COUNTRYSIDE YARNS
Tall Tale or Truth? You Decide!
Flying Saucer?, Part 2
by Janis Stein

Join me in the conclusion of a yarn told through the eyes of an eight-year-old girl. As the little girl hoed the weeds out of her daddy's bean field with the assistance of her two younger brothers, the trio saw something they're likely never to forget. Back in 1952, did you happen to see it, too?

Twenty rods to our south, something was hovering two or three feet above the ground. Perfectly round and gray in color, it reminded me of two pie plates fastened together, creating a domed effect. With his right hand free, Johnny rubbed his eyes while his left hand gripped mine a bit tighter.

The saucer measured about 14 by 14 feet and made not a sound as it continued to hover near our pond. Though there were no cattle there now, in the past Daddy used to pasture cattle in an adjacent field; the pond had been their watering hole. The 15 minutes we stood there side by side by side equaled an eternity.

Mesmerized, Jerome quietly commented on the few antennas protruding from its "roof" and its lack of windows. Three sets of blinking lights flashed continuously around the bottom of the craft, and I almost fainted from disbelief when a door with connecting steps dropped down from the underside of the saucer. We had never seen anything like it.

Jerome, never a boy to stand still for long, picked up his hoe and, screaming like a madman, ran directly toward whatever it was hovering nearby. Panicking now, I called for Jerome to stop - begged him to come back - but he continued on, my pleas falling on seemingly deaf ears.

Grabbing on tighter to Johnny's hand, we chased after Jerome, trampling Daddy's prized beans along the way. I thought of Mama then, wishing desperately she was here, but the thought was fleeting. Daddy said we needed to rely on ourselves now as best we could. Jerome was still running ahead, waving his hoe wildly now above his head in an attempt to scare off the object. Jerome feared nothing.

Closing the gap, Jerome was 15 rods away, then 10. Johnny and I finally caught up to him, and just 10 rods away, it was there we paused and watched in wonder. The trap door disappeared back into the bottom of the saucer from where it had originally descended. The antennas protruding from the top also disappeared from view.

Making a "wooing" noise of sorts, the domed object raised ever skyward, ascending about 200 feet straight up. The mysterious saucer flew in a southeasterly direction, and the three of us craned our necks until we could see it no more.

Thoughts of hoeing beans abandoned, we half-walked, half-ran the remaining 10 rods to inspect the surrounding area. No indentations were present on the ground since it had only hovered above. Nothing was amiss - no evidence left behind.

We retrieved our lemonade jug from the fence row then, excited and worked up about all we'd seen. Rather than drink out of the spout, I unscrewed the cover and flipped it over so Jerome could fill the lid. Johnny drank deeply, his cheeks and face beet red from the extra exertion in the heat. Jerome and I followed, drinking the lemonade we had made ourselves that very afternoon. Daddy had been to the stockyards and bought fresh lemons, which I had squeezed while Jerome had retrieved icy cold water from the hand pump outside our house. All of that now seemed a very long time ago.

Gathering our bearings, we found our place in the field and continued hoeing. In no time at all, Daddy returned as promised with intentions of helping us hoe the headlands where the beans were always the weediest. The three of us ran to meet Daddy and told him about the strange domed object we had seen, tripping over our words in our haste.

Deep concern showed on Daddy's face as he dropped to his knees to look into Johnny's eyes. Sun stroke and hallucinations, that's what was ailing his three little farmers he said, and immediately he took us home. Once there, he instructed us to sit in the shade and sip water while he decided whether he should call the doctor.

I begged Daddy to make a call, but it was the Coast Guard I wanted him to contact - someone needed to investigate. Daddy was at a loss, for we had never lied to him before. Could all three of us have had the same hallucination? Daddy didn't think so, but in the same breath he made us promise not to speak a word of our sighting lest the neighbors think we were flakes!

The next day our Port Huron-area paper arrived; it was one of Daddy's few splurges as he said it was important to know what was going on in the rest of the world. It was Daddy's turn to rub his eyes. Right there in the paper was a drawing of the domed object Jerome, Johnny and me had seen and described to Daddy the day before. The craft had been spotted by Port Huron residents, too, and they shared their testimonials.

The saucer made the headlines in the Port Huron Times Herald as well. The Times issue dated Wednesday, June 18, 1952, captured readers' attention with a front page story titled, 'Strange Object Shoots Across Local Skies'. Snippets from the article stated Mr. Busby, a maintenance superintendent at the Federal Building and an amateur astronomer reported "a strange, circular-shaped object which radiated a dark gray light was observed flashing across the Port Huron sky."

Mr. Busby went on to say, "Two factors convinced me that I had seen something unusual - it's terrific speed and the fact that the object flew by in an absolutely horizontal path…The object came from the south across a clear, star-lit sky and traveled due north on an unwavering flight path."

The article also stated the sighting was reported to Selfridge Air Force Base, and in turn, the information would be passed on to the Air Force Intelligence Service. I believed Mr. Busby's testimonial when I read it 'cause I had seen the dome-shaped object just a few hours before he did. And I wonder to this day whether that craft was operated by the government, testing it in Michigan's remote Thumb area, or was it something else entirely…

Be sure to look for a new yarn next month. I guarantee it's one you won't want to miss!

Have a yarn you'd like to share? We'd be happy to spin it. You may write to Janis in care of The Lakeshore Guardian, 9697 Purdy Rd., Harbor Beach, MI 48441, or give us a call at 989-479-3448 to share your story.