NUFORC Sighting 32352

Occurred: 1972-07-05 14:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2003-10-18 06:01 Pacific
Duration: 5-10 seconds??
No of observers: 1

Location: Park City, KS, USA

Shape: Disk

I saw a flying saucer hovering above me in the middle of the street.

When I was eleven years old, my family was visiting my grandparents in Kansas (where I now live)during summer vacation. The date I gave is an estimate, because I am not entirely sure what month it was, though we usually visited around the Fourth. I am certain it was 1972, because I know I was eleven. I also am not certain of the time, but it was early afternoon.

My grandparents (mother's side)lived in a small house (where my parents now live) on the corner of a tree-lined street. I was inside, in my grandparent's living room, when I heard the music from the ice cream truck in the general vicinity. (I remember each of these details vividly because of what happened that day). I begged my mother for money so I could go run after the truck and get an ice cream treat. My mother was hurrying around to find me enough change, and as soon as I had it, I ran out the door. As I was leaving my grandparent's house, I saw the ice cream truck driving up the street on the west side of their house, which ends up curving back around toward the northeast on the next block. I hurried because the truck was going around the curve and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to catch it.

As I was crossing the street, what I saw stopped me dead in my tracks and I completely forgot the ice cream truck. Hovering right above me, at about tree-top level, was (what I later would tell everyone) a "flying saucer". The diameter of the saucer was about the same as the width of the street, which is a pretty narrow street, a little over the width of two cars. It looked exactly like a flying saucer out of some horrible B movie. It was metallic and exactly saucer shaped, and I was looking up at it, not directly underneath, but looking at it from about a 30 degree angle. It seems weird, but I remember seeing what looked like rivets on the underside, but it all happened so quickly, I can't be sure about that. Anyway, the "saucer" hovered above me, motionless and completely silent, for maybe five seconds, then before I had time to react in any way at all, it took off suddenly and "zipped" straight off to the northeast from the house. It was gone from my sight in maybe two to three seconds.

I can remember seeing it last as it just cleared the rooftop of the house across the street. This detail is so vivid in my head, that I still think of that house as pink, as it was then. (Now it is cream colored). I then reacted, appropriately, I believe, and ran in the house screaming and hysterical. I remember telling my mother "Call the newspaper! Call the newspaper!". No one called anyone, because I guess they didn't know what to think of the whole thing. My mother says now that I had told her at the time it had little blinking lights as well. This event is still talked about in my family, "I remember the day you saw the flying saucer" and I get teased about it from my cousins to this day. It has always been very frustrating for me, because it was broad daylight, and I never knew if anyone else saw it or not. I wish I had had someone else with me that day, but anyway, it is all true. When I hear "experts" say there is a logical explanation for all UFO's, I just think it is because they have never been witness to something like what I saw, or they wouldn't say such things.

I am 42 now, and a mechanical engineer in the aircraft industry. My father is also an engineer, very pragmatic and logical. He told me many years after my sighting (after his mother died...my other grandmother) that she used to look out her kitchen window across the pasture (they lived on a cattle ranch in Texas) and had several times seen "saucers" hovering above the field. She told him and my grandpa and aunt about this, but my dad said she didn't want anyone else to know because she was afraid they would think she was crazy. (She was a very stern school teacher). He only told me after she died. My father has always believed me, as he did my grandmother.

Anyway, that is my story.

NUFORC Note:

Date of event is approximate. PD

Posted 2003-10-31