Life Magazine Article

In the fall, I worked on a feature for Life Magazine with a distinguished photographer, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Tim has been a friend for many years, and was the first person outside of my family who I told about my close encounter experiences. We went to New York, Denver, Ventura, Glenrock, Wyoming and Gulf Breeze to take pictures of UFO and close encounter witnesses. I was to write a narrative of our journey and tell a little bit about what the people had experienced.

Incredibly, during the last few minutes of our last shoot in Gulf Breeze, a UFO showed up. It appeared first in the northern sky, about twenty degrees above the horizon. It was a clear night, and the object was about the size of Venus on the horizon. It was glowing ruby-red. As we watched, it slowly ascended the sky, making an occasional brief motion in one direction or another.

Before going to Gulf Breeze, I had made it my business to research what kind of aircraft I might see in connection with the naval air station at Pensacola, and I was aware that some Naval helicopters have a pair of red running lights on the base of the fuselage. So I expected that we would soon hear the sound of a helicopter.

The object came directly overhead and remained stationary just below the constellation Pleaides for three and one half minutes. At no time was there any sound. I watched the object for a timed minute and did not observe any deviation in its motion relative to visible stars. Motionless this total is not possible for an airborne vehicle. Therefore it seems possible that this object was being held aloft by some means that did not rely on air for support. I felt that it was genuinely unidentified.

Unfortunately, the staff at Life never much wanted our story, and the new editor said that the magazine was read primarily in the “Bible Belt” and that its readers would object to our story on religious grounds, so it was canceled.

I certainly wasn’t surprised. The New York media is nothing if not out of touch with America. They are bone-ignorant about the UFO situation but believe themselves to be entirely well- informed. The sub-editor I dealt with held the whole subject in contempt.

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