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"ufo in kecksburg?"
by jennifer kietch
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it's early december in a rural town in pennsylvania. residents are starting to think about christmas shopping. it is almost five o'clock on a chilly thursday evening, on a day that is anything but ordinary. people across the northern united states and canada started to report sightings of strange, unidentifiable objects and fiery balls in the darkening sky. at 4:45 pm on december 9th, 1965, something showed up in the skies over kecksburg, pa. it changed directions several times, then crash landed in the woods. a puff of blue smoke rose over the trees, then was gone.
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locals hurried to see what happened. many claim to have seen a twelve foot long acorn-shaped craft, metallic but without any visible seams or rivets. the bronze colored craft was entrenched in a gully. there was writing similar only to ancient egyptian hieroglyphs on the wrecked ship. but before anyone could investigate, they were forced to leave the scene by local police. the military swooped into the small town, secured the area around the crash, and encouraged people, at gunpoint, to stay away. soon afterward, a military truck left the scene, with something resembling the shape of a volkswagen beetle under a tarp secured to the bed of the truck.
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the next day, the reports were predictably contradictory. first on people's mind was that a ufo had landed in their woods, and this theory grew until the kecksburg incident became almost as famous as roswell. on the scene, people were told that a meteor crashed. the military claimed that nothing fell, and nothing was recovered. the military also denied reports that they had trucked any object out of the woods. in the following years, another theory advanced, one that sounded more realistic than the alien or asteroid theories combined.
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a soviet venus probe called kosmos 96 crashed into canada at 3 am the previous morning, according to an official air force report. the standard policy was, and still is, if a foreign government's satellites or space probes land in another country, that country will recover it and return it to the rightful owners. in the hostile climate of the 1960's cold war with russia,it is possible that the ship recovered in pennslyvania was a russian space craft that the united states wanted to study rather than return, so they lied and alien conspiracies quickly covered up the incident. the kosmos 96 was never recovered.
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however, kosmos 96 suffered a catastrophic failure while in it's last stage. parts of the venus probe remained in a degrading orbit for a few days before succoring to gravity and tumbling to earth. what pieces may have survived an unprotected and unscheduled trip through the atmosphere would have been severely damaged, if not destroyed, on impact. it would not have been capable of the maneuvers reported in the skies above canada, ohio, michigan, and pennslvania.
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frances kalp was walking with her children that night in westmoreland county, pennsylvania. she claimed to have seen a four-pointed star crash in the woods. john sibal watched the object change directions three times in the sky before landing, and hid in the woods watching the military converge. don sebastian heard the report on the radio, evaded state police, snuck around a roadblock, and watched military maneuvers in the woods until he heard unearthly screams and gunshots, and snuck back to his car. a police officer was overheard as saying there was a pulsating blue light in the forest.
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witnesses insist they saw a ship from outer space. police claim there was a meteorite. reporters are convinced that what landed was a russian probe. military sources argue that nothing landed at all. is kecksburg an example of mass hysteria, a military theft of russian technology, or the site of a ufo landing? as long as the government refuses to release the truth, we remain in the dark of what was really under the tarp.
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