Illinois, 1967: UAPSRS Case No. 102
| Country | United States |
| State or Province | Illinois |
| City | Near Chicago |
| Date | Fall, 1967 (Exact Date Not Specified) |
| Time | Evening at Twilight (Exact Time Not Specified) |
| Weather | Overcast, Drizzly |
| Duration | Not Specified |
| Witnesses (Number) | 1 (Aunt) |
| Distance | Not Specified |
| Solid Object | Yes |
| Size | As big as a block of houses |
| Shape | Triangle |
| Shape Details | Large, stretched over the area |
| Metallic/Shiny | Not Specified |
| Color | Black |
| Glow/Halo | Not Specified |
| Lights | Yes |
| How Many Lights | Multiple, at the corners and in a ring in the center |
| How Bright | Not Specified |
| Light Coloration | Not Specified |
| Sound | Not Specified |
| Motion/Speed | Very fast, described as shooting away into the clouds |
| Number of Objects | 1 |
| Coordination/Communication | Not Specified |
| Windows | Not Specified |
| Occupants | Not Specified |
| Description | SUMMARY: In the fall of 1967, near Chicago, Illinois, the narrator’s aunt witnessed a large, black, triangle-shaped UFO while walking her dog on an overcast, drizzly evening. Initially mistaking the object’s lights for holiday decorations, she realized its true nature when the lights remained visible beyond a nearby water tower’s location. The sighting deeply affected her, leading to a lifelong fear and avoidance of the topic. The detailed description of the UFO as a black triangle, a shape not commonly associated with UFOs until decades later, is notable as it represents a very early observation of what is now a commonly reported UAP variety from more recent decades. FULL ORIGINAL ACCOUNT: This is a family story that began over 50 years ago. It is a story that was just a footnote in my family’s history but became much more significant to me because what was told to us as children turned out NOT to be exactly what my aunt had actually experienced, and eventually convinced me of the veracity of her report. I am 56 years old and currently reside in Green Bay, WI though grew up in the south-western suburb of Chicago, Illinois named Brookfield. My fascination with, and eventual life-long relationship, with the paranormal began at a young age after hearing a story about my Aunt having seen a UFO in 1967. One day in the early 70’s I was home watching a syndicated broadcast of the Gerry Anderson TV series “UFO” on our local Public Broadcast Service (which aired educational shows such as Sesame Street and hard-to-find British television series like Doctor Who & Monty Python, etc) when my parents approached and asked what I was watching. After telling them the nature of the program my mother turned visibly agitated and told me to “turn that off, right now!” I asked why and she responded by telling me that my Aunt [REDACTED] (whom I called “auntie”) and uncle were about to arrive for a visit and that because my aunt had “seen one of those horrible things” my watching the show would upset her. I of course obeyed and changed the channel. But I was intrigued and wanted to learn more. At the time I had been exposed to a fair amount of quality science-fiction from HG Wells to Star Trek to Arthur C Clark’s “2001” and “Doctor Who”, so I was open to the idea of other non-human intelligences (hence my watching the Gerry Anderson production in the first place). And yet here I was being told that these sort of things actually HAPPENED to real people. I was fascinated by the prospect of the unknown being much more real. Over the next few years I gathered as much information on my aunt’s “experience” as I could. Speaking plainly about the subject in mixed company (let alone in the presence of my aunt) was unacceptable so I had to rely on my parent’s relating of the story as told in bits and pieces during many conversations over many years. The story, as I learned it, went like this: During the fall of 1967 my aunt took their dog “Baron”, an Irish Setter, for a walk around on an overcast, drizzly evening at twilight. The town in which we all lived was situated alongside a railroad line that offered service to both commuters and freight, to and from the greater Chicago area and the far south and western areas of the state. My family’s home was about 175 meters north of this railroad line. My aunt’s house was only two blocks east of us, much closer to the tracks. Our town’s location featured a water tower situated right along the tracks very near to my aunt’s house and viewable from her front yard. While on this walk with the dog she vaguely noticed lights in the sky that she assumed were holiday lights affixed to the water tower, thinking “they placed Christmas lights on the water tower early this year”. It was only after she had walked around her block of houses that she realized she could still see these lights. She noted that from her current vantage point the water tower should be out of view. Thus, she refocused her attention on the lights and realized she was seeing a “flying saucer”, a very large craft in the sky that should not be there. She panicked due to the stress of seeing something that was unnatural and raced home. Once in her house she called to my uncle screaming “pull the shades down!” My uncle, not sure what was happening, assisted in pulling all the window shades down, blocking all view outside, only afterward asking what was happening. My aunt was terrified by what she saw and took some time to relay her experience. Once told, the two of them went to the front of the house, pulled away the shade and peeked out the window. What they reportedly saw was a “saucer” above the house across the street that, once seen, shot away into the clouds at an incredible speed. The story continues from here in the usual fashion: the Air Force is contacted, they send an Airman to conduct an interview, but no resolution is forthcoming. Over the years however, a few details of the Air Force’s involvement came to light via my prodding of my parents for more info. According to my parents the uniformed Air Force representative (no rank or indication of position has ever been revealed) told my aunt that several others within our town had reported seeing a similar object at the same time, over the same area. When pressed by my aunt and uncle as to what the object was, the Air Force representative replied “We can’t tell you what it was, ma’am”. In the telling of this story, it was odd that my parents always stressed how the Air Force said they could not “tell” us what it was, suggesting that perhaps they actually knew but were not allowed to share. You must also understand that my aunt had been terrified by this experience. None of the family were allowed to speak to her of the event or of any related topical material if she was nearby. While growing up I knew that my aunt would NOT go outside on overcast evenings, that she feared being alone on the street and that she always felt as she was being “watched”. This went on for decades. I was in my late teens when my aunt and uncle moved to a remote area of the north woods of Wisconsin, which my entire family had visited annually for several generations, full of fresh water lakes and miles of undisturbed pine forests. They built a home on the shore of a remote lake, miles and miles from civilization. Until, of course, according to my parents my aunt thought one day that if “they” could come from other planets, what was to keep the from landing on water? My aunt was from that moment terrified that being so far from civilization would attract her “visitors”. My aunt and uncle eventually decided to move to Arizona to be near one of their children and to escape once and for all the harsh mid-western winters. By the time they decided to move to Arizona I had grown and had a family of my own. I had spent many years reading about the UFO phenomena and was familiar with all it’s aspects; daylight discs, nocturnal lights, abductions, etc. It was 2002 and I myself had relocated my family to Green Bay Wisconsin when my aunt informed us they were moving to Arizona. I immediately wanted to spend some last-minute “quality time” with my favorite relations before their move. I also thought that’ since my aunt was then in her 70’s, this might be my last opportunity to ask her direct questions about her experience. Up until this time I had respected my parent’s directive that the subject NEVER be breached. But so many years had gone by without so much as a peep about the subject from any of them & my aunt’s quickly advancing years, I was convinced it was now or never. I would ask her directly about her UFO experience. If she refused to talk about it, I was prepared to apologize and move on. But I just had to try. She was an experiencer that wanted nothing to do with the phenomena, right in my own family. I planned on asking in a safe yet public arena (dinner with our family at a restaurant) at a point in the conversation that allowed her the option to refuse without drawing attention to herself, but also provided an opportunity to tell me more of her experience also without notoriety. What she told me shook me to my core. My wife and three kids met with my aunt and uncle at a small cafe for dinner in northern Wisconsin. This was spring of 2002. We had a great dinner and laughed often talking about family memories. We sat at a long table with my uncle at one end, myself and my aunt at the other end sitting across from each other, with my wife and kids filling the spaces between. We ate and talked for several hours sitting at that table, all the while I was looking for just the right moment to bring up her experience. Finally, my kids were playing video games in the lobby and my uncle had excused himself to go see how they were doing. I had my moment. I asked “Auntie, I’ve been wanting to ask you about this for a long time, but I understand if you wish to not talk about it. Forgive me, but may I ask you about your UFO sighting?” To my surprise my aunt was not upset, but just looked at me. After a moment of what looked like concern on her part she shrugged, laughed and said “What the heck. Sure.” I thanked her and told her what I knew, and how our family had been told to never bring it up, that it would upset her. She responded that indeed, there was a time that just the thought of what happened would put her into fits. But it had been decades since, and she had come to accept that there were many mysteries in life, this just being one of the stranger ones. She confirmed for me that she indeed see a UFO that night, and that it wasn’t the only time she had seen it. She had seen it once again years later with my uncle. I asked her to describe the object. What she said next floored me. “It wasn’t a saucer, like in the movies. It was a triangle-shaped thing, black and huge. It was as big as our block of houses and looked like it stretched over the railroad tracks two blocks down. It had lights at the corners and in a ring in the center. Those were the ones I thought were the water tower. When I ran home with the dog I thought it was following me, but it was only because it was so big, I could see it from anywhere in the neighborhood.” I almost fell out of my seat. All my life I had been told it was a “flying saucer” and thus assumed what she had seen was saucer-shaped. Here she is, telling me it was a black triangle, an object that ostensibly only became a part of the UFO vernacular in the 80’s & 90’s. Something she would never have known about because she wanted nothing to do with the phenomenon and thus wasn’t paying attention to it. It was confirmation for me that indeed, she had experienced a true unexplainable event. She continued: “When [my uncle] and I looked out the window at it, it went away so fast it was almost like it blinked out of existence. It didn’t move, it was just gone.” Her and my uncle at that moment questioned just how effective a defense pulling down the window shades would have been. “I saw it several years later. Your uncle and I were getting out of the car in the parking lot at the shopping mall. We both felt something odd, like someone was watching us. We both looked up into the sky directly above us and saw a dot, way up in the sky. It began falling toward us, you know, getting bigger, but moving like a leaf falls from a tree. It got to be about as big as my hand in the sky when it stopped, then zipped away in seconds. It was the same shape. We were both so scared we got back into the car and raced home.” I thanked her, and told her how amazing I thought it was. She responded by telling me she was glad it only happened those two times, and that for her it was not amazing, but terrifying. She’d wished it never happened. My aunt was then looking visibly shaken by retelling her experience. I placed my hands on top of hers and said, “Okay, enough of all that. Thank you, I’ll never bring it up again.” At that moment my kids returned to the table along with my uncle, all excited after playing the video games. My aunt turned her attention to them in a way that was odd, as if she had completely forgotten what we were talking about. I suppose, after years of repressing the emotions of those two experiences, she had gotten very well skilled in turning away from it all; turning it off. They moved away just a few weeks later, and we did not speak about the subject again. Sadly, she passed away recently, and my uncle soon after. I am convinced she saw something amazing. Here was a woman who knew nothing of the UFO phenomenon or the evolution of sightings across the world following 1967. She deliberately avoided the topic at all costs. Yet described a craft that was not to be a feature of the phenomenon until decades later. What did she see? I may never know. Thank you for taking the time to read this. You can use my name etc if you wish. |
| Nearby Landmarks | Railroad line, Water tower |
| Latitude | 41.8781 (for Chicago, Illinois) |
| Longitude | -87.6298 (for Chicago, Illinois) |
| Altitude | Not Specified |
| Propulsion | Not Specified |
| Advanced Capabilities | Fast movement, ability to disappear quickly |
| Visible Payload | Not Specified |
| Radar | Not Specified |
| Signatures | Not Specified |
| Awareness | Not Specified |
| Aggression | Not Specified |
| Health Effects | Psychological impact (fear, avoidance) |
| Physical/Environmental Effects | Not Specified |
| Animal Disturbance | Not Specified |
| Witness Feelings | Initially curious, later terrified |
| Witness Assessment | Believed to be an unexplained, true event |
| Additional Info | Not Specified |
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