|
Source:
Jay Rath
Wisconsin 's strangest close
encounter of the third kind must surely be the incident
during which Joe Simonton was given three pancakes by
"Italian-looking" aliens.
A close encounter of
the third kind is an actual meeting between humans and
extraterrestrials, and Simonton's is easily the state's
best known. Despite the unlikely manner in which the
story unfolded, the episode survived a rigorous
assessment by the U.S. Air Force and is carried in their
files as "unexplained."
In 1961, Joe Simonton
was a plumber; auctioneer and Santa Claus - annually,
for the Eagle River Chamber of Commerce. He reported his
age as 55 or 60, depending on the interviewer: At 11
a.m., April 18, Simonton was having a late breakfast
when he heard a sound like that of a jet being throttled
back, something like the sound of "knobby tires on wet
pavement." He went into the yard and saw a flying saucer
drop out of the sky and hover over his farm. It was
silver and "brighter than chrome," 12 feet in height and
30 feet in diameter. On one edge were what appeared to
be exhaust pipes, 6 or 7 inches in diameter.
The
disc landed and a hatch opened. Inside were three
dark-skinned aliens, each about 5 feet tall and weighing
about 125 pounds. They appeared to be between 25 and 30
years old and were dressed in dark blue or black knit
uniforms with turtleneck tops, and helmet-like caps.
They were clean-shaven, Simonton said, and
"Italian-looking."
The aliens did not speak in
his presence, but they had a silvery jug with two
handles, heavier than aluminum but lighter than steel,
about a foot high. It seemed to be made out of the same
material as the craft. Simonton said it was "a beautiful
thing, a Thermos jug-like bottle quite unlike any jug I
have ever seen here [on Earth]."
Through ESP or
something, Simonton got the idea that the aliens wanted
water. He left the visitors, filled the jug from the
water pump in his basement, then returned to the craft
and gave the jug back. To do this, he had to brace
himself against the UFO's hull and stretch up. From the
subsequent Air Force report: "Looking into the [saucer]
he saw a man 'cooking' on some kind of flameless cooking
appliance." The alien was preparing pancakes.
The interior of the UFO was dull black, even the
three "extremely beautiful" instrument panels, and had
the appearance of wrought iron. The contrast between the
dark interior and shiny exterior so fascinated Simonton
that he later said that he "would love to have a room
painted in the same way."
In return for the
water, one of the aliens - the only one with narrow red
trim on his trousers - presented Simonton with three of
the pancakes, hot from the griddle. As he did so, the
alien touched his own forehead, apparently a salute in
thanks to Simonton for his help. Simonton saluted back.
Each of the pancakes was roughly 3 inches in diameter
and perforated with small holes.
The head alien
then connected a line or belt to a hook in his clothing
and the hatch closed. The saucer rose about 20 feet and
took off to the south, at a 45-degree angle. Its wake
left a blast of air that tossed the tops of nearby pine
trees. The craft took only two seconds to disappear from
view.
Simonton ate one of the pancakes,
ostensibly in the interest of science. "It tasted like
cardboard," he told the Associated Press. The other two
pancakes he gave to Vilas County Judge Frank Carter, a
local UFO enthusiast. Carter, who called the aliens
"saucernauts" ("I prefer Italians"), said he believed
Simonton's story since he could not think of any way in
which the farmer might profit from a hoax. Carter's son,
Colyn, today a lawyer in Eagle River, told me, "I recall
as a youngster that my dad took it very seriously."
Judge Carter sent the pancakes to what was then
the country's top investigative group, the National
Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP).
They refused the opportunity to check it out. That put a
damper on Judge Carter's plans; he had wanted to hold a
seminar on the incident.
By this time, Simonton
said, he was "irked by reporters making fun of the
situation and laughing."
In response to all
this, the Air Force dispatched its civilian UFO
investigator, J. Allen Hynek. Hynek at the time was an
astronomer at Northwestern University. He later became
convinced that UFOs are real, and founded his own
investigative agency, which took over NICAP's files
after that group folded. Thanks to Hynek, a Northwestern
University committee and the Air Force's Technical
Intelligence Center analyzed one of Simonton's pancakes
and found it to be made of flour, sugar and grease; it
was rumored, however, that the wheat in the pancakes was
of an unknown type.
The official Air Force
assessment of it all: This case is unexplained. "The
only serious flaw in the story is the disappearance of
the craft in 'two seconds.' The rest of the story did
not contain any outrages to physical concepts," reads
the report. Simonton "answered questions directly, did
not contradict himself, insisted on the facts being
exactly as he stated and refused to accept
embellishments or modifications. He stated he was sure
that we wouldn't believe him but that he didn't care
whether he was believed. He stated simply that this
happened and that was that."
The private Air
Force response was unearthed after a little detective
work. It comes from a UFO handbook for Air Force
personnel, written by Lloyd Mallan and issued in a
popular edition by Science and Mechanics Publishing Co.
In the book, Mallan refers to "J.S., a highly regarded,
much respected citizen of Eagle River, Wis. -- a small
rural community noted for its attractiveness to
tourists."
(Unless there are more space-pancake
recipients in Eagle River than otherwise reported, we
can safely see through Mallan's clever attempt at
disguise and positively identify "J.S." as Joe
Simonton.)
One Air Force investigator, according
to Mallan, said that Simonton "appeared quite sincere to
me, did not appear to be the perpetrator of a hoax." But
an Air Force Aeronautical Systems Division psychiatrist
believed that Simonton had suffered a hallucination and
subsequent delusion. The Air Technical Intelligence
Center investigator said, "cases of this type could be
injurious to the mental health of the individual if [he]
became upset due to the experience. ...It was pointed
out that experiences of this type, hallucinations
followed by delusion, are not at all uncommon and
especially in rural communities."
Additionally,
according to Mallan, the Air Force took to heart an
unsubstantiated rumor circulated by, among others,
Raymond Palmer, a publisher of pulp flying-saucer and
science-fiction magazines. Palmer reported to the Air
Force his belief that Simonton had been hypnotized by an
Eagle River real estate broker and was fed the pancake
story so that he would repeat it and appear truthful.
The motivation for this was economic, for the purpose of
"a miniature Disneyland that is or was being built in
the area."
To understand how incredible the
rumor was, it is useful to look at the credibility of
Palmer himself. One of his favorite theories was that
flying saucers came from a secret hollow-Earth
civilization ruled by a race called Detrimental Robots,
which he abbreviated as "Deros." According to Palmer,
the Deros manipulated humanity with their projected
thought rays. Palmer's primary source -- actually, his
only source -- was a Pennsylvania welder who drew upon
"racial memory" for his accounts. (There apparently is
no mention in Air Force files of the possibility that
the Deros' thought-ray had been turned upon real estate
agents, or Palmer, or even the Air Force, though I
believe there is as much evidence for that as for an
Eagle River Disneyland.)
But based on such sound
"evidence," the Air Technical Intelligence Center, which
headquartered Air Force UFO investigations, let the
matter drop. Publicly, it was a mystery. The classified
reason, revealed to Mallan, was that the Air Force would
not pursue the matter "due to the possibility of causing
[Simonton] embarrassment which might prove injurious to
his health." This was an uncharacteristic kindness on
the part of the Air Force; they regularly had been
dismissing reports from pilots - even their own - as
misidentifications or, worse, hallucinations. "There are
sufficient psychological explanations for reports not
otherwise explainable," concluded the Psychology Branch
of the Air Force's Aeromedical Laboratory in 1949.
Pilots, police, professors, besides regular folks -- all
nuts. In the 60's, though, for a brief, shining moment,
the Air Force took on a human face and it its collective
tongue, bending over backwards to carry the case of a
part-time Santa and full-time chicken farmer as
unexplained. Some may smell a conspiracy here.
As for Simonton himself, in the end he was left
with a bitter taste in his mouth, and it wasn't from the
pancakes. "I haven't been able to work for three weeks,"
he told United Press International. "I'm going to have
to start making some money." He said that the next time
he saw a flying saucer he would keep it to himself.
He lied. In 1970 Simonton was visited by Lee
Alexander, a UFO enthusiast active in a Detroit-based
investigative group. Simonton told Alexander that he had
had more visits from the aliens, but he had not told
anyone because of the way his first report had been
received.
And that is all we know.
|
