1975-07-11 - Cassville, WI - Unknown

Sheriff Deputies and Police Officers watched hovering UFO for Hours.

At the time, I was 22 years old and working three jobs; rec-room manager under a local restaurant, psychiatric assistant at the county in-patient facility, and deputy sheriff. All three jobs were in Lancaster, the county seat, but I lived about 18 miles southwest of there in Cassville. Since I was a Grant County Deputy, I was able to do ride-along shifts with the Cassville Police officers. Sometimes I rode in uniform and sometimes not, but I always carried my badge and revolver. These officers worked alone and were glad of the company and, occasionally, were happy to have backup on calls.

On this particular evening, I was rushed to get into the squad car by the officer yelling at me as I left the door of the house. He said I should hurry to get a listen to what was happening on the police-band radio. After we took off, he filled me in. It seems several sheriff deputies and local municipal police officers were at a farm about 15 miles due north of us, near Mount Hope. They had been there since the afternoon. Word had gotten out on the county dispatch frequency that a UFO was hovering in the farmer's field, just a few feet off the ground. The farmer thought maybe it was having some kind of problems and had been watching it for some time before he thought to call the Sheriff's Office. He had not seen any crew members, just the craft hovering there. The SO sent a road deputy to investigate and soon sent the county narcotics sergeant out there, too. Not because there were any drugs involved, but because he had a lot of expensive, Federally funded, photographi! c equipment and knew how to use it.

Later, officers from other communities in the surrounding area, Prairie du Chien, Bloomington, and Fennimore, went to the farm out of curiosity. We radioed county dispatch and asked permission to go, too, but were told we were the only car in the west half of the county that wasn't there, so, we had better stay where we were.

Around 22:00, when it was good and dark, the two of us were sitting on a road atop the river bluffs, so we could hear the radio calls from the repeater tower in the farm area. Radio traffic was light until one of the officers shouted into his mic, “Hey! Is it moving?! Hey! It is! It's going up!” Other officers chimed in, affirming that the UFO was slowly rising from where it had been hovering.

Then, another officer added, “There it goes!” Still another officer wanted to know, “What direction is that?” Someone answered him, “Straight south.” There we were, sitting 'straight south' of that farm. I was sitting in the front passenger seat and in the silence, turned away from the radio lights to look, absentmindedly, out my window. I startled at what, at first, looked like bright, red eyes staring back at me. Only to realize what I was looking at were the aircraft warning lights, halfway up the cable-TV tower about 300 yards away.

I turned back, with a big smile on my face, and started to tell the other officer what a fool I had just been. At that instant, the entire squad car was bathed in the brightest, white light I had ever seen. It appeared to emanate from directly overhead. We both sat there, mouths hanging open, in disbelief. After what seemed like 8-10 seconds, the light went out. We still sat there, wordless. Then, I said, “Tell, me what you saw!” He said, “The brightest light I ever saw!” Neither of us heard anything outside the vehicle, either coming or going. There was nothing in the sky that we could see. I had the overwhelming feeling of a need to be back among people and he had no arguments. We got down off the river bluff and back into town as quickly as possible.

I'd estimate, from hearing “Straight south” to being bathed in light was only about seven or eight seconds.