A Flying Saucer Ruined His Life

In 1966, several police officers and sheriff deputies had their lives ruined because they reported a UFO that was also observed by hunderds of civilians.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hudson River Radio dot Com.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
This is Travis Walton and you are listening to UFO
Headquarters BEAUTIFU Headquarters.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Well, good evening, everybody, and Linda, I'm gonna try to
mimic that Welcome to Headquarters, UFO Headquarters Placement, and welcome
everybody to another episode of UFO Headquarters here with Michael
Warden and Linda Zimmerman. And Linda is is gonna ambush

(00:43):
us again tonight, but she says I'm gonna be outraged
during this one, So I'm ready. My outrage meter is
is finely tuned at the moment.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Yes, because this is a somewhat famous case that I
admit I didn't know all the backstory on what happened
to these witnesses who happen to be sheriff's deputies and cops.
So we have numerous law enforcement officers who are treated

(01:14):
appallingly at the end of this. So I assume you
and Brian will have some outrage going here.

Speaker 5 (01:22):
So let's dive right in.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
I have I have a lot to talk about with
this case. We are going back to April seventeenth, nineteen
sixty six, near south of Ravenna, Ohio. It's five oh
seven am. I checked sunrise. Sunrise didn't rise till five
point fifteen, so it's those pre dawn hours. There are

(01:48):
two deputy sheriffs in patrol car number thirteen. Unlucky thirteen.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
What a lucky number?

Speaker 4 (01:57):
Right, Dale Spore spell that spaur he served. He had
previously served in the Air Force, so very familiar with aircraft.
And the other deputy sheriff in the car was Wilbur Neff,

(02:17):
whose nickname was Barney, probably from a popular television show.
They're driving east, so if people want to open a
map while we're talking about this or look later. They're
going east on US two twenty four, which is south

(02:38):
of Ravenna. On the side of the road, they stop
because it looks to be an abandoned car. It's five
o'clock in the morning. There's a car with no driver.
They get out to look at it. It's a red
and white nineteen fifty nine Ford Sedan. There's no one

(02:58):
in there. It's very odd because it's filled with walkie
talkies and rady all kinds of radio equipment. What's up
with that and why would you leave that on the
side of the road. You know in the car who knows.

(03:19):
So it gets even stranger with this car. There is
an insignia on the car of a triangle with a
lightning bolt, and above that are the words seven steps
to Hell. I mean, some weird person who collects audio

(03:44):
equipment just abandons his car. I can skip ahead a little.
Police searched for this car for over a year and
never found it. It was gone later on, no info,
And this car got a lot of publicity. This incident
went across the country. And you're telling me no one

(04:06):
could identify a red and white fifty nine Ford Sedan
with the word seven steps to hell and this triangle
and lightning bolt insignia, right, can't be too many of.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Those that all suck out a little bit?

Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yes, so all very weird, which really has no bearing
on the case, or maybe in some weird way it
does because it got them to stop and get out
of the car. And as they're standing there looking at
this car, they hear a strange humming sound behind them
in the woods, and up out of the trees rises

(04:47):
a huge saucer shaped craft with an intense blue white light,
And as the light got brighter, the pitch of the
hum increased. I should have asked Brian to give us
like an increasing pitch sound, but you get the you know, kid.

Speaker 5 (05:08):
You're the one with I don't have one.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Oh, okay, I should have. I should have recorded some
theoremone sounds. But interesting the brighter it got, and and
actually later on uh Dale spor said he he got
the impression that the craft was was sitting on this
light like it was somehow being propelled, and the brighter

(05:35):
the light got, the pitch increased, and the higher the
craft got. Just interesting that that was his impression. So
the craft unfortunately moves over directly above them and the
two cars, and they are bathed in this light, which

(05:57):
usually isn't a good thing for the people under the light.

Speaker 5 (06:02):
Correct.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
So Dale and Barney are basically standing there paralyzed. They
can't move. The craft is only between fifty and one
hundred feet above them. The size of the craft estimated
between forty and fifty feet in diameter, about fifteen to
twenty feet thick. As I said, it was disk shaped.

(06:28):
There was a type of dome on the top and
some sort of an antenna or they thought it was
angled kind of angled out the back. So they are
bathed in light which they said, kind of had a warm,
pleasing heat. We've seen a lot of radiation with these cases,

(06:52):
so we really don't want to be bathed in some
side of something, you know, hot. No, it's also so bright.
Their eyes are tearing. So picture this, these two deputy
sheriffs standing there on the side of the road, a
craft of forty fifty feet big. It's like a house

(07:16):
about fifty feet above you shot beaming a light down
and you are paralyzed.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
This is.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Fascinating, but you really don't want to be in this situation.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
No, I'm glad it never happened to year career.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
So why don't we take a break at this point,
because once we get started, we're not going to want
to stop.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Hudson River Radio dot com.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Hudson Riverradio dot com. And we're back here staring up
and an object in the sky being bathed in very
warm DNA destroying light and warm. That's really what ultimately
happens with radiation.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
Not good, not good at all.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
No, so Dale desperately wants to get back into the car.
He later said, I wanted to get something between me
and it, and I do want to point out at
no point you can listen to his excellent interview. It's

(08:36):
available on YouTube. You should listen to this man clearly, succinctly,
calmly explaining what happened. He never calls it a UFO.
He calls it the vehicle or it. So he wants
to get back into the car, he said, a thought

(08:57):
came into his mind that if he touches the car,
it will disappear. That's weird, but how many times have
we heard witnesses say, well, I went to grab for
my camera, but a thought came in my head, No,
you can't photograph it, or it's they're messing with you.

(09:18):
They're absolutely messing with your head. So the craft moves away,
just a very short distance, but the light is off
of them, and at that moment, it's like the spell
is broken, and the two men instantly at the same
time run to the car and get in. So as
nerve racking as this is Dale Radio's the station, and

(09:42):
they're saying, other calls are coming in. There's so many witnesses.
In fact, by the end of this night, there will
be hundreds of witnesses and numerous police officers. The guy
who was on the radio at the station says, shoot it.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Okay, okay, I don't know who was that.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
Was it a dispatcher or was it a supervisor? I
can't imagine.

Speaker 5 (10:13):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
But at that moment, Dale gets another strange, powerful feeling
like don't shoot it.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
That was a smart feeling.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
I'm just imagining whipping out at that time the revolver
and you know, letting shots off at this mysterious object.

Speaker 5 (10:32):
No, no, it never does.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
And for those who haven't listened to that episode yet,
we have a whole episode of people shooting at UFOs.

Speaker 5 (10:44):
I can't recall what it was.

Speaker 4 (10:45):
Called, but we have an old people have done it,
and it's usually not a good thing. So then their
sergeant gets on the radio, Sergeant Seanfeld, and as the
craft is moving away, he orders them to chase it.
All right, So if your sergeant is telling you to
do something, you do it. You go after it. So

(11:10):
the craft takes off and they take off after it.

Speaker 5 (11:15):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
So again, if you are looking at a map, they
are going on two twenty four east to route forty
four to west one p eighty three, So you can chart,
and people have drawn the course of the map if
you want. You know, some people like driving the path

(11:37):
of UFOs. I can't imagine who that would be except
maybe me, But it gives you a sense, you know,
when you trace the path of these things. So they're
continuing eastward toward Pennsylvania, and you know there's on ramps
and off ramps and intersections and all this, and they

(11:59):
think that we're going to lose this craft because it's
moving about eighty some odd miles per hour. By the
time they do this on the connecting highways, they think
it would be gone. But pay very close attention to this.
The craft would slow down and wait for them to

(12:21):
catch up.

Speaker 5 (12:23):
Comments.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's like patt and mouse here, Like they're very aware
of what's going on. Like I'll let you get close enough,
then I'll get far ahead enough, and then I'll wait again,
like almost like you know that leap frog. But I'm
never going to, like quite let you catch up. Yeah,
it'd be a bad sign to me. I think that
would be they're messing with us intentionally. They can do

(12:47):
what else? What else can they do?

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Yes, so clearly it's not an intelligent weather balloon, so
we can we can knock that right up.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
But is it swamp gas?

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Yeah, yes, it's very intelligent swamp gas waiting for them.
So they're going about eighty three miles an hour and
it increases to one hundred and three miles per hour.
That's those are some dangerous speeds you're you're hitting there now.
At the Berlin Reservoir, the craft rose to a height

(13:21):
of about five hundred feet and beamed a light down
on objects like it seemed fascinated by a crane. So
it's clearly checking things out. It's searching. They also made
the comment it made this craft made no effort to

(13:43):
leave us. Okay, So they're going one hundred and three
miles through the town of Unity, Pennsylvania, and the craft
again lowers down to look around. So these these are
Ohio deputy sheriffs. They've now crossed the line into Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
I can't say I haven't crossed the line a few
times in the Pennsylvania here, but I worked on the border, so.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
It was legit chasing a UFO.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
But I mean to chase it this far at these speeds,
I am I just again, I don't know anything about
this story. I can't wait to see what you're going
to outrage us with.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yes, So at this point they are joined by a
third officer from East Palestine, Ohio.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
Is that name ring a Bell?

Speaker 4 (14:39):
That is in twenty twenty three, that enormous toxic train wreck. Yes, yep,
that was the town and I looked that up and
they were the town was supposed to get six hundred
million dollars in a settlement, but that's under appeal. So
these poor people are still way for something after this,

(15:02):
all this toxic stuff trashed their town. So anyway, it
was patrolman Wayne Houston. So now he's driving like a
bat out of hell chasing this craft as well. So
Dale and Barney are advised to break off pursuit now

(15:23):
that another officer has taken up the chase. But basically
they said hell no, they wanted to identify it, and
Dale admitted he was compelled to follow this thing. You know,
we've talked to so many people.

Speaker 5 (15:43):
You are enthralled.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
You're not going to say, okay, I'm gonna leave and
go home now.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, So I wouldn't have.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Just for the record, I mean, even if I say,
you know, I'm glad he didn't have to encounter it.
I'm pretty sure under the circumstances, I just wouldn't have
heard the radio must be a dead zone. Radio dead
zone here.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Yeah, you're breaking up, don't exactly right. So they continue
the chase along with patrolman Wayne Houston. And I should
point out at this point that there is chatter all
over the radio. Police are seeing this for miles and miles,

(16:28):
and they none of Dale Barney and Wayne Houston did
not have cameras. Police officers with cameras are driving like
mad trying to catch up so they can photograph. So
you can imagine police forces people from all around are
trying to converge on this craft. In Rochester, Pennsylvania. There

(16:54):
is a maze.

Speaker 5 (16:56):
They said.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
It was like a spider web of bridges and overpasses,
and Wayne is directing them how to drive and you know,
go up and around and through. It took them so
long to navigate through them. They were sure this time
that the craft was long gone, and the three of
them were absolutely shocked, as was Wayne is starting to say, oh, well,

(17:21):
it has to be, you know, long gone. He stopped
in mid sentence because there was the craft hovering over
the highway waiting for them.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
Is this very a very intelligent encounter? Yes, this is
without the patrol officers even being aware of this intelligence.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, that's kind of creepy.

Speaker 5 (17:45):
It is.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
It is majorly creepy. And once they caught up, it
took off again and went right back to exactly one
hundred and three miles per hour. I guess it figured
that's about as fast as they could safely go. Oh
in Freedom, Pennsylvania. Near Freedom in Conway, another police vehicle

(18:10):
with Officer Frank Panzanella is sitting there watching the craft.
He calls the station and he wants to join in,
and as I said, many other patrol cars but they
meet up with Frank Panzanello there. They're all watching. So

(18:33):
now there's four police officers, the craft is slowed down,
they're all stopped watching it. This from the time Sergeant
Schoenfeld told Dale and Barney to chase it to the
time there stopped watching it with Frank Panzanella, they traveled

(18:55):
a distance of eighty six miles in eighty five minutes.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
That's incredible.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Is this one of the most incredible. Uh, you know,
we hear about people chasing UFOs, even cops chasing UFOs,
But eighty six miles through Ohio and into Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
Yeah, that's just I would not have guessed it was
that far if you had asked me to kind of
come up with a ballpark number.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
Yeah, you kind of get though. They're driving fast. They're
gonna go a few miles.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Miles away. No, No, eighty six miles.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
Eighty six miles of high speed chasing. This is this
is one for the record books. Again, tons of chatter
over the radio, and they hear that there are three
They are told over the radio that it has been
seen on radar, there's radar contacts, and that three fighter

(19:58):
jets have been scrambled to intercept the object. In fact,
at least two police officers in Ohio, Lonnie Johnson and
Ray Esterly, saw these three fighter jets trying to intercept
this object. So we had numerous witnesses to the craft hundreds,

(20:21):
and we have numerous witnesses of these three fighter jets
heading trying to intercept the craft. And so the jets
are starting to get closer and as they do again
we've seen this, the craft shoots straight up until it's
just a point of light. It sat there for a

(20:43):
few minutes and then was gone and that's the end
of the chase. So one of the most remarkable encounters
I can think of.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
It's like it knew, Okay, now they got whatever these
aircraft are, this is bad.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Like now I'm leaving right.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
I can't mess with them the same way I can
mess with what's on the ground. I mean, it just
it really goes to like what what was driving this?
What type of intelligence is behind this?

Speaker 1 (21:23):
And why?

Speaker 5 (21:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:25):
And what was their endgame?

Speaker 3 (21:26):
Were they going to just keep drawing these cops across
Pennsylvania further? Were they just going to keep going and
going and going if they hadn't been intercepted by fighter jets.

Speaker 5 (21:37):
Yeah, yeah, I it sounds that way.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
But so now you have the story of that night
early morning, before we get into all the repercussions. Why
don't we take our second break.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
This is Hudson River.

Speaker 5 (21:58):
Radio dot Com.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
This is Hudson River Radio dot Com.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
I just have to touch on something, Linda. You described this.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Crazy chase eighty six miles across Ohio into Pennsylvania. This
this object toying with the police on the ground and
doesn't really take off and disappear until fighter jets arrive.
But you know, right before the break, you left with
a very important word, and that was the repercussions, and
Brian and I both know what that means. The boss

(22:43):
has got involved. The next day, my heart, I had
that heart sink for a moment.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
I knew exactly what it meant.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Yes, and if it was only just the bosses, but
wait till you here.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
They're about to get and explained to me and writing
type of message.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
So when Dale and Barney get back, they everyone describes
Dale as being very, very pale, his hands are shaking.
He's normally well spoken, and again I urge you to
check out his interview on YouTube. He is normally very

(23:30):
well spoken. He is stuttering, he's in shock. He just
plain in shock. But we're going to get to him
later now, Barney, later on he kind of downplays, well, yeah,
Dale was upset.

Speaker 5 (23:46):
By it, but you know I was fine. Yeah, not
so much.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
His wife jack Lean said, I hope I never see
him like he was after the chase. He was real white,
almost in a state of shock. It was awful, and
people made fun of him afterwards. He never talked about
it anymore. Once he told me, if that thing landed

(24:11):
in my backyard, I wouldn't tell a soul. He couldn't
take it. The ridicule, the stress. He moved to Florida.
For years, they couldn't nobody could find out where he was.
He ended up remarrying and someone finally tracked him down
forty years lay in twenty in two thousand and four,

(24:33):
and all he would say was when I left Ohio, Ohio,
I got away from it all. So this guy's just
sitting in a car, the patrol car. His sergeant tells
him to chase it.

Speaker 5 (24:46):
He does. He makes an.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
Accurate report of what happened. Remember, hundreds of people saw this,
but the pressure on him, so he leaves his career.
He lost his wife, and he has to move to
another state. Okay, sounds about right, Yeah right, so's.

Speaker 6 (25:08):
I don't think either Mike or I are surprised about.

Speaker 5 (25:10):
That, Okay.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
And that's Officer number one, Okay, the Wayne Houston, who
was the East Palestine patrolman. Seven years on the job.
He is hounded and ridiculed so severely for two weeks.
Reporters are calling him night and day. He's ridiculed in public.

(25:32):
His police chief is furious because he left his jurisdiction.
So he's getting it from the general public, from the media,
and from his pollute. And as we all know, when
your police chief is not happy, no one's happy.

Speaker 5 (25:56):
Yes, so.

Speaker 4 (25:59):
May first, just two weeks after the incident, he resigns.
Seven years on the job and because he saw a UFO,
he has to resign. He moved to Seattle and became
a bus driver. He even changed his name. He used

(26:21):
to go by Wayne Houston. His real first name was Harold.
He dropped the Wayne and went to Harold, so changed
his name, resigned, and moved across the country to Seattle.
He died in twenty sixteen. So officer number two, whose
life is and if not ruined, completely upended in Conway

(26:46):
Patrolman Frank Panzanella. In a few months, he changed to
the Ambridge Police Department. Then he shifted again to the
Sheriff's department and became a detective. And I apparently had
a decent career only because after the first statement he

(27:06):
gave that very night, he absolutely refused to talk.

Speaker 5 (27:10):
About it ever again.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
So because he kept his mouth shut after the initial night,
he switched departments twice, but he didn't have to change
his name and move out of state. He died in
twenty fourteen, so we can't talk to him. So somebody
I hadn't mentioned yet. A chief of police, Gerald Butchert

(27:36):
in Ohio, saw the craft, ran inside, told his wife
come out and see this.

Speaker 5 (27:42):
She did.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
He grabbed a camera and he took photographs of it. Okay,
so word gets out. He is hounded day and night,
and in a couple of weeks he loses twenty pounds
because of the stress. Yes, he has his film developed
and when he's certain he captured the object clearly, then

(28:08):
he contacts authorities. And for those of you who are
familiar with Project blue Book, the name Major Hecta Kintinia
will be familiar because he was the head of Blue Book.
And the major told, now, there's a major in the
Air Force telling a chief of police, only release a

(28:30):
grainy print to the newspapers and send me the negatives.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Comments Mike, please please tell me that the chief didn't
listen to him.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
At least he kept the negatives.

Speaker 4 (28:44):
He sent the negatives. Oh, okay, bad idea. So the
official Air Force report, now these were clear images, great negatives.
Their report stated quote negatives were severely fogged. Object was

(29:04):
a processing defect. So, according to.

Speaker 5 (29:08):
The air nothing to see here. Move along.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
Kintonia then told Chief Butcher that he saw. Guess I'll
give you one. Guess what he said, The Chief of
police saw, Yes.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Give we need to make bingo cards. We really do know,
I know we kept talking about it, but.

Speaker 4 (29:31):
Yeah, but every spot would be Venus.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Terrible.

Speaker 4 (29:36):
Yes, so he's yes. So he's telling this man, you
saw the planet Venus, and Butcher replies, well, if it
was a planet, why did it move up and down
from side to side and it even went beneath the
telephone wires, to which Kintonia replied that was the result

(29:58):
of atmospheric conditions. Do you just want to reach back
through time and smack this guy in the face.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
I do, I really do.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
It's so outrageous. So the pressure on the poor chief
of police. He knows what he saw, his wife saw it,
hundreds of people saw it, he photographed it, clearly knew
it was Venus, and you saw it moving all around.
That's because atmospheric conditions, Yes, because different atmospheric conditions can

(30:31):
make the planet Venus come to your hometown and go
under the telephone wires.

Speaker 5 (30:38):
It's just maddening.

Speaker 4 (30:40):
So he came that close to resigning. He was so upset,
so outraged, so humiliated, but he said, screw them, I'm
weathering the storm. He kept a scrap book of every
single article anything published on this His son, Harry, inherited

(31:02):
the scrap book and also became chief of police of
that same department. And he still wants to clear his
father's good name and reputation. And good for him. I
don't blame him. The government owes a public apology to
this family and all the other families as well.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Agreed, You think we can get him on the show.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Oh, because his father's name does deserve to be clear.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
Harry butchered. Yes, let's get on that. If anybody knows him,
or if he's listening, per chance, get in touch with us. Absolutely.
I'd love to know what's in that scrap book. And
the other thing, I'd love to know what happened to
those negatives, right right, probably shredded or burned.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Well, that's what makes you laugh.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
If number one, they're convinced it's venus, why are they
asked him to only release a grainy photo?

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (32:02):
And number two, why do they want the negatives?

Speaker 5 (32:05):
Yes, that's a very good point.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Because they know something was happening.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
And one two they're going to cover up the evidence
without the negatives, what are you going to do?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yep, you have nothing.

Speaker 5 (32:17):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (32:18):
So the official project blue Book report is ninety one pages.

Speaker 5 (32:25):
Now, I've gone.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
Through a lot of blue Book reports and there are
are six seven pages maybe the standard forms ninety one
pages on Venus. Wow, if you look through it, and
there are websites that have the blue book cases numerous
very detailed statements from people. Okay, but the conclusion is

(32:49):
these people first saw the Echo satellite moving through the sky. Okay,
a satellite which is a little higher then tree top level.
I mean, come on, and then and then they were
fooled by the planet Venus. So Dale Sporr became the

(33:12):
nut who recklessly drove one hundred and three miles per
hour chasing the planet Venus. I will get to more
of what they did to this. Yes, he became the
poster boy for all the crazy UFO people. According to
the government. They also said absolutely no jets were scrambled,

(33:38):
despite numerous witnesses, including police officers, who said, yeah, we
saw the three jets going after the UFO. Nope, nope,
didn't happen. They also said absolutely no radar contacts were
made even though statements as it was happening, we're saying

(34:02):
we have it on radar. Nope, didn't happen.

Speaker 5 (34:07):
Okay, outraged enough, Oh I'm getting there.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Okay, So let's get to poor Dale Spore. Non stop
interviews Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington, d C. The
Voice of America, which you know was an international thing,
the Air Force for Project Blue Book. It was just NonStop. Fortunately,

(34:34):
Raymond Fowler of NYCAP interviewed him extensively, as did Whitezel
of NICAP. And this Raymond Fowler. If you don't know him,
look him up. He's done tremendous work for decades. This
became one of the best documented cases to this point.

(34:55):
Hundreds of witnesses, numerous police photos, radar. They did an
amazing job documenting all of this. Okay, So how do
you combat hundreds of witnesses and all of these statements.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
You focus.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
If you're the government and you suck, you are going
after Dale's Spoor because if you can discredit him, you
can discredit you discredit this whole case. So clearly he's
already suffering from PTSD from whatever happened. We don't know
how long they stood in that road. In the initial

(35:35):
sighting with that craft over them, was their missing time?
Did more happen than just a bright light shining on them?
He couldn't sleep, he was having nightmares. He was reliving
the chase over and over and over, and even in
his nightmares. He goes to get in his car and

(35:55):
his car disappears. So he is just haunted by all
of this. He starts just taking off for days at
a time.

Speaker 5 (36:05):
He can't take it.

Speaker 4 (36:06):
He's losing weight, He's on the edge, and unfortunately he
and his I don't think his wife was very sympathetic.
He and his wife, Denise get into an argument. He
grabs her by the arms and shakes her and it
leaves bruises on her arms. She presses charges. He is

(36:27):
charged with abuse and arrested, and now he loses his job,
he loses his wife and kids, and he is the
nut who chased Venus and beats his wife. This is
all in the course of a couple of months. Six
months later, there's this amazing article. You can find it online.

(36:51):
It went I think the Associated Press sent it or
some other service sent this article across the Cune and
it was highlighting Dale living in a cheap motel about
twenty miles away in Solon, Ohio. At this point, he

(37:11):
has lost forty pounds and he wasn't a big guy
to begin with. He's he's ordered to go to court
because he didn't pay a fifty cent parking ticket. They're
doing whatever they can to harass and continue to humiliate him.
His car is repossessed, his wife files for divorce. He

(37:35):
has to walk three miles to a to a painting
job at eighty dollars a week. His rundown little motel
is sixty a week. His child support is twenty dollars
a week. That leaves him zero. He says, at thirty

(37:55):
four years old, he has looked upon as a freak.
His his only food is a bowl of cereal and
a sandwich every day because he has no money. Apparently
no one's helping him. He's just a shell of his
former self. Alone, lonely, ridiculed. He cries all the time.
He's depressed. He said, my entire life came crashing down

(38:21):
around my shoulders. If I could change one thing, it
would be that I didn't follow that craft. So this
is all he did. He got in his car. His
sergeant told him to follow it. He did, and he
filed an accurate, level headed report saying something that hundreds

(38:42):
of other people said, and yet they just targeted him.
His wife said, something happened to Dale, but I don't
know what it was. He came home that day and
I never saw him more frightened before. He acted strange, listless.
He just sat around and people hounded him. They hounded

(39:04):
him to death. He changed. So in the midst of
all this horror, his father, who long ago they had
had some sort of disagreement and they hadn't talked for years,
and his father calls him, Okay, you think thank god
a port in the storm?

Speaker 5 (39:24):
Oh no?

Speaker 4 (39:26):
And Dale says, do you think my father called me
to ask how I was, or to say I love you,
or to see if I wanted to go fishing? Hell no,
he wanted to know if I'd seen any more flying saucers.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Wow?

Speaker 4 (39:44):
Right, His own dad has to twist the knife after
years of not talking, he has to call to just
rub salt in the wound. So you figure you can
at least go to a church, you know, talk to
a clergyman. This poor man is desperate, he needs help,

(40:08):
so he goes to this church, and his first day there,
the minister introduces him to the entire congregation as the
man who chased the flying saucer, even the church.

Speaker 5 (40:23):
Can you believe this?

Speaker 1 (40:25):
This is just.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
It's like I I don't even know what to say
to it. I feel so like heartbroken for this guy.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
Yes, yes, so he's I'm surprised. I'm honestly surprised he
didn't take some drastic measures because he just figured my
entire life is over. Everybody's against me for what because
he saw a UFO and then like some God, send uh.

(40:55):
The reporter who wrote that article about him being alone
and depressed tracks him down and brings him a stack
of letters and some money. Because people across the country
read this article and had the same reaction, you are heartbroken.

(41:18):
I just want to take the time to read a
few of the Excuse me from Birmingham. From Birmingham, Alabama,
I am fifteen years old. It broke my heart when
I read the article about Dale spor I am asking
if you will send him the enclosed two dollars, which

(41:39):
is my allowance for the week. I mean, that's wonderful.
From Indiana. I don't quite know how or what to say,
I do know that. When I read the story, I cried. Tucson, Arizona,
Surfside Beach, South Carolina, Ogden, Utah. I have just finished

(42:01):
your story about mister Spore. For the life of me,
I can't tell you why I am writing, except I
feel terribly sorry for this man al Many, New York.
I really think the Air Force should help this man
because they are partly to blame telling him he did
not see something unusual when he knows he did. Yeah,

(42:24):
don't hold your breath there, the Air Force who wanted
him destroyed.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
You know what strikes me when you're reading these is
the first one, the fifteen year old who sends them
the two dollars allowance showed more compassion in humanity than
how many than his up and so called people you
should be able to trust, like a minister.

Speaker 5 (42:47):
Or your father or your wife.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
A fifteen year old, Yes, yeah, the biggest adult in
the room here.

Speaker 5 (42:54):
Yeah, so far.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
There's a few more, because these are these are wonder Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Here's a dollar for Dale's Spore. If anyone, if everyone
just sent him one dollar, it would do the job. California, Escondido.
Let me know if there's anything I can do for
you a couple more, because we need something good to

(43:21):
come out of this. A woman who just signed the letter,
a working girl, sent sixty dollars. I mean that's a lot.
It's probably her week's pay.

Speaker 5 (43:34):
She said.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
This poor man is reduced to so much degradation by
the ignorance of his fellow man and the thoughtlessness and
harassment of the press and the TV people. I mean,
reduced to such degradation by the ignorance of fellow man,

(43:56):
which is what you were just alluding to. Yeah, I
hope this will help. Please tell him that some of
us realize it is possible, that is life on other planets,
and tell him not to give up. An elderly couple
from Ashtabulah, Ohio, mailed him ten dollars, and that's a

(44:17):
lot of money for you know. Somebody in Dallas, Texas
sent five dollars. It's not much, but I hope it
will help. People sending prayers from Shreveport from Tulsa. A
sixteen year old girl in Fort Lauderdale. I don't think
he's a crackpot or a nut. I feel very sorry

(44:37):
for this man. Nashville Grand Junction Colorado, Molina, Georgia. It
just went on and on and on, and it was
it was like a lifeline finally thrown to this poor man.
And it came at a great time because he tore
a ligament in his shoulder and couldn't work. So this

(45:01):
money kept him afloat.

Speaker 5 (45:05):
And the.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
Journalist, you know, said, how do you respond to all that?
He was just overwhelmed. You can imagine in tears, he said,
people really do care, don't they. And that's enough for me.
So it got him on the other side of that

(45:28):
horrible six month time. I mean, you just can't imagine
what this man went through for what. He didn't say
they were little green men. He didn't say they were Martians.
He didn't say they took him to Venus. He just said,
I followed orders, I followed the UFO. Here's my report.

Speaker 5 (45:53):
So he does.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
It's still a lot of bad years. He moved around
a lot, He had a lot of odd jobs, sometimes
only lasting a week. As soon as somebody found out
who he was, he'd have to leave. He finally went
back home to his home state of West Virginia, to anstead,

(46:17):
and he said from that point he never looked up
at the sky at night. Again, he just didn't want
to see anything. He remarried a woman named Ruth that
by all accounts she was very good to him and
him to her. But in nineteen eighty four he died

(46:40):
at just the age of fifty two. Probably you know,
this whole incident just.

Speaker 5 (46:51):
Wore him out.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
Yeah, the mental, physical stress of it. And yeah, clearly
from some of the things you described to those dreams
had pete. He has stee from it. Right, So this
poor guy.

Speaker 4 (47:03):
I mean, yeah, So in nineteen seventy seven a journalist
tracked him down, and I will end on this quote.
He said, you live on the hope that someday the
real story will be accepted, just the facts. I'll go

(47:24):
to my grave before I change my story. I can
live with that saucer, but I can't live without the truth.
So round of applause to Dale Spore. It cost him
his career, his health, his wife, and kids, probably cut

(47:48):
his life short by many years, but he wasn't going
to compromise on the truth. And so in my mind,
this guy was a hero and was essentially crucified for it.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
And this is why when we look back, thankfully it's
gotten better. But why people didn't report UFOs, especially that
were in positions of authority like cops and you know,
firemen back back, you know, forty fifty sixty years ago,
because of this type of ridicule in the fear of
it ruining your life. And here we have living, you know,

(48:28):
physical evidence and proof that that had happened. People did
have reason to be fearful. Yeah, coming forward, And this
was a guy doing his job reporting what he saw,
not just like, hey, I saw something last night and
look what it did to him. Yeah, the message was
not necessarily to him, it was to everybody else, like
if if you open your mouth, you're this is what

(48:51):
your life is going to look like.

Speaker 4 (48:52):
Too, exactly. He was being made an example of. And
by destroying him, you sent, as you said, you sent
a message to everyone else. Yeah you want to report
what you saw, Look what happened to this guy. So yeah,
my heart breaks for this this man. Hopefully he did

(49:13):
find some peace at the end. But those other police resigning,
moving across the country, changing their names, losing their wives
over what I mean, it's it's heartbreaking. Brian, Do we
have a comment from you with all this?

Speaker 6 (49:33):
I hate to say it but none of that surprises me.
It's unfortunate. I think now it would be a little better,
like Mike was saying, but none of it really surprises me.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Unfortunately.

Speaker 5 (49:45):
Yeah, so sad though, so sad.

Speaker 4 (49:48):
So if the government isn't apologizing, I would like to
for the government of the United States apologize to these
people and their families for what they went through. Hopefully
someday the truth will come out the well we know

(50:08):
what the truth is. There were so many witnesses, But
I think that's a great idea. If his son, the
police chief's son, is still with us, it would be
great to speak with him. And if you happen to
see it, I would love to hear that. April seventeenth,
nineteen sixty six, hundreds of people did.

Speaker 5 (50:34):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
That is my outrage episode. I was just getting so
steamed the more I looked up, you know, articles, and
but listen, I definitely urge people to go to YouTube.
Look up Dale's spor spa u r UFO interview and

(50:56):
it's about an hour long and he's he's perfectly rational,
he's describing it exactly. It's it's worth listening to and
then it will just make you all the more upset
to realize what they did to this guy.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
Yeah, I'm broken hearted for him still, Like I just depressed.
I'm not even making my normal. I like have nothing
even add that I think can can soften the moment.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
It's just horrible.

Speaker 5 (51:29):
Yeah, yep.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
And how many other people as this happened to over
the years, not as well documented pilots who lose you know,
lose their flight status. You don't have to go to
a desk job or just out and out get fired.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
He's one of the many that that suffered, but just
one of the few that we know about, right, I think,
I think that's the way I look at it.

Speaker 5 (51:55):
Yeah, definitely, So that is it.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
Yeah, No, no cute comments do I have, because this
is just a very solemn episode. But you know, look
that there's a lot of information on this. This is
a case everyone should know about and use this as
an example. You know, anytime people say, oh, you know,

(52:24):
it's nothing has changed. Not everything has changed, but certainly
you know when when Air Force or Navy pilots can
now go into Congress and make a statement, we have
come a long way since nineteen sixty six.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
Yeah, we definitely have to appreciate where we are today
versus where we were forty fifty sixty years ago. Yeah,
there's still a long way to go, but there's been
leaps and strides in the reporting and the confidence and
reporting and the protections. At least that's what it appears
to be.

Speaker 4 (53:01):
Yeah, yep, so there we have it. Take us away.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
Well, thank you Linda for depressing but you know in
episode of UPO Headquarters. However, I want to thank everybody
out there for listening to this episode in all of
our other episodes, If you have been following us for
a long time, we thank you for continuing to listen
to us. If you're new, we urge you to binge

(53:27):
listen on one of your favorite platforms when the rats,
Apple Music, Spotify, and I don't even know whatever, you.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Can find this on you. We're more than welcome to
listen to every episode to really highly encourage people to
do that, to.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
Get yourself caught up to speed, to find out what
we're talking and to all of you, thank you. Keep
your eyes on the sky. Hudsondriverradio dot com. Your mom
likes us.