1964: Take Me to your Fertilizer!

THINK ABOUTIT ALIEN ENCOUNTER REPORT

Date: April 24 1964

Sighting Time:

Day/Night: morning

Location: Tioga City, North Dakota

Urban or Rural:

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

Duration:

Number of Entity: two

Entity Type: humanoids 

Entity Description: two 4-foot-tall humanoids ducked out from beneath it. They wore one-piece silver suits that covered their entire bodies (even their faces)

No. of Object(s): 1

Size of Object(s): 20-ft-long and 4ft high

Distance to Object(s):

Shape of Object(s): egg-shaped

Color of Object(s):

Number of Witnesses: Gary Wilcox.

Source: http://graylien.110mb.com/wilcox.html

Summary: Martian explorers visit a farm. 

Full Report

The Coming of the Martians

On April 24, 1964, Tioga City farmer Gary Wilcox encountered a pair of self-professed Martians who proved to be among the most talkative aliens to ever visit our planet.

That morning, Wilcox was spreading manure when he noticed a metallic object in a nearby clump of trees. He walked over to investigate and discovered an aluminium egg-shaped craft, 20ft long and 4ft high. It was hovering 2 feet above the ground, making a noise like a car engine idling.

The farmer gave the object an inquisitive kick and two 4-foot-tall humanoids ducked out from beneath it. They wore one-piece silver suits that covered their entire bodies (even their faces) and held trays filled with soil and plant samples.

“Do not be alarmed. We have spoken to people before,” announced one of them. “We are from what you people refer to as planet Mars.”

A Warning and a Prophecy

The Martians spoke in eerie voices that originated from their chests. They told Wilcox they were “travelling the hemisphere” surveying life on Earth. They were only able to visit our planet once every two years and avoided cities because the pollution “interfered” with their spacecraft.

Wilcox asked if a short visit to Mars could be arranged. The aliens demurred, saying he would find the atmosphere too thin. Indeed, they seemed opposed to Mankind venturing into space at all. They claimed our space program was “too primitive” to succeed, and predicted that two American astronauts (Gus Grissom and John Glenn) would soon die from the side-effects of space travel, as would two Soviet cosmonauts. [1] They also claimed that “the Earth and Mars, plus some other planets, might be changed round”.

A Complicated and Uncertain Matter

The Martians asked Wilcox to explain the work he had been doing in the fields. They apparently believed that studying Earth’s agriculture would help them solve their problems growing crops on the “rocky structure of Mars”.

Wilcox explained the benefits of using fertiliser. Obviously impressed, they asked if they might take a bag of it home with them. While he was fetching it, the creatures hopped back into their craft and took off. Nevertheless, Wilcox left the fertiliser at the landing site. By the next day, it was gone.

Wilcox was later evaluated by psychiatrist and author Berthold Schwartz. Schwartz concluded that he was “a truthful person with no emotional illness” and that his experience was a ‘real’ event, “though the interpretation of the encounter is a complicated and uncertain matter”.

Sources

Lynn Picknett: The Mammoth Book of UFOs, pp366-368.
Jenny Randles: Alien Contact: The First 50 Years, p50.
Jerome Clark: Extraordinary Encounters, pp267-268.
Peter Brookesmith: UFO: The Complete Sightings Catalogue, pp78-79.

Footnote

[1] Sadly, Gus Grissom did indeed die, though not from space sickness. He was trapped in a fire which broke out aboard an Apollo module undergoing ground tests in January 1967. Three months later, Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov plummeted to his death when his capsule parachute failed to deploy upon re-entry. John Glenn, on the other hand, survived his tour of duty in space and embarked upon a successful career in politics.