1952: Encounter near Salt Lake City, Utah

THINK ABOUTIT SIGHTING REPORT

Date: August 3 1952

Sighting Time:

Day/Night: night

Location: Near Salt Lake City, Utah

Urban or Rural: Rural

Hynek Classification: CE-III (Close Encounter III) Close observation with animate beings associated with the object.

Duration: half an hour

No. of Object(s):  1

Size of Object(s):

Distance to Object(s):

Shape of Object(s): saucer

Color of Object(s): pulsing brightly from bluish-green to yellow, orange and back again.

Number of Witnesses: 1

Special Features/Characteristics: A group of small men milled about in front of the saucer,

Source: Clarion Call! Truman Bethurum

Summary/Description: Still working the night shift, Truman Bethurum (involved in several encounters) was just completing repairs to several trucks on the camp’s perimeter when he saw what looked like a meteor streaking through the night sky, pulsing brightly from bluish-green to yellow, orange and back again. The “meteor” fell from the sky, vanishing silently behind the dune desert landscape about a half mile east of the site of his initial encounter.

Sure that the saucer had returned Bethurum lit out across the desert in his own small truck, bumping and bouncing over the rough terrain, too eager even to bother searching out a road toward his destination. He found the ship again hovering close to the ground only a mile from busy Highway 91, the main thoroughfare through Salt Lake City.

A group of small men milled about in front of the saucer, talking together in that same mumbling language whose rumble had awakened him in his truck when they first met. A doorway opened and the lady captain appeared, beckoning for him to approach with a wave of her hand. He followed her into the ship and down the long corridor to her cabin. The captain again gestured for him to take a seat on the curving couch, and then sat beside him, smiling.

They talked openly together, like old friends. She explained that the nature of earthlings and of her own people was very similar, that the people of her world were human beings, sharing the same feeling and foibles, the same natural talents and challenges.

Her people however, had met these challenges directly, and had chosen a les destructive course than the one presently being pursued by the people of Earth. “The things worry you Earth people,” she told him, “in our homes you will never find. We know nothing of illness, doctors or nurses. You have mechanics and laborers, too. In our land they only mean trouble, so you see they are all taboo.”

She was unimpressed by Earth technology and military might as well, lamenting our invariably destructive use of these resources. She valued Earth’s politics and politicians no more highly, declaring, “That’s what’s cleft your world through,” and adding. “With so many politicians, voting hardly seems worthwhile.” After only half an hour the captain from the planet Clarion signaled that the visit was over. As soon as Bethurum placed his feet on the sandy ground outside the great saucer, the disc was gone, streaking away into the night as mysteriously as it had appeared.