'Great Michigan UFO Chase' Gets an After Life on Science Channel

A military expert explained away the strange sightings reported by about 100 southeast Michiganders who thought they’d seen UFOs in 1966, saying it was swamp gas – the methane gas created by decomposing vegetative matter in marshy areas. (Photo via Creative Commons)

_________

After more than half a century of trying to convince people to believe their own eyes and close their ears to skeptics, local ufologist – that’s a person who studies phenomena related to unidentified flying objects – Henry Willnus says he’s accustomed to being waved away as a kook.

A retired social studies teacher living in Salem, Willnus also is the former president of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the world’s largest investigative body looking into the UFO phenomena.

So he claims some standing when asked the cliched – but in Willnus’ view, the “No. 1” – question:

“Are we alone?”

Unequivocally, no, says Willnus, who claims that 200 UFO sightings a day are reported “around the world and in every country around the world.”

“There’s pictures, photos and movies,” Willnus told the Observer & Eccentric. “It’s not a hoax when these crafts can disappear before our eyes. Or fly at over 1,000 miles an hour and make a right angle turn – or, stop on a dime.”

“Cosmic Watergate”

Willnus, who didn’t give his age, said he wants to settle this whole matter of UFOs once and for all, before his last day on Earth.

“I’m getting up there and I want this story to break before I pass,” he said. “Some people in the U.S. government are aware we are being visited. This is a cosmic Watergate where there is a cover-up keeping this from people.”

So its a big deal to Willnus that the Science Channel invited him to discuss the UFO phenomenon on a couple of upcoming episodes of its “Close Encounters” program, now in its second season.

The first guest appearance, at 10 p.m. Tuesday, March 10, falls during the anniversary month of of southeast Michigan’s famous 1966 brush with other-worldliness in Dexter. Willnus will also be on the program three weeks later, at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31, to talk about a reported September 1965 UFO sighting in Exeter, NH.

Motorized Posse Chased UFOs

The UFO kerfuffle nearly half a century ago in Dexter included more than 100 reports, sightings over several days, and a motorized posse of a dozen Washtenaw County deputies who chased but couldn’t catch a flying object witnesses said traveled at a high rate of speed and turned from blue-green to brilliant red to yellow.

Tell Us:

• Do you remember the “Great Michigan UFO Chase of 1966”? Can UFOs be explained in some what that doesn’t include extraterrestrial beings?

In case you’re doubting this out-of-this-world chapter in southeast Michigan’s history, others back Willnus up – to a point.

According to an account called “The Great Michigan UFO Chase of 1966,” an unidentified aircraft reportedly maneuvered around Washtenaw County for about four hours on March 14, 1966, buzzing the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, a nearby airport and a local swamp.

Three days later, the deputies embarked on their unsuccessful quest to chase down whatever it was that was setting southeast Michiganders’ nerves on edge. Some people described the object as football shaped, while others said it looked like a pyramid. Frank Manno’s wife was reportedly scared and eager to move from their farm on McGuinness Road after seeing what she thought was a UFO.

Full of Swamp Gas?

And some people – notably, Air Force astronomer and UFO expert Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who studied the phenomenon as part of the government’s two-decade-long Project Blue Book – said those who thought they saw flying saucers were, in a manner of speaking, full of swamp gas.

Also called marsh gas, it’s the methane produced in the decomposition of vegetation in peat swamps and bogs. The odorless gas creates small popping explosions that Hynek said may account for some residents’ reports of sounds similar to a ricocheting bullet or high-frequency ambulance siren.

When ignited, it does look like something out of this world.

“The flames go out in one place and suddenly appear in another, giving the illusion of motion,” Hynek said at the time. “The colors are sometimes yellow, sometimes red and blue-green.

“It seems likely that as the present spring thaws came, the gases methane, hydrogen sulfide and phosphine – resulting from decomposition of organic materials – were released.”

Also on Patch:

• Mad Mike’s Up the Detroit River Without a Rocket Booster: Stuntman Shunned
• Hundreds of Nude Photos Bomb Teen with New Smartphone
• It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a … Flying Toilet

A professor from Adrian College at the time said the dancing lights may have been the result of another natural phenomenon: the aurora borealis sometimes visible in the southeast Michigan skies.

Frank Manno wasn’t convinced.

He said he “got within 500 yards of that thing” when it whirred over his farm, according to an account on the UFO Case Book website. He described the object as pyramid-shaped, with “a light here, and a light there, and what looked like a porthole.”

“It wasn’t like the pictures of a flying saucer and it had a coral-like surface,” he said. “I’ve trapped every hole in this county and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

And it wasn’t swamp gas, either, a commercial pilot who claimed to know a thing or two about swamp gas said.

Van Horn of Hillsdale grew up in the swamp area where many of the sightings were reported. He said the Air Force didn’t take the investigation seriously. “A lot of good people are being ridiculed,” he said.

The UFO Case Book account also takes a swipe at the government, calling the Air Force investigation “a whirlwind probe that lasted two hours and 45 minutes.”

Student Prank?

Sightings continued throughout the month in the localized area of Washtenaw, Macomb and Oakland counties, but also as far away as Marquette and Frankfort, where a reported UFO turned out to be a marine flare.

It was quite a chapter in southeast Michigan’s history. Carloads of students from the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University were caught up in the craze, turning out by the carloads for UFO sighting outings.

That fueled some speculation it was a prank perpetrated on the locals by the college students, but Mannon said they couldn’t have pulled off such an elaborate hoax without being detected.

Other sightings were also debunked. In Ypsilanti, for example, a reported UFO was actually a dry cleaning bag, to which a plastic cross holding several candles had been attached.

The commotion eventually died down, and the government abandoned its Project Blue Book investigation in 1969 after determining UFOs weren’t a threat to national security.

That doesn’t sit well with Willnus.

“The best thing that could happen,” he said, “is if governments, including the United States, would come out and say, ‘The UFO phenomenon is real and don’t panic, because they don’t appear to be here to harm us.’ “

» Are you getting the free daily Patch newsletter and news alerts? Find your Patch and click on the link to sign up!

BLOOMFIELD-BLOOMFIELD HILLS | WEST BLOOMFIELD | BIRMINGHAM | FARMINGTON-FARMINGTON HILLS | ROCHESTER-ROCHESTER HILLS | NOVI | NORTHVILLE | ROYAL OAK | FERNDALE | CLAWSON | HUNTINGTON WOODS-BERKLEY | TROY | WHITE LAKE-HIGHLAND | OAKLAND TOWNSHIP-LAKE ORION | PLYMOUTH-CANTON | DEARBORN | WYANDOTTE | GROSSE POINTE | TRENTON-GROSSE ILE | MACOMB TOWNSHIP | CLINTON TOWNSHIP | ST. CLAIR SHORES | SHELBY-UTICA | NEW BALTIMORE-CHESTERFIELD | FENTON | BRIGHTON | HARTLAND | CHELSEA | DEXTER | SALINE