UFO investigator exposes the process, the known, the unknown

MARENGO — On June 4, 2015, two friends were driving to Marengo about 10:20 p.m. They were coming to the intersection with Highway 6 four miles east of Marengo, when they saw a 75-foot triangular shape hovering, silent, in the sky to the west.

The pair turned left onto Highway 6, toward Marengo and toward the object. It hovered over an unplanted cornfield about 25 feet from the road, 75 feet above the ground.

The triangular object was solid black with fluorescent, bar-shaped white and blue lights across the bottom of the craft, the witnesses said.

The men turned north at the Ampride gas station, now BP, to go into Marengo, but instead turned around to watch the object, which began moving slowly east.

Suddenly, it was gone.

The witnesses combed the sky for it and found it four miles away at the intersection the men had just left. It had traveled four miles in two seconds.

The witnesses insisted that they weren’t drunk.

Mutual UFO Network David Kreiter investigated the case and closed it as unknown.

The story is one of several that MUFON State Director Greg Anderson recounted to an audience at the Marengo Public Library last month. Anderson, whose license plates read UFOHNTR, was a guest of Friends of the Marengo Library.

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1897

The term unidentified flying object had not yet been coined when a wave of “airship” sightings were reported across the country, including in Eldora, Iowa.

“They were always seen by reputable citizens,” said Anderson. “They all had bright lights, usually at the front of the objects.”

The objects arrived at night and followed the path of railroad tracks. Anderson speculated that they might have been using the tracks for navigation.

The objects traveled 140-180 miles per hour, and witnesses could see people on board.

Was this a case of mass hysteria? Anderson asked. Was it a secret government project?

Were they beings from another world? Anderson doesn’t think so.

Could it have been a railroad hoax or a newspaper hoax?

After 1897, the airships disappeared.

The 20th Century

Unidentified flying objects appeared in Iowa again in 1920 in the skies over Mt. Pleasant. A man went fishing about 10 a.m. and saw a turtle-shaped object in the sky. It was translucent blue and made no sound, the witness said.

After about 15 minutes, it left.

In 1969, a blue UFO was seen from Cedar Rapids to Omaha, Nebraska. Three people at the Cedar Rapids airport reported that it was flying 300-400 miles per hour about 1,000 feet off the ground.

A possible abduction was reported in Vinton, July 28, 1981. The object in the sky was black as night and made no sound.

On Sept. 25, 1989, south of Atlantic, a woman heard a dog barking, went outside and saw lights in the sky. She couldn’t wake her husband, a common occurrence with UFO sightings, said Anderson.

The next day, the couple found circles burned into a hay field.

On July 6, 2002, witnesses in Council Bluffs saw 10 UFOs in a row in a straight line. That arrangement is typical of Starlink satellites, Anderson said, but there were no Starlink satellites in the area at the time.

UFO investigation

Iowa MUFON was founded in the late 1960s as the Tri-State UFO study group. It investigated sightings in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.

The organization became the Midwest UFO Network when Wisconsin joined and the Mutual UFO Network when it began investigating sightings throughout the Midwest, said Anderson.

Witnesses report their sightings to MUFON through its website, and the sightings are rated. A simple observation is rated 1, and a sighting with physical evidence is a 2. Sightings of non-human entities are 3, and interaction with the entities are rated 4.

“I’ve never had anything over a 2,” said Anderson. He’s never investigated anything that involves entities.

Each case is assigned to an investigator who interviews witnesses and visits the site.

Investigators research weather patterns, locations of satellites, stars and planets, locations of aircraft and balloons. They use Geiger counters, inclinometers and blacklights if a witness made contact with an entity.

They check for magnetic fields. They use Flightrader24 to track aircraft, heavensabove.com to track satellites and the space station. They consult Google Earth maps and take measurements.

An investigator classifies closed cases as unknown, identified, insufficient data, for information only or a hoax event.

“I personally have never seen anything myself that I couldn’t identify,” Anderson said.

When their research is complete, investigators inform the witnesses of their findings. “That’s always the sketchiest part,” said Anderson.

Even when investigators present evidence, witnesses will insist that’s not what they saw.

“We try to do things scientifically,” said Anderson. “I can’t say what [UFOs] are, but I just know something’s going on.”

Anderson doesn’t believe the Roswell incident of 1947 was debris from a weather balloon. “I think something did happen.” he said.

Identified

In Council Bluffs, Oct. 3, 2022, a father and daughter were walking at Kim Field when they saw a star-like object in the sky. “And we’ve identified it,” Anderson said.

Anderson mapped where the man and his daughter were and what time they saw the object. His research revealed that the International Space Station was visible from that location at that time.

In Larchwood, May 28, 2021, a witness saw two objects in the sky. Anderson used Flightradar24 to find out that balloons had been launched at that time.

On Dec. 5, 2022, a UFO sighting in Ottumwa turned out to be a contrail lit up by the moon.

Military aircraft, commercial aircraft, meteor fireballs, clouds, sky lanterns, space debris and stars that twinkle in rainbow colors have all been mistaken for UFOs, said Anderson.

In photos, lens flare, porch lights, birds and bugs can look like UFOs.

“It helps if you have a video of them,” Anderson said.

Abductions

“I have talked to people that have been abducted,” Anderson said. MUFON Investigator Beverly Trout is one of them.

Trout was abducted by the Praying Mantis people, Anderson said. “In her case, they helped her as far as her health. In her case it was a good experience.”

MUFON did not investigate abductions until 2015, Anderson said. It’s hard to get people to talk about them because it’s too personal.

What are they?

So what are UFOs that aren’t identified? Anderson asked. Are they terrestrial? Maybe, he said.

Are they extraterrestrial, time travelers, inter-dimensional beings or angelic or demonic beings?

That’s what MUFON investigators try to find out.