With the government’s recent release of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena videos, public interest in UFOs (as I still call them) has increased. The UFO mania began in 1947 when a private pilot reported seeing nine silvery discs in the sky around Mount Ranier, Washington. When he told reporters that they were in the shape of saucers, the term “flying saucers” was born.
Days later, a rancher claimed to have found the wreckage of a flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico. The Air Force at first confirmed that UFO wreckage had been collected, but later changed its story and said it was a weather balloon. Over the years, the so-called Roswell Incident took on a life of its own as the lore evolved to include the recovery of alien bodies.
Louisiana was soon caught up in the UFO phenomena. In July 1949, newspapers reported that several people saw a strange object zoom over Alexandria. It was reportedly saucer-shaped with a yellow light and flew lower and slower than an airplane, but was completely silent and often changed course. After more UFOs were seen over the city and in Acadia Parish, plans were made to hold a UFO convention in Alexandria to share information. The event was cancelled, however, when only two people signed up to attend.
Curiously, an unidentified aerial object was documented in our area long before modern times. On the night of April 5, 1800, one flew over Baton Rouge, and the respected naturalist and explorer William Dunbar wrote of it to Vice President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson later published Dunbar’s letter in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.
Dunbar said the object flew from the southwest to northeast and passed over the town in about fifteen seconds. “It appeared to be of the size of a large house, seventy or eighty feet long and of a form nearly resembling Fig. 5 in Plate IV.” Unfortunately, the illustration Dunbar included in the letter has been lost, so we do not know what the huge object looked like.
It appeared to be about two hundred yards above the surface of the earth, wholly luminous, but not emitting sparks; of a colour resembling the sun near the horizon on a cold frosty evening, which may be called a crimson red. When passing right over the heads of the spectators, the light on the surface of the earth, was little short of the effect of sun-beams, though at the same time, looking another way, the stars were visible. . . . In passing, a considerable degree of heat was felt but no electric sensation. Immediately after it disappeared in the North East, a violent rushing noise was heard, as if the phenomenon was bearing down the forest before it, and in a few seconds a tremendous crash was heard similar to that of the largest piece of ordnance [cannon], causing a very sensible earthquake.
Dunbar wrote that the witnesses found where the fiery object struck the ground, and that “a considerable portion of the surface of the earth was found broken up, and every vegetable body burned or greatly scorched.” Unfortunately, he didn’t mention if any remains of the object were found.
When I was a student at Louisiana Tech in the fall of 1973, there was a spat of UFO sightings. The excitement started around Pascagoula, Mississippi, when two fishermen claimed that aliens had kidnapped them and taken them aboard their spaceship.
[Read more about "The Pascagoula Abduction," in this story from our October 2021 issue.]
Afterwards, two fishermen on Lake D’Arbonne informed the sheriff’s office one night that two amber colored lights were hovering in the sky over the lake. It was reported that some lights in the area near the objects dimmed and some went out completely. The sheriff’s office admitted, “We just do not know what it was. . . . a worker came and said the power lines in the area were not defective.” When a reporter asked if the man who alerted the sheriff’s office had left any contact information, the deputy declared, “The only thing he left was the lake.”
Other sightings were reported in Monroe and in nearly every northern parish. The Monroe News Star summarized the events by declaring, “’Huge flashing lights over several different colors. . . . red, green, and amber lights, with the red and green interchanging. . . . a light in the woods that was lighting up the whole area. . . .’ are among descriptions given by witnesses, including a mayor, deputies and a postmaster.”
Everyone was talking about the UFOs—and then I had my own experience. It occurred in the wee hours of the morning when I was driving home from Ruston on U.S. 167 after a date. There was a full moon, and everything was lit up in the bright pale light. I was between Quitman and Jonesboro when I glanced to my right and saw a big silvery globe hovering above the pine trees, appearing to fly parallel to the highway, and keeping pace with me.
My heart raced as I drove faster and kept darting my eyes from the road to the UFO. Then I came to a break in the woods and got a clear view of it. My menacing flying saucer was actually . . . the Punkin Center water tower.
Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. An autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, costs $25. Contact him at tljones505@gmail.com
