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SUBJECT: TAMPA BAY SKEPTICS REPORT                           FILE: UFO3147




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From the "Tampa Bay Skeptics Report" Vol. 6 No. 1 Summer 1993

Published by Tampa Bay Skeptics
1113 Normandy Trace Road
Tampa, FL 33602
[1:377/33 Fidonet]

Founder, Editor, Publisher: Gary P. Posner
Chairman: Terry A. Smiljanich
Vice Chair: Miles W. Hardy
Other Exec. Council: James W. Lett, Vincent E. Parr

Copyright 1993. May be quoted by press if appropriate
       credit is given to "Tampa Bay Skeptics Report."

Membership or printed newsletter subscription $10/yr. (4 issues)

                  "Boomerang" UFO reported by
                Hernando sheriff's deputy, others

                       by Greg Simpson

     A handful of witnesses, including a Hernando County
sheriff's deputy, reported seeing a large boomerang-shaped
"UFO" cruising the skies over Hernando, Pasco and northern
Pinellas counties during a several day period in mid-April.
     According to Wes Platt's articles in the April 20 and
21 editions of the St. Petersburg Times, deputy Ron Chancey
was on patrol at 9:20 P.M. on April 16 when he noticed "blue
lights" at a height of about 300 feet which seemed to be
following his car southward toward Bayport. Stopping to
shine his spotlight at the object, it now appeared as a
vague, dark "boomerang-shaped" outline, hovering silently,
with a wing-span of "200 or 300 feet." After a "few
minutes," Chancey told Platt that he drove away toward a
nearby park, at which time the object "cut to the west"
toward the Gulf of Mexico. At least six persons at the park
told Chancey that they had also witnessed the unusual
object. Said Chancey, "Based on what I know now, I don't
think it's from this planet. Nothing on Earth could hover
and haul ass like that."
     After reading his first article, several additional
witnesses reported their own UFO sightings to Platt. A
couple in Tarpon Springs saw the same object on the night of
the 16th for "a good five minutes" as it moved "slowly to
the west." A woman in New Port Richey claimed that on the
night of the 15th, during a rainstorm, "a bunch of real
bright lights" silently approached her home, causing a
street light to wink off until the UFO departed. Another New
Port Richey resident claimed to have seen a hovering UFO
during broad daylight on April 18.
     On May 9, WTSP-TV 10 carried a story by reporter Kelly
Williams, who had interviewed another witness, Paul Marasco
of Hudson, who had only recently come forward. After
speaking with Williams, I called Marasco, who described the
object as resembling a "wedge," pointed at the front end and
flat at the rear, which he says glided silently over the
treetops in Hudson at 8:30 P.M. on April 16th, an hour
before the Bayport sightings. But unlike Chancey, Marasco, a
UFO believer (who told me a bizarre story about a 1964
central Florida "abduction" case involving "an alien cloak
and hieroglyphics," the Secret Service, the KGB and NASA),
was unimpressed enough with his own encounter that he
promptly forgot all about it until hearing media reports
several days later of other local UFO sightings.
     I checked with the sheriff's departments of Pinellas
County (which covers Tarpon Springs), Pasco County (covering
New Port Richey and Hudson) and Hernando County, as well as
the Tarpon Springs police. With the exception of Chancey's
filed report, no one had contacted any of these agencies to
report a UFO during the period in question.

     Although Platt wrote that the object "could go from
still to warp whatever in the time it takes to snap your
fingers," Chancey described the object's speed as
"moderate," another witness as "slow," and no one is quoted
as having seen the object vanish in a flash (although one
said that "We looked away, and when we looked back it was
gone."). Interestingly, according to Platt during an April
27 telephone conversation with Gary Posner, there is no
mention in Chancey's official report of his having shined
his spotlight on the object.
     Adjacent to Platt's April 20 article was one by Bill
Adair about the annual Sun 'N Fun Fly-In, "an orgy of . . .
bizarre-looking planes . . . " being held in Lakeland from
April 18-24. The accompanying  photograph was of an
"ultralight" craft with a single wing, which looks for all
the world like a giant boomerang. I called Adair to discuss
the possibility that perhaps the Bayport "UFO" might have
been an ultralight arriving for the show, but he thought
not, since they are not permitted to be flown at night.
However, he noted that there were many experimental, home-
built "canard-style" or "Rutan-design" planes at the show,
with stubby fuselage and long, tapering rear wing, which
could look mighty strange "from certain angles, especially
at night."
     I then called Gary Quill, manager of the Linder
Regional Airport near Lakeland, who felt that the "home-
built theory" to explain the UFO might be "on the right
track." He confirmed the presence of many such craft at the
show, some of which could have flown in via western Hernando
County on the 16th. He added that such a sight might indeed
appear "otherworldly."
     A member of the Fly-In Committee told me that of the
several canard-style designs, the "Long-EZ" seemed to best
match the UFO's description. She also put me in touch with
an FAA official in the Linder control tower who, although
reluctant to give his name, told me that at least 350 of the
Long-EZ craft were flying into and out of Linder "all day
Friday [the 16th] and Saturday." He said that they are
allowed to fly "at any hour" and, also unlike ultralights,
are required to have "running lights" (as did the Bayport
UFO). He further described Linder Airport as the "mecca" for
home-built and experimental aircraft, stating that pilots
descend on the annual airshow "like a deluge." And, even
more encouraging to my theory, he said that most
participants tend to fly down along the west (or east) coast
of Florida, before making the turn in toward Lakeland
(Bayport is right on the western coastline). He even added
that unless flying directly overhead, such a plane, like the
reported UFO, would make no discernible noise.
     Was the Tampa Bay area visited by alien spacecraft this
past April? Until more definitive proof of such an
extraordinary hypothesis becomes available (if it ever
does), I'll bet my money (and TBS bets its "$1,000
Challenge") that the Bayport "UFO" was a craft from this
world, not from another.

         [Editor Gary Posner contributed to this report.]


      
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