Kecksburg UFO incident 60 years ago put Westmoreland County community on the map
Courtesy of the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department
It was the time of year when children would look to the heavens to see if they could spot Rudolph’s red nose or their parents would sing about a star shining in the east beyond them far.
But as the sun was disappearing over the horizon on Dec. 9, 1965, a Thursday, people across several states were getting a different kind of celestial light show, this one entirely out of the ordinary and most decidedly not Santa Claus taking the reindeer out for a practice run.
Residents of the Detroit area and its Canadian neighbor, Windsor, Ont., described seeing a light streaking fast across the dusky firmament about 4:45 p.m. that day. People in the Cleveland area also saw something and a wooded area near suburban Elyria, Ohio, apparently caught fire as a result of the mysterious object. A sonic boom was heard in Pittsburgh and then residents of Kecksburg, an unincorporated community in Westmoreland County’s Mount Pleasant Township, said they heard a thud.
Kecksburg “became a hub of activity last night when a fireball reportedly struck that area,” the next day’s Uniontown Morning Herald reported on its front page. Whatever roared out of the sky was sufficient to headline the next morning’s Washington Observer, edging aside news from Vietnam, the Soviet Union and the American space program. “Brilliant Fireball Cause of Fires in Ohio, Pennsylvania” the headline at the top of the page read.
Roadblocks went up in Kecksburg after the thump in the woods was heard, and firefighters, officers from the Pennsylvania State Police and members of the U.S. Army’s 662nd Radar Unit from Pittsburgh scoured a 15-square-mile area for seven hours. The result? “We found no fire and no marks,” according to Capt. Joseph Dussin of the Greensburg state police post. Geiger counters were used to measure potential radiation, but nothing was detected.
“We definitely believe it was a meteor,” Dussin said. This view was seconded by Dr. William Bidelman, an astronomer at the University of Michigan. He declared, “It was undoubtedly a fireball.”
Still, all the confident proclamations that it was nothing more threatening than a hunk of space junk failed to silence whispers that what landed in the woods was from another world. Local legend had it that officials removed a spacecraft that was shaped like a bell or an acorn and had writing on the side that resembled Egyptian hieroglyphics. The tale gained a greater foothold in 1990 when NBC-TV’s “Unsolved Mysteries” ventured to Kecksburg for a look back on what happened a quarter-century before. A replica of the “spacecraft” that Kecksburgers allegedly saw was left behind by the “Unsolved Mysteries” crew, and that now sits on a platform across from Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department.
And the suggestion that little green men might have touched down near Kecksburg has since generated some green for the town of about 10,000 residents. Every year, there’s a UFO festival that raises funds for the fire department. It has a parade, craft vendors, a bed race, paranormal enthusiasts and more.
“The attendance has been going up for us in the last five years,” according to Ronnie Struble, the president and chairman of Kecksburg’s UFO festival. “It’s really been a great benefit.”
The fireball – or visitor from another world – that touched down in Kecksburg was one of many sightings of UFOs that caused jitters in America over its history. As far back as 1835, a New York newspaper ginned up hysteria – and readership – with fabricated reports of a civilization on the moon populated by bat-like creatures. There was, of course, the infamous 1939 radio broadcast of Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds,” and in the decades after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and the Cold War heated up, extraterrestrials took centerstage in popular fiction, movies and television.
Some people believed they had encounters that were closer than watching “The Day the Earth Stood Still” or “Earth vs. Flying Saucers” in a movie theater or on television. In September 1952, folks in Flatwoods, W.Va., believed an alien was loose in the woods. First, there was bright light across the sky, followed by sightings of a 10-foot-tall being with tiny, claw-like hands, a red face and a hood. It’s widely believed that it was actually a barn owl. The folklore surrounding the supposed visitor is now the basis for the Flatwoods Monster Museum in Sutton, W.Va.
One year after the Kecksburg UFO incident, West Virginians in the southeast corner of the state believed an extraterrestrial “mothman” was terrorizing them. It later became the basis of the book and movie “The Mothman Prophecies.” It’s assumed now that the supposed “mothman” was a sandhill crane that had deviated from its migration route. Like Kecksburg, Point Pleasant, W.Va., hosts an annual Mothman Festival where attendees can “celebrate their favorite cryptid,” to use the words of the festival’s website. The festival has live music, guest speakers, vendors and more.
On the night of the 60th anniversary, there was a commemoration in Kecksburg of the UFO incident, with a documentary shown on a big-screen television at the firehouse’s social hall. UFO burgers and fries were served and T-shirts were sold.
Struble was living in Greensburg on Dec. 9, 1965, and saw the streak of light across the sky. He remains unconvinced by the expert pronouncements that it was nothing more than a random rock from outer space.
“I don’t believe at this point it was a meteor,” he said.