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Content and Layout © 1999 by Mutual UFO Network Of Connecticut (except as specified), All Rights Reserved
This is a fairly complex multiple witness case. So far, three of the four witnesses have been extensively interviewed, and one witness has been interviewed by two investigators. Allowing for normal variations among individuals, the stories are internally consistent, consistent over time, and largely consistent across witnesses (depending on the degree to which they witnessed each event).
The witnesses are businesspeople of reasonable prosperity and with no apparent motive or gain to be had from a hoax.
There are a number of areas of commonality:
The sequence of events is agreed upon by the two adult witnesses, and, with some variation (for reasons discussed under the interview section) by the son.
The description of the contrails and the dual objects (note that one of the adult witnesses believed a longitudinal seam was visible on the "bullet" object, which was disputed by the other adult witness).
The main differences lie in the description of durations, largely with regard to the dual object sighting. However, it seems likely to have required minutes for that phase to pass, because of the time taken for
A guess based on this might be a duration of five to ten minutes.
So far, the only reasonable mundane explanation is for the contrails, which may have been aircraft activity.
While a pair of balloons may seem a potential explanation for the dual object phase, there are a number of difficulties with it:
The shape of the bullet balloon is unconventional.
The size of the balloons required for even minimum distances is very large (12 feet in diameter at 500 foot distance).
The balloons would have to be helium balloons, which would, at the projected sizes even for a minimum distance, make them quite expensive - what could they have been for?
The disappearance of the objects does not seem to be able to be explained by their explosion. If a balloon had disintegrated, its fragments would have been seen falling, and some would likely have been found. In addition, there would have been a loud sound, which was not heard.
Thus, the second phase must remain unidentified.
Though a triangulation was not aviailable directly, certain observations made possible the placement of upper and lower bounds on distance, and thus size and course.
The lack of strong shadows on the object and the presence of a shadowing mountain made it possible to calculate approximate upper bounds on the distance when the shadow volume is plotted against the sight lines to the object. The upper limit distance and size is approximately 1 mile and 120 feet in length for the "bullet".
Using the witness' perspective-based assessment of distance, and direction, a distance of about 0.1 mi, with an object size of about 12 feet.
If the course is a straight line, the length of the course, is estimated to be about 0.25 mi, though the location of the disappearance cannot be fixed with accuracy. Note that the discrepancy between the angular size estimate of F and Y can be explained by Y's first opportunity to see the objects being somewhere along the course, perhaps near closest approach. Ys estimate using the 12 foot size, would indicate a sight distance at that time of above 300 and below 400 feet, which is not inconsistent with the estimated course.
At the approximate upper limit distance of one mile, the object would traverse the approximately 180 degrees of sky at almost 300 mph in 7 minutes. At the working distance of 0.1 mi, the object would travel that same distance at a speed of about 30 mph.
If the disappearance resulted from a vertical acceleration by the objects, a speed of approximately 2,200 mph would have been required to cross the 80 degrees of one half the vertical field in 0.1 sec.
When first observed, the objects were apparently positioned in a greater than 30 degree pitch down and a greater than 30 degree roll (assuming the wings to be the "level" reference). Just before disappearance, the objects were apparently in a similar roll and a nearly 30 degree pitch up. Since attitude changes were not noted by the witnesses, they must have been continuous throughout the claimed linear course.
This fascinating case offers a variety of interesting items. Techniques were used to extract approximate quantitative data using upper and lower bounds set by environmental conditions, as well as angular observations by the witnesses. While none of these can be claimed to be exact, they offer a space within which the true values can probably be found.
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