who knew them. It's a car stalker case with strange light [did not cast shadows and did not light up road]. Witnesses felt abnormally peaceful through the experience and wife's arthritis in neck seemed to have been cured.

The Texas Creek case is one of the great "misses" in UFO lore. The college student had his car quit on him alongside another two vehicles with the same problem. In the farm field was a huge "football" lighted at each end hovering. The witness [typical college student] got out and jumped the fence. He began to think he'd made a bad move when the giant slowly turned and pointed its nose at him. A beam shot out and paralyzed him and made him unconscious. But he did not fall, standing there with arms outstretched and a glow of light around him. This condition persisted until the object took off and reached the horizon. Only then did the glow click off and he fall to the ground. Where we missed out here is that the other cars' occupants although promising to write back to him, did not. He hadn't any of their names. He DID write to Colorado, but it was too late in their investigative period so they apparently blew it off. He and Coral Lorenzen and local APRO operatives tried hard to locate the other people, even posting ads in papers of likely locations. Nothing. In that it was very like the James Stokes situation. I rate this case higher than it may deserve because I have had the chance to listen to a rare audiotape of Coral actually interviewing him. Sounded pretty legit. But caveat emptor.

The strong case is Summerdale PA. It's strong because it has multiple witnesses [one of whom was a powerful young man, who did not like having to admit that he was paralyzed during the event]. These witnesses were interviewed by the local papers [the whole area was in a miniflap] and by the National Inquirer, and NICAP's local sub-committee was apparently aware of it, though I've found no NICAP case form yet. The main reason that I rate this case as a strong one is that the witnesses tell a coherent story and reported it immediately. The "personal context" therefore seems to be good, as well as the setting, in the midst of many central and western Pennsylvania incidents at the time. In fact they were so numerous at one point that profs from Penn State [maybe---near Harrisburg] formed a fieldwork group and drove wildly around trying to catch a UFO in the act---reporting their findings to the Colorado Project.

Last set: #71-75. Three "fives" here. One of these is Newfield/Ithaca again a case appearing in a UFO flap---it's astounding how much of this went on during the time of the Colorado Project itself. It was almost as if the UFOs were daring us, and we, instead, proved what an incompetent bunch of blind buffoons we are. Newfield was a young mom driving with her son in the car when a UFO took over the controls and drove the vehicle itself for a while. Her son was rendered "coma-like" during the event and remembered nothing. She got headaches and a variety of minor sequelae which went away fairly soon thereafter. A series of very good investigative interviews are featured in this case and it seems solid.

The Winnipeg case is "just above average" by itself, but is immeshed in a group of very odd UFO events involving Westdale & Charleswood Manitoba involving footprints in fields and RCMP investigations. The Winnipeg incident itself [involving an elaborate object which left a trace] was reported among other places in Bondarchuk's UFO Canada, which is a forgotten gem in UFO literature with much sensible facts and commentary. The CE2p elements are radiation-like: Headaches, dehydration, pain, copper taste in mouth, drop in white blood cell count. This case could well be a hidden"six".

The final case for tonight---darn it, I've done it again---too much babbling---is the Cussac France case investigated by one of UFOlogy's best, Dr. Claude Poher of the French national space agency. [and a founder of GEPAN]. He has stated this as being one of his favorite cases and totally puzzling. It "seems" to involve a large globe surrounded by "little black devils" which appear to have no regard for Newton's Law of Gravity. The globe sits there whistling and emitting [what else?] a sulphurous odor while the miniature demons work below or float above finally all in unison jumping up and entering the thing from the top. This performance had the local cows upset and the humans' eyes watering and irritated. Perhaps a disappointing CE2p effect, but when you're dealing with demons maybe that's all you want.

Anyway, I'm done---back is killing me. Hope some of this was interesting. Letter from Brian Cannon on the Michalak case is below. Till next week, peace.
by the way, if the letter looks fishy to you at its bottom, that's because I clipped it there to fit the last sentence and Cannon's signature in from the second page---don't want to start an internet conspiracy that I'm holding out on you. ....but you never know....