The Great UFO Wave:
October, 1973

Ohio Countryside
swarms with UFOs

The Cincinnati Post, pg. 1
Oct. 16, 1973

By Terry Boschert

Some of them have blinking lights.

Some of them move up and down, forward and back.

Some of them glow and have fins.

Unidentified flying objects are flying rampant over the countryside, over the city. Police stations have received calls galore, and three Lebanon patrolmen followed one UFO for about six miles.

That happened Sunday, when Patrolman D.L. (Skip) Holderbaum said he saw three UFOs at the southwest Lebanon city limits. Two other patrolmen drove to the scene, and they said the objects had flashing red and green lights, went up and down, back and forth, were stationary at times and traveled fast at others. One was brighter than the other two, they said.

Holderbaum said he took about 15 pictures but hasn't developed them yet.

But the reports of the UFOs did not end Sunday. Middletown police had about 15 reports last night. Franklin police had nine. Springboro had one, Butler County sheriff's deputies had 'beaucoup.' The State Highway Patrol had about 20, mostly from the Trenton, Lesourdsville Lake and Monroe areas.

One person called in to the Highway Patrol to report he had spotted a UFO that was red, white and blue.

"Well, I guess that must be one of ours," the dispatcher said.

The Cincinnati police said they "had a mess of them" last night, mostly from Mt. Washington, Bond Hill and 14th and Vine.

United Press International reported hundreds of UFO sightings over west central Ohio.

Policeman Fred Shaner said he took a photo of one of the objects, which had a definite outline and red and green blinking lights.

At The Post, the phone rang on an average of once every half hour with UFO sightings.

One woman in Clermont County said she saw UFOs both Sunday and last night.

"To me, they look like they would have a long body and two fins on the back. They rotate, so it looks like the fins might change in direction," Mrs. Marjorie Waters said. "I'm 51 years old, and I've never seen anything like this in my life."

Jeff Fossett of 7974 Kirkland Drive, Finneytown, said the UFO he sighted was ivory-colored, moving slowly toward Price Hill.

One of the usual explanations of UFO sightings is weather balloons, but the Cincinnati Weather Bureau said no balloon launchings had been reported.

At Pine, La., sheriff's deputies chased five orange-reddish flying objects 12 miles through a woods last night and early today. Deputy Michael Moore said the ships "come right down at you and then vanish above the treetops."

In another sighting near Slidell, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, Lloyd Mercier said he was driving home when he saw an object "approximately 15 or 20 feet in diameter and it had a streak about a foot wide straight through the middle. All I could see was a red glow: it looked like it came straight out of the water," he said.

A Fine Line, Sgt. Haden The Cincinnati Post, pg. 1 Oct. 16, 1973

Norwood Police Sgt. Elmer Haden, apparently up to the top of his antennae with calls about UFO sightings last night, was answering the phone early today by launching directly into a description of the spatial visitors.

"They had pointed heads and horns and big eyes..." he began.

Asked how he was able to communicate with them, he said: "We put the conversation on tape, ran the tape backwards horizontally with vertical hold, and you know what they said?

"We're here to pay our parking tickets?"