On October 18, 1973 just after eleven p.m., a U.S. Army 'copter flying from Columbus to Cleveland, Ohio, bumped into a UFO. The crew included a 20-year flyer, Captain Lawrence Coyne, Lieutenant Arrigo Jezzi, and Sergeants John Healey and Robert Yanacsek. At 2,500 feet the crew spotted a red light to the west, moving south. They guessed the light was from a fighter plane fromthe Mansfield-Lahm Municipal Airport Air Guard Station.
Suddenly, the light shifted course and seemed to head right at them! And the stalked were stalking the stalkers. The Captain Coyne threw the chooper into an emergency evasive maneuver and began to descend. When he radioed to identify the military plane, his radio went dead. (The air guard station later said there were no aircraft in the area. The red light closed in, becoming brighter, and the helicopter descended at 2,000 feet per minute.
At 1,700 feet above ground, the object UFO shot in front of, then over , the chopper. And then it stopped, treading sky for 10 seconds, filling the entire windscreen. All crew members saw it and described it later as looking like a grey cigar with a small dome on top. One crewman said he saw windows. The red light was still there, in the front of the saucer, and they could also see a white light on the side and a green light underneath.
The green light swung around like a searchlight and pointed into the cockpit, filling it with green light. The object then accelerated into the west, made a sharp turn northwest and disappeared over Lake Erie.
The 'copter's altimeter showed an altitude of 3,500 feet and an ascent of 1,000 feet per minute. But the stick was still pointed down. Even though Captain Coyne had not tried to climb, his aircraft climbed to 3,800 feet before he regained control. A few minutes later, the radio revived. A complete inspection the next day found nothing wrong, and the event received a thorough investigation.
By itself, it was an amazing story. But how many of these have we heard before? This time, however, there were witnesses on the ground. A woman driving with her four children said she had seen the entire encounter, including the green beam, which she said lit the ground around her car.
Philip Klass, the famous UFO skeptic and investigator, said the crew misidentified a meteor or fireball, and suggested the ground witnesses were delusional or just lying. Jerome Clark dismissed Klass's theory as "fantastic," since none of the testimony was even remotely consistent with it.
They've been debating this one for 35 years. It is one of the handful of UFO incidents regarded as potentially legitimate, even by the skeptics. Maybe it's the green light. A G.I.S. of UFO+green light turns up nearly 300,000 hits in Google.
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