TECHNOIR (5 page)

            Several years later during an interview with Cleveland’s largest daily newspaper the
Plain Dealer
, Sheila Baker leaned over to a reporter and insisted:
“I saw it.”
So did several others. And as the crowd grew, the vessel became more active. Bursting out of the apparent mother ship were several triangular-shaped, Cessna-sized crafts. One buzzed a woman and her dog which cowered and whimpered. Another approached two young Coast Guard personnel called to the scene. A picture was taken of a smaller craft and published in the
Plain Dealer
. Still in their Chevy Suburban, the Coast Guard team gave a running report back to their base, said the Bakers, who also told their story to MUFON investigators. “Be advised the object appears to be landing on the lake…Be advised there are other objects moving around it.”

            For more than an hour this continued. Ice cracking. Pulsating bright lights flashing on and off. Small ships circling and diving around the larger. Then like most UFO encounters...it vanished. Nothing but chunks of ice, dead silence, and a handful of witnesses left with the shock of a lifetime. The Bakers said the Coast Guard personnel at that moment were “ghost faced.”

            This UFO story, like many prolific UFO tales, has spread across the Internet. And in this particular case, the story is accompanied by a copy of a Coast Guard incident report. Whether it is legitimate is a mystery. A search of Archives.gov and other records was not successful, and Ohio Coast Guard public affairs officers said the 1988 report was shredded.

            Nevertheless, the incident report states “the Large Object was almost on the ice” and “Smaller Objects began hovering in the area where the large object landed and, after a few minutes, they began flying around.” The incident made the local press the following days, which brought out the skeptics. One local astronomer said witnesses were looking at the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus, coupled with “spontaneous gas emissions.” But skeptics weren’t the only apparent naysayers to get involved in this UFO case. Later on the night of the sighting, the Bakers decided to call the local Coast Guard outpost. “They told us, ‘It was out of their league and out of their hands’,” said Sheila Baker to MUFON. “A person in command there, and he got on the phone with me, and that’s exactly what he told me. That they had to forward all their information to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. They said they were not allowed to investigate it any further, and that they we're told to stay out of it.” She also was told NASA was getting involved.

            MUFON investigators tried to interview the two young Coast Guard personnel, but were rebuffed by their commanding officers. Twenty years later, however, one of the Coast Guardsmen there that night spoke to me. And if you believe what he says, you might think the Bakers and other witnesses were stretching the truth and that the Coast Guard’s own report is indeed a fake. If you don’t believe what he has to say, than you might think the US military grabbed the man’s forearm and twisted it until he cried for mercy, for his career and for his government pension.

            John Knaub was on the beach that cold, clear night back in 1988. He’s retired from the Coast Guard and lives in Virginia. When told he is linked to one of America’s great UFO mysteries, he laughs out loud. “I did not see any cigar-shaped ship. All I saw were lights. It was not a UFO,” he says. Knaub says that night his station on Lake Erie began getting a high number of calls saying something odd was going on out on the lake. The station figured someone might be in distress. Knaub says when they arrived, they did see lights. It should be noted that Knaub was the only eye-witness of this case to be reached by this reporter. Extensive efforts were used to reach the others, but none could be found.

            For two years after that night, Knaub was harassed by UFO enthusiasts wanting to know what he saw. “It was ridiculous.” Up until now, he was “sick and tired of talking about it, and I refused to talk about it.” When told he was “ghost faced,” he again laughs. What about the sounds of exploding ice? “I don’t remember it. We saw multi-colored lights, but they were not flares,” he said. “We went there to see if someone was in distress. But there was no boat.”

            What was it then? “I have no clue.”

            For the record, what follows is part of MUFON's report on the sighting:

            Coast Guard personnel responding to citizen reports of unusual aerial activity over Lake Erie on March 4, 1988, witnessed classic UFOs near Eastlake, OH. Sheila and Henry Baker were driving home with their three children about 8:35P.M., after taking them out to dinner, and were almost home. As they neared the waterfront, Sheila noticed something hovering over the lake; they drove down to the beach to investigate and got out of the car. The moon was bright, and there was ice on the lake; Sheila could hear it cracking like claps of thunder.

            Plainly visible was a huge, gunmetal gray, football-shaped, silent object rocking back and forth, blinding white light emanating from both ends. Then the object began moving, swinging one end toward the shore and descending. The Bakers became frightened, ran back to their car, and fled. When they got home, the object was still visible from a window facing the lake. Sheila hid the children in a closet, fearing that the thing might come and get them.

            The object moved out over the ice and continued to descend, with red and blue lights now flashing in sequence along its lower edge. Sheila called the Eastlake police to report a UFO, and after several referrals, with no one expressing much interest, was told that unusual activity over the lake would be the responsibility of the Coast Guard. Suddenly five or six bright yellow triangular objects shot out of the center of the large object and began darting around independently (satellite objects). Once they stopped and hovered point up around the parent object, then sped away to the north, turned east, then inland toward the Perry nuclear power plant.

            At this point Sheila called the Coast Guard, which sent a team to their house to investigate. Seaman James Power and Petty Officer John Knaub arrived towing a Boston Whaler (a seaworthy boat) just in case. They told the Bakers that they had seen some lights over the lake from Fairport Harbor and thought they were flares, maybe fishermen trapped out on the ice. However, when Sheila pointed to the main craft and some of the triangular objects still zipping around it, the men drove closer to the lake to investigate, accompanied by the Bakers. At the lakefront they could hear the ice rumbling and roaring.

            In their incident report sent later by teletype to Coast Guard headquarters in Detroit, MI, the men were quoted as saying that “the ice was cracking and moving abnormal amounts as the object came closer to it.” Power and Knaub gave a running report on what they were seeing to their base via the two-way radio in their Chevy Suburban. The window was down, and the Bakers overheard them saying words to the effect: “Be advised the object appears to be landing on the lake . . .

            Abruptly one of the triangles zoomed straight toward the Coast Guard vehicle, a blur of light, then veered east, straight up, and came down beside the parent object. Two witnesses in separate locations also reported seeing the triangles. Cindy Hale was walking her dog when she noticed a triangular object hovering overhead, and her dog began to whine and cower (animal reactions). She took the dog indoors and came back out to watch. The triangle flashed a series of multicolored lights, then accelerated and was gone without making a sound (hover-acceleration).

            Tim Keck was using his astronomical telescope when one of the triangles caught his eye. He had a cheap throwaway camera with him and snapped a picture of the object before it flew away over the horizon. The photograph was analyzed by optical physicist Bruce Maccabee, who considered it to be a legitimate image of an unexplained object (see section VII, Photographs).

            Back at the lake the Coast Guard team and Henry Baker continued to watch for over an hour. Sheila went home and continued to observe from the window. Henry overheard the men saying such things to their base as, “You should be advised that the object is now shining lights all over the lake and it's turning different colors.” The noise of the rumbling ice was thunderous, and the men had to yell to be heard on the radio.

            Suddenly the triangles returned and one by one entered the side of the parent object as it seemed to land on the ice. The object flashed a series of red, blue, and yellow lights, the light emanating from the end of the object turned from white to red, and the triangles reemerged and hovered above it. The noise from the ice abruptly ceased, and the lights and triangles disappeared.

            When it was over the Coast Guard men drove away, “white-faced,” according to Henry Baker.

            Here is the alleged Coast Guard report, copied from the Internet:

CPCD THE SAME ACTIVITY. THEY WATCHED THE OBJECTS FOR APPROX. 1 HOUR BEFORE RPTNG THAT THE LARGE OBJECT WAS ALMOST ON THE ICE. THEY RPTD THAT THE ICE WAS CRACKING AND MOVING ABNORMAL AMOUNTS AS THE OBJECT CAME CLOSER TO IT. THE ICE WAS RUMBLING AND THE OBJECT LIT MULTI-COLOR LIGHTS AT EACH END AS IT APPARENTLY LANDED.

THE LIGHTS ON IT WENT OUT MOMENTARILY AND THEN CAME ON AGAIN. THEY WENT OUT AGAIN AND THE RUMBLING STOPPED AND THE ICE STOPPED MOVING. THE SMALLER OBJECTS BEGAN HOVERING IN THE AREA WHERE THE LARGE OBJECT LANDED AND AFTER A FEW MINUTES THEY BEGAN FLYING AROUND AGAIN. MOBILE 02 RPTD THAT THEY APPEARED TO BE SCOUTING THE AREA. MOBILE 02 RPTD THAT 1 OBJECT WAS MOVING TOWARD THEM AT A HIGH SPEED AND LOW TO THE ICE. MOBILE 02 BACKED DOWN THE HILL THEY HAD BEEN ON AND WHEN THEY WENT BACK TO THE HILL, THE OBJECT WAS GONE. THEY RPTD THAT THE OBJECTS COULD NOT BE SEEN IF THEY TURNED OFF THERE LIGHTS. ONE OF THE SMALL OBJECTS TURNED ON A SPOTLIGHT WHERE THE LARGE OBJECT HAD BEEN BUT MOBILE 02 COULD NOT SEE ANYTHING, AND THEN THE OBJECT SEEMED TO DISAPPEAR.

ANOTHER OBJECT APPROACHED MOBILE 02 APPROX. 500 YDS. OFFSHORE ABOUT 20 FT. ABOVE THE ICE, AND IT BEGAN MOVING CLOSER AS MOBILE 02 BEGAN FLASHING ITS HEADLIGHTS, THEN IT MOVED OFF TO THE WEST.

THE CREWMEMBERS WERE UNABLE TO IDENTIFY ANY OF THE OBJECTS.

            For a month after the night the Coast Guard got buzzed, MUFON reported the sightings continued unabated. Then MUFON reported a black helicopter was seen flying tree-top level over a home of some witnesses. The helicopter was observed by five individuals from three separate residences. Here’s what the witnesses told MUFON: “The unmarked and unlit helicopter had a military appearance as it approached slowly from the west, making a loud sound peculiarly similar to that made by a small airplane rather than a helicopter.” The apparently windowless craft was observed to fly eastward, before turning to the south and disappearing over a line of trees. It also caused “snow” on a television screen.

            Michael Lee Hill, on the other hand, says he’s never been stalked by black helicopters or approached by federal agents for that matter. But unlike Hill, who has been tagged a fraud, and John Knaub, who sounds as if he’s still in the strong-armed grip of some secret US government office that wants him to remain silent
or else (
even after twenty years post-sighting), there are those who live near Lake Erie that are not only credible, but not afraid to be open and confident about what they saw.

            Ted Henry is a retired broadcast news reporter from Cleveland. He is like family to many in the region. His credibility and trust-worthiness is iron cast. His vision is like the cameras used by his news station. So when Henry talks about his UFO experience, even the most hardcore doubters are left pondering our place in the universe.

            “So here I come walking out of the TV station one night in November maybe a decade ago after our early evening newscast,” he says. “In perfect formation there were five large objects flying smoothly in my direction – It was stunning. What I saw was the undersides of five flat objects flying in exact formation. The front two were enormous, maybe the size of several football fields and the three trailing were smaller flying in a slightly irregular pattern.”

            Similar sights were made locally and in Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Henry says what he saw may have been space junk, what several so-called experts were telling local media.

            “What do I think they were? All I can really tell you is what I saw.”

            Henry has talked about his sighting many times on the air. He puts the experience this way: “One thing is certain, for people who see something in the sky, as I did over Cleveland years ago, it can be a life-changing experience.”

The Greatest Trojan Horse – Ever?

            For a year, Bruce Gagnon had the same nagging feeling. That someone or some people were on the edges of his life, trying hard to look in. Were they parked around the block in their black Ford SUV with tinted windows? Or like a cyberspace shadow, could they be following every move he made on the Internet? He just knew it. Something wasn't quite right. Or was he just being paranoid? Was his status as the director of one of world’s fastest growing arms-control movements getting the best of him?