DISC-ussion

edited by Ann Ulrich Miller
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Lake Monona UFO from September 1970

          Rich Heiden sent me a clipping from the A.P.R.O. Bulletin dated back in September-October 1970 which contained the close encounter of two people I knew in high school.
The event occurred in my hometown of Monona, Wis., and only a couple of blocks away from my childhood home. Denise Fritz was my friend, and she subsequently married her boyfriend, Mike Butler. Here’s the clip:
         “Our second sighting in that general area took place at 10 p.m. on the 8th of September 1970. Miss Denise Fritz and her friend Mike Butler were boating on Lake Monona, Wis., when they became aware of a lighted object approaching the lake. They at first thought it was going to crash, but it stopped and hovered about 50 to 100 feet above some trees near a boat landing on Winnequah Road (Ed.’s Note: The boat landing was actually at the end of my road, Winnequah Trail).
         “The object then beamed two bright lights at their boat. They swerved the boat a couple of times but the lights followed them. They became frightened, went back to the pier as fast as they could with the lights following them. They didn’t bother tying up the boat, ran into Denise’s home. Dense said she was so frightened that she was shaking and crying for two hours after the incident. Miss Fritz described the object as oval but said she couldn’t focus on it very well to be certain. It made absolutely no sound and neither of the young people felt it could have been an ordinary aircraft.
         “Four Monona women later reported they had been driving in a car at the corner of Bridge Road and Panther Trail when they spotted a lightened object which they first thought was a low-flying plane. They stopped the car and got out for a closer look, noting that the object was stationary. They couldn’t make out a shape, they said, and the object took off immediately after they stopped the car.
         “The night was clear with the moon low in the northwest and there were some stars. The duration of the sighting by Denise Fritz and Mike Butler was 15 minutes.”
         It is interesting to note that I had the opportunity to talk briefly with Denise about her UFO sighting. We met at our 35th year high school class reunion in 2010. I had played at her house when we were younger. She and Mike are still married, living in Wisconsin. Nothing else UFO related ever happened to her.
         Looking back at my journals, I pulled out my entry from Sept. 8, 1970, and I had just moved into my brother’s home in Whitewater, Wis., the day before I started my freshman year at Whitewater State University. UFOs were the furthest thing from my mind!

         
Crop circles in east Washington state

          In this July 30, 2012 photo provided by The Wilbur Register, crop circles are shown in a wheat field owned by Greg and Cindy Geib near Wilbur, Wash. The circles were first noticed on July 24.

AP Photo/The Wilbur Register, Courtney Ruiz

         “You can’t do anything other than laugh about it,” said Cindy Geib, who owns the field with her husband Greg. “You just kind of roll with the theory it’s aliens and you’re special because aliens chose your spot.” Friends called the Geibs on July 24 when the pattern of flattened wheat was spotted off Highway 174, about five miles north of town. The field is about 10 miles south of the Grand Coulee dam, which the Bureau of Reclamation says is the largest hydropower producer in the United States.
         The design knocked down about an acre of their wheat, some of which could be salvaged by combines. This is not the first crop circle to appear in Lincoln County. Similar circular patterns were left in crops in the Wilbur area in 2010 and in 2008 or 2009, according to Geib.
         Lynne Brougher, public affairs officer for the Grand Coulee dam, hadn’t heard about the latest crop circles but said the previous one was no cause for alarm.
         “It seemed to be highly unusual,” Brougher said. “As I recall from a couple of years ago, there was no good explanation of how they got there.” Still, she added, “it wasn't a concern.”
The latest crop circle was first reported Tuesday by Spokane station KHQ-TV (http://is.gd/57FTpy). There were no signs that anyone walked into the field.
         “We’re trying to figure out how they got out there without breaking any of the wheat. It’s hard to walk through the crunchy wheat and not knock it down,” Geib said. “At the same time, it’s hard to think it’s aliens. It’s a bizarre thing to wrap your brain around.”
         (Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Associated Press, with thanks to Rich Heiden)

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