CLOVIS, NM UFO EVENT - 1976

Burned Ground & Unusual Metal and Men In Suits


HBCC UFO Research Note: I have removed a person's name from this report I was sent due to not having permission to make the person's name public as I just have not spoken to the person. Also I want to make it very clear, the person who wrote this report wants to stay anomalous. Here at HBCC UFO Research I respect everyone's wishes. I will not be giving out this person's name.

Hello again, Brian

To answer your question, (name removed) name appeared in the Sunday article in the Clovis News Journal. I don't know if he gave permission to use it, as he is now located in Las Vegas, Nevada. His father was quoted, just joking about the whole thing, but that's the kind of man he is.

I took some time to sit down and write what I remember about that time, thirty years ago. I remembered quite a bit, maybe more than my friends. Here is the text:

I was a senior in high school, and was approached by a local young man named (name removed). He had heard that I owned a large telescope, and wondered if we might use it together to try to get a view of some objects he’d seen in the sky and taken pictures of the previous night. I had a 6" reflector telescope, and back then, it was uncommon.

I accompanied him and a young reporter from the Clovis News Journal for the next 36 hours or so. We had the telescope with us in the trunk of the car. We went out to several remote areas at the edge of town, and my friend described what he had seen the night before. We set up the scope, and binoculars, and looked at the sky. There were several moments when we thought we saw movement in the star field, but couldn’t be sure. Sometime after midnight, we decided to doze at the News Journal office, on a couple beat up old couches they had there, and listen to the police scanner.

After a short while, we heard a call go out for a “public service” to the “burn spot” behind the Colonial Park church, at the northwest edge of town. “Public service” meant fire, police, and emergency medical services were all to respond.

We scurried out to the car, piled in and beat everyone but the state police to the site. When we arrived, a State Policeman told us that a couple had been “parking” (we knew the young couple from high school) behind the church when they saw a craft with green lights land in the field beside the church. It stayed a few moments, then blasted off into the sky. When it took off, it started the field on fire. When we got there, the fire was not burning. We could smell the burnt grass, so we crossed a barbed wire fence to get to the burned spot with flashlights in our hands.

The burned area was very strange. The prevalent winds here are from the west, and I remember that the burn spot ran north and south, about 100 yards long and 30 yards wide, contrary to the wind. There was a strange pattern at the edge of the burn also. The grass inside the burned area was burnt to the ground, then at the edge, the short grass wasn’t touched, and the taller grass farther out was singed only at the tops. Some of the grass fifteen feet from the edge of the burn was singed on the top, with untouched grass in between. So it seemed that a giant flame had played over the field, completely unlike a natural grass fire, which has a clear line delineating the edge. This peculiar pattern was all around the edge of the burned spot.

In the middle of the burn, we found a weird clue. There was a square of grass, about 18 inches, perfectly square, and the grass had been pressed down hard into the dirt. Around the square the grass was completely burned away, but the grass flattened in the square was untouched, but for being pressed down. It seemed as if something very, very heavy was sitting there, and left a footprint in the grass. We spread out, looking for other similar “footprints,” but there were none, only the one, singular square.

As we were in the field, walking around the burned spot, a four-door sedan pulled up to the edge of the field where the firefighters and local police were waiting. The sedan had four men inside, all of them wore suits. The state police waved us over. The men were pretty much nondescript, clean shaven, average looking, short haircuts, but not quite military. They started asking us questions. One of them opened the trunk of the car and it was filled with electronic equipment. He took a device out of the trunk and closed the trunk. We told them about the square footprint, and they wanted to see it. We all walked to the field, and showed them the spot. With the flashlights playing on the spot, one of the men took his shoe and rubbed the spot out, obliterating it. I remember his words to this day. “That’s nothing."

We were instantly angry. I marched off away from the group and more towards the edge of the burn, where we hadn’t looked around. I was fuming, shining the light around hoping to get another clue. I found one.

It was a piece of constructed metal, about two feet long. When I picked it up, I noticed that it was very light, yet strong, like titanium. On one end was a tube, about two inches in diameter, and attached to the side of the tube and running along its length was a small flat bar. The bar was about twice as long as the tube, and on the end of the bar was attached a fin. The fin was about 8" wide, and very flat and thin.

I yelled to my friends, but before they could get there, one of the suits ran up and snatched it from me. He hauled it away so fast that my friends only got a glimpse of it. The suits then told us to leave the area. We stomped off, and hung around by our car. What the suits didn’t know is that the young reporter, who had his camera around his neck the whole time, had taken a photograph of the square footprint. That photo is still somewhere out there.

The police, firefighters, and ambulance were all leaving, as there were no casualties and no fire. The police announced they were all going to Denny’s, a local restaurant, for coffee. The suits asked if one of us young people would ride with them, and since I was the youngest, I was “elected."

I sat between two of the suits in the back seat. They interrogated me while we were driving, asking all kinds of personal questions, about me, what I did with my time, what movies I liked, my hobbies. Even at a young age, I knew they were fishing. I was polite, and was very happy to get out of their car. We all sat at different tables at the restaurant, and didn’t talk much, as the suits were listening.

When we left, everyone (including the suits) went to the old empty Hotel Clovis, and I hauled my big telescope up to the roof. The suits had binoculars and several small, box-like instruments they were peering through. I remember how strange it was, them letting us youngsters even go up there. We watched the sky, waited, and watched some more.

I was getting dreary eyed when one of my friends noticed some strange movement in the star field. It was as if a star would just zip across the sky to another location where it would just stay. We’d watch it a while, and it would zip again, with excited shouts going up, “Did you see that?” “Did you see?” The suits would always deny seeing anything.

This watching went on for several hours, but no stunning play of lights or colors appeared. We all went to our homes and slept until the next night.

The next day, we read in the paper that the burn had been made by fireworks. In January. I knew it was a cover-up, as the burn pattern couldn’t have possibly been made by fireworks. They also said that what was seen in the sky was Saturn. There was no mention of the footprint, or the strange piece of metal.
Brian, there is more to the story, but I’ll have to get to that later, if you’re interested. Just let me know.

I would like to extend my many thanks to the person for this wonderful report which adds a lot more information to what took place in 1976. Also there will be more to come.

Brian Vike, Director HBCC UFO Research Home - Phone 250 845 2189 email: hbccufo@telus.net Website: http://www.hbccufo.org/ HBCC UFO RESEARCH Newsletter At: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HBCC_UFO_Newsletter/
Plus a new domain name, HBCC UFO Research International: http://www.hbccufointernational.org/
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More tomorrow