SUBJECT: BEMIJDI, MINNESOTA UFO SIGHTING ARTICLE FILE: UFO1605




September 11, 1990

Taken from:
The Pioneer, Bemidji, Minnesota, Friday,
August 31, 1990

Witnesses marvel at mystery objects
by Pat Miller, Staff Writer

It seems that Bemidji wasn't the lone city on the path of last weeks
unexpected visitor from the sky as craft of similar description were
sighted in every corner of the area.

Reports of sightings have surfaced from Park Rapids, Clearbrook,
Laporte, Zerkel and Turtle River and the common threads among the
varying accounts are the lack of noise and the shape.

Between 9:30 and 10 p.m. last Thursday [August 23, 1990] Dick
McLaurie of Bemidji and his son Tony were heading home from a
fishing excursion east of Blackduck when they saw the craft near
Castle Highlands Golf Course.

We saw them approaching us from the direction of Bemidji and we
pulled over to watch the show, said McLaurie. They were about one-
quarter of a mile away from us and one-quarter of a mile in the air
and we watched them for about three or four minutes.

What McLaurie saw was at least five different objects shaped like
the bullet with wings that Julie Knutson described last week. The
objects sported a series of light and they all traveled together in
a convoy formation.

There were five or six different vehicles flying in a group,
McLaurie recalled. At first they were moving slowly but then they
started sparking and sped up. All of a sudden all the lights went
out and the things really took off in the direction of Blackduck.
They certainly moved faster than any plane I've ever seen.

At 9:50 that same evening Tom Crissinger of Northward Ho Resort on
Long Lake near Park Rapids was among a group of about 14 people who
saw a similar display.

They looked like the space shuttle and were about the size of a big
jet. But they didn't make any noise, Crissinger said. They trailed
balls of something like fire about a mile long and over the lake
they were easy to see. We also saw about 20 square windows on the
side (of the craft) and we kept asking each other if anybody else
saw the windows. And everyone did.



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The objects continued over the lake in the direction of Bemidji and
followed a slowly ascending course.

Greg Gasman of rural Laporte also witnessed the show from his back
yard between 9:30 and 10 p.m. His immediate attention was on an
airplane he could clearly hear and see high in the sky but when his
gaze returned earthward it was interrupted by the sight of three
unusual visitors low to the ground.

They were almost touching each other and each one had front lights
and back lights, he said. The silhouette of each was of a long
cylindrical object and they were traveling in a convoy.

Unlike the other reports which had the craft heading in a
northeasterly direction, Gasman's objects traveled from the
southeast to the northwest.

They were heading straight for Bemidji and going northwest, he said.

What surprised me the most was that there were no sparks, no sign of
what propelled them, and they made no noise. It was a very quiet
night but still they didn't make a sound.

____________

Additional articles appeared in The Pioneer on August 26, 28, and 30
with similar information.

Other persons sighting the craft were Wayne Bitz and Dave Mathisen
of Bemidji, Diane Wagner from the east side of Big Bass Lake, and
Jami Knutson, 11-year-old daughter of Julie Knutson of Bemidji, and
NORAD tracked the object on radar.

____________


Here is an interesting quote from the August 28 story:

"The official word on the mysterious lights which were visible
over the Bemidji area Thursday night is (probably) a returning
rocket body that decayed in space and reentered the
atmosphere."

That explanation was offered by Major David Griffard of the North
American Air Defense Command based at Peterson Air Force Base near
Colorado Springs, Colo.

He said he cannot disclose other information about the rocket but
said NORAD received calls from Minnesota, South Dakota, North
Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Trinidad about the object.

A spokesman from the Grand Forks Air Base said that no planes from
that base were in the air Thursday evening and the objects the
Knutson's saw did not have their roots at the base.

*******


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