On the evening of July 11, 1966, two men traveling through the countryside east of Kirkwood encountered something they could scarcely believe.
In a hayfield near the small community of Union, an enormous object glowed brilliant red against the gathering darkness. Whatever it was, it looked about 100 feet wide and 20 feet high. Small windows or openings dotted its surface, emitting a strange yellow light.
But its appearance wasn’t the only unusual thing about it.
The men could hear a hum seemingly coming from outside the object, accompanied by a peculiar grinding noise from somewhere within.
What could possibly be sitting in a rural Pennsylvania hayfield, glowing red and making mysterious mechanical noises?
For Carl Wood and Charles Hawthorne, the encounter was unsettling enough that they decided to alert the authorities. Little did they know their extraordinary report would eventually become part of the United States Air Force’s official investigation into unidentified flying objects.
Something Strange in the Hayfield
According to a report the Air Force later prepared, the mysterious encounter occurred about five miles east of Kirkwood, near Union. Wood and Hawthorne had observed the enormous red object for a short time before deciding that someone needed to know about it.
But who exactly does one call upon encountering what appears to be a flying saucer sitting in a field?
The two men traveled to the nearest telephone and asked the operator whom they should contact. The operator connected them with McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. Rather than immediately dispatching military personnel, officials instructed the men to contact the Pennsylvania State Police.
The witnesses did as they were told.
Unfortunately, the troopers weren’t particularly receptive to their extraordinary story. According to the subsequent Air Force investigation, police initially dismissed the report and instructed the men to return to the scene and call again if the mysterious object was still there.
Wood and Hawthorne complied.
But when they returned to the hayfield, something had changed. The brilliant red object had apparently vanished into the darkness. Yet the strange humming sound remained.
Even more peculiar, the men noticed tremendous interference on their automobile radio as they approached the area. Whatever had been producing the red glow was no longer visible, but something seemed to be affecting their surroundings.
The men sat quietly in the darkness for several minutes, listening to the mysterious sound. Then they switched on their headlights, directing the beams toward the field. Suddenly, the red glow appeared again. Whatever was out there seemed to have returned to precisely the same spot.
A Second Call to the Police
Convinced they had witnessed something extraordinary, Wood and Hawthorne returned to Union and again contacted the Pennsylvania State Police.
Once more, their account met with skepticism.
According to the Air Force report, officers made disparaging remarks about the witnesses’ mental condition, apparently finding the idea of a mysterious glowing object in a hayfield difficult to accept.
Nevertheless, the troopers eventually agreed to investigate.
The men were instructed to remain in Union until officers arrived. During the approximately one-hour wait, another strange sight reportedly appeared above the countryside. A reddish haze seemed to spread across the sky, illuminating an area that the witnesses estimated was visible for nearly two miles.
When the troopers finally arrived, they examined the location from about 100 feet away, using flashlights to search the darkness. They found no obvious signs of the mysterious object.
According to the Air Force’s account, the officers remained unconvinced and continued questioning the credibility of the witnesses.
But Wood and Hawthorne weren’t ready to dismiss what they believed they had seen. The following day, one of the men returned to the hayfield for a closer inspection.
In daylight, the area looked considerably less mysterious. There were no apparent signs of an enormous object having occupied the field. No unmistakable evidence of a landing. Nothing that could readily explain the extraordinary events of the previous evening.
Yet the investigation was far from over.
Project Blue Book Investigates
By the summer of 1966, the United States Air Force had been investigating reports of unidentified flying objects for nearly two decades.
Its ongoing investigation, known as Project Blue Book, operated from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The program collected eyewitness testimony, evaluated unusual sightings, and attempted to determine whether reported UFOs posed any threat to national security.
The Union-Kirkwood encounter eventually reached the attention of military investigators.
Technical Sergeant Robert A. Molino, an intelligence officer with the 436th Military Airlift Wing at Dover Air Force Base, prepared an official report dated July 18, 1966.
His investigation documented the strange object, its reported dimensions, its brilliant red color, the yellow light shining through its windows, and the unusual humming and grinding noises.
The report also described the radio interference experienced when the witnesses returned to the scene.
On July 14, Molino personally examined the hayfield. He found no evidence that the hay had been damaged or that a large object had landed there. The absence of physical evidence presented an obvious problem. If something approximately 100 feet wide had occupied the field, shouldn’t it have left behind some trace?
Yet the witnesses maintained that they had observed something extraordinary.
Molino’s report described one of the men as a reliable school bus driver. He also observed that neither witness had been drinking that evening and that both appeared intelligent and well-balanced.
Whatever had happened, the investigator evidently believed their account deserved serious consideration. But perhaps the strangest part of the entire investigation had nothing to do with flying saucers.
The Mysterious Beast of Union
As part of his investigation, Molino contacted Sergeant Ralph of the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Avondale. He hoped to learn whether anyone else had reported the unusual object. Instead, the conversation took an unexpected turn.
According to Molino’s official report, Sergeant Ralph doubted the UFO encounter had happened at all. His reasoning was particularly peculiar.
The trooper explained that reports had previously described a strange beast roaming the same general area, a creature half-man and half-beast. These earlier reports, he suggested, had made local police reluctant to entertain other extraordinary claims.
For an Air Force investigator examining an unidentified flying object, it was an unusual piece of local folklore to encounter.
Unfortunately, the report offered no additional information about this mysterious creature. It included no name, date, physical description, or indication of where it had supposedly been seen. However, the trooper did propose a more conventional explanation for the mysterious red object. Perhaps the witnesses had observed a rainbow following an early evening rain shower.
Molino wasn’t persuaded.
In his written report, he pointedly observed that Sergeant Ralph had failed to answer his question about whether anyone had ever seen a rainbow in the dark. Whatever explanation the police favored, the Air Force investigator was clearly unwilling to accept it without further examination.
Officially Unidentified
In the weeks following the encounter, the Air Force continued gathering information. Investigators asked both witnesses to complete detailed questionnaires describing what they observed, including the object’s apparent size, color, movement, location, and the circumstances surrounding their sighting.
The surviving Project Blue Book file contains these handwritten accounts, correspondence from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and the original military investigation. But despite the documentation, investigators could not establish exactly what Wood and Hawthorne had encountered.
There were no photographs of the mysterious object. No physical evidence was recovered from the hayfield. No conventional explanation adequately accounted for the reported combination of brilliant lights, unusual mechanical sounds, and automobile radio interference.
Ultimately, the Air Force reached a remarkable conclusion. The official Project Blue Book record classified the Union, Pennsylvania, encounter as “UNIDENTIFIED.” The explanation accompanying that determination was surprisingly direct: “Case is being categorized as UNIDENTIFIED since with the available information, there is no plausible explanation.”
It was an unusual outcome for a government investigation tasked with finding earthly explanations for mysterious objects in the sky.
Of course, an unidentified classification didn’t prove extraterrestrial visitors had landed in a Pennsylvania hayfield. It simply meant investigators could not satisfactorily explain the reported event with the evidence available. Still, the conclusion left the encounter as one of the unresolved mysteries Project Blue Book investigated.
On that July evening in 1966, two men claimed to have witnessed an enormous glowing object in a field near Union. They heard strange noises, experienced mysterious radio interference, and watched an unexplained red glow appear in the darkness.
The police found nothing.
The Air Force found nothing.
And somewhere in the same countryside, according to a passing remark in the official investigation, residents had supposedly reported a creature that was half-man and half-beast.
What exactly was happening in the rural landscape east of Kirkwood?
More than sixty years later, the mystery remains. But unlike so many strange tales passed down through generations, this one survives in the official records of the United States Air Force. Of course, this wasn’t Lancaster County’s only UFO sighting.
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