Official BS UFO Explanations.

[Karl12]

• UFO Car Chase - Wayne City, Illinois, August 4th, 1963.


Two motorists witness a big, white object 'about the size of a washtub' moving along at treetop level - the UFO then paced their vehicle for several miles zig-zagging over the road before hovering over the car and causing electromagnetic interference effects on the radio and engine (object also observed by multiple separately located witnesses).

After later being interrogated by the Air Force the driver was then instructed to wash his car and said the officers 'appeared to be decontaminating the inside of his automobile'.

Excerpts from report:

He glanced out of the window to the south and saw a  big white object moving along at treetop level, about 20 degrees above the horizon to the southwest.  He described it as fuzzy and about the size of a washtub. Both witnesses watched, casually talking about the light for several minutes. 

Then they discovered that the light seemed to be keeping pace with them. Ronnie reported that when he speeded the car up, the object seemed to speed up. Also, when he decelerated, the object seemed to slow down, as well..

The object had been on their right (south) and had kept up with them, when all at once the object headed for the car. It appeared to get within a few hundred feet and then it suddenly gained altitude and stopped for several seconds over an electronic relay tower. Then the light shot across the road to the north side to the left of the car. It maintained this position for a while about 500 feet distant..

When he turned east onto another gravel road, the object suddenly shot diagonally ahead of him over a barn about a mile away, just beyond the T-road. The object now changed from a brilliant white to a duller or dimmer light with an orange tinge. 

Ronnie said he "really poured the coal" to the car and must have been doing 120 mph when he topped the hill on the gravel road. Then, he reported, the object flared bright orange and came straight toward him at high speed. It hovered over the car, within 100'. Just before it hovered it had swerved upward and Ronnie judged its size as that of an automobile. At the point right over the car his radio (tuned to WLS in Chicago) went crazy with static, which was described as a loud whining sound.. At that time he noticed a "cooling effect". The object made another pass at the car, this time west to east, and at this point where the object was again overhead, the automobile engine started hissing. The object proceeded back to its position over the barn, hovered, changed to a duller orange.

Investigators Report

News clipping

Bluebook explanation

'Refuelling aircraft or Venus'

The AF, and especially Quintanilla, were ridiculing many witnesses who claimed sightings of UFOs. The "explanation" issued after the investigation was "a refueling operation" or the "planet Venus". The AF must have considered this case important. Normally, when investigating a case, they would mail out an 8 page questionnaire. If the case was important enough they would send the local "UFO officer" from the nearest airbase. But they did something unheard of by normal Air Force standard operating procedure. They flew a team of physicists, headed by the Project Blue Book Director, himself. Something strange was definitely going on in the Midwest, and AF Intelligence seemed to suddenly be interested in something that "didn't exist."