AudioBlog: A UFO in Lumberton, North Carolina

It is often the case with UFO investigators that once they get to
an area where a UFO has been reported, the UFO is long gone, and
all they can do is interview witnesses. This is important as a
means of creating a record of the case that can be referred to by
future investigators and researchers. But, occasionally an
investigator gets the chance to be a witness and actually observe
what had been reported. This happened to investigator Lee Speigel
who was looking into a series of sightings by as many as thirty
police officers and 50 civilians in Lumberton, North Carolina in
1975. Spiegel submitted a report on the case to the director of the
Center for UFO Studies and former Project Blue Book scientific
consultant, J. Allen Hynek. The case file resides in the archives
housed by David Marler in New Mexico. Along with Speigel’s
report and contemporary newspaper clippings, there is also a series
of paper slips in the file folder containing call information,
presumably filled out at a CUFOS UFO call center. (If anyone can
confirm this, please comment.) According to Speigel’s report, a
violent thunderstorm in the area ended at 1:35 a.m. on April 3,
1975. A “call slip” in the case file has the information that at
1:45 a.m., Sheriff Ronn Thompson was monitoring the radio while
working as the dispatcher at the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office in
Lumberton when the first report of a strange object came in. It was
seen by Robeson County Officer Phil Stanton and then by two
officers from St. Paul. All three described the object as v-shaped
with red, blue, and clear lights. A slip with 5:15 a.m., filled in
for the time has the information that two Sampson County officers
saw a similar object that put a spotlight on them as it moved off.
One of the officers “clocked it” at 200 mph. It appears that there
was a full fledge flap after 10:00 p.m. that night because a slip
with 10:15-10:30 p.m. filled in for the time has information on the
back that officers from four different police departments and 50
“citizens” reported seeing something. Read more