During the afternoon of Thursday 9th December 1965, a bright fiery object was observed by many people hurtling across the skies of southern Canada, Ohio and Michigan, leaving a smoky trail in its wake. As well as ground observers in several states, the object was witnessed by pilots who were flying over Lake Erie. As the object veered towards Pittsburgh, many people called the emergency services believing they were seeing an aircraft in distress - jamming the telephone lines of the police, the media and the Allegheny County Observatory. 

The object was observed to change course as it hurtled across the skies of North America

 The woods near Kecksburg - [ left ] the crash site of a UFO?

Almost immediately members of the local voluntary fire company headed to the site of the crash and Jim Romansky was the first to locate the object, at the bottom of a ravine. Romansky described the object thus:
"It was like a large metallic acorn, slightly dented and of a very unusual colour. It was metallic without seams with hieroglyphic-like writing on the sides". Within a very short length of time the State Police had also arrived on the scene with a view to organising a proper search and controlling the crowd of inquisitive people who had arrived, including radio and T.V. news reporters. It was obvious, by this time, that this was not a conventional aircraft that had glided out of the sky and it was noticed that a State Police fire marshal had arrived on the scene accompanied by a man carrying a Geiger counter - within minutes the State Police had orders to seal the woods off.  Jim Romansky -[ right ] the first person on the scene of the crash. . Firmly maintains that the object was a UFO and there was a military cover-up

Jon Murphy, News Director of the Greensburg radio station - WHJB, asked the fire marshal (with whom he was very friendly) for information about the object which had crashed in the woods but the fire marshal claimed that he was uncertain and suggested that Murphy made enquiries with the State Police at Greensburg. The commanding officer of the State Police informed Murphy that the 662nd Radar Squadron (Oakdale Air Support Facility) was sending a contingent of men to conduct a briefing - which proved to be an official denial of any events occurring:
"The Pennsylvania Police have made a thorough investigation - we are convinced there is nothing whatsoever in the woods".

The situation was reported by the media.

However, by this time there were many military personnel/equipment both in the woods and in Kecksburg - they did in fact commandeer the local Fire Hall and "quarantined" the woods. The doors of the fire hall were guarded by armed military and the village was "over run" with military jeeps and various trucks. Late that night some residents observed a "flat-top" truck leaving the woods with a large tarpaulin covered object lashed on top - it was obvious that the "acorn-shaped" object that fell from the skies was being transported to another destination.

Was the media fed a "cover story" by the military?

Stan Gordon, [left] UFO researcher, conducted a meticulous investigation into the Kecksburg incident revealing that records of the 662ND Radar Squadron (a designated NORAD Surveillance Site) indicated that a number of personnel were directly involved in the events at Kecksburg. Gordon also discovered that an object was transported that night from Kecksburg to Wright Patterson AFB (Dayton Ohio) via Columbus Ohio. Evidence also suggested that the U.S. Government had tracked the "unknown object" throughout the afternoon of the 9th December and alerted the necessary agencies to deal with its retrieval from the woods around Kecksburg.

There were also other strange and disturbing aspects to the Kecksburg incident, namely intimidation of the residents of Kecksburg by members of the military presence. Shortly after the event the News Director John Murphy had interviewed a number of local people who later called him denying previous statements, not wanting to be associated with the reports.
There were other reports of witnesses being threatened by the military and also reports that radiation had been released during the incident - some people had been told by military personnel that a radiation leak was a possibility and men dressed in decontamination suits were seen at the site of the crash. UFO reports in the newspapers.

It did seem possible that the object was, in fact, a Russian Venus probe - "Cosmos 96" - which, having been launched on November 23rd 1965, developed booster problems. Cosmos 96[ right ] - fell to earth in Canada.

However, it is on record that Cosmos 96 fell  to earth at 3-18 a.m. on December 9th 1965. Also, witness descriptions of the Kecksburg object did not include details of the ancillary equipment which externally adorned Cosmos 96.
In the opinion of Jim Romansky and Robert Blystone, who were both among the first people to witness the crash site there is good reason to believe that the object was, in fact, a genuine UFO. Robert Blystone - [ left ]an eye witness to the crash site. "I think it was a UFO, definitely".
"It was definitely not of this planet - when you see something like that you don't forget it. I still want to know what the hell it was!" 

Artistic depiction of the object found in the woods near Kecksburg.

 Part 2 - Part 3

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