Details of Incident:

Mysterious Flying Object Said Seen Over Mellon

In the Mellon area, where he has lived all his life, John Franklin Windt, 27, has a reputation for being a cool-headed, scientific type, rather than somebody who sees strange lights in the sky.

But Windt, who holds a Bachelor's degree in biology from Northland College, said that he can't deny what he saw with his own eyes.

Just after midnight, Feb. 14, Windt had some things on his mind, so he took advantage of the mild winter weather to take a stroll and sort things out.

As he walked about 500 feet from his parents house on Henry Street at the edge of the Mellen city limits, he noticed a purple glow in the sky. The light was frozen perfectly still in an area that was concentrated about 20 feet above a neighbor's silo.

Windt was fascinated and studied the strange light for 10 minutes. Then, he decided to wake up his mother, Helen, back at the house.

Later he said that if he was seeing an unidentified flying object, he wanted someone else there with him to verify it.

His mother certainly does. And if Windt wanted to pick a more upstanding citizen in the community at that hour, he would have been hard pressed. Mrs. Windt, a lifelong member of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church and the mother of four children, is known locally as a reserved person and reliable.

Mrs. Windt recalled: "He woke me up saying, 'Mom come outside. There's something I want to show you. There's a funny object in the sky.' "

The young man's mother said that she went to the large picture window in the family room and from there could see the light that hovered about 300 yards from her house.

"There was no question that it wasn't a star, because it didn't look anything like a star," she said, adding that it resembled neither a satellite nor a helicopter.

As they watched it, the light changed from a purplish-red to a light grayish-blue, she said. But the lights were too dim for any aircraft that she is accustomed to seeing. In fact, she said that she doubts they would have been able to see the object, if it hadn't been such a clear night.

Mrs. Windt said that they studied the object for awhile, then her son decided to get his father's high-powered rifle in order to view it better through the sighting scope. There were no binoculars in the house at that time.

The mother and son went outdoors with the gun. Windt turned the scope to seven power, the highest rating, and focused on the strange object that was still in the same place.

He said that it looked like a flat bar, but he wasn't able to determine the size. It had two dim lights in front and another in back.

Windt offered the sighting-scope to his mother, but she refused since she had left her glasses in her bedroom and was too engrossed to go get them.

"I told him it wouldn't do me much good without my glasses," she recalled. As they watched it, the glowing object started moving towards them on a slow and straight course.

Mrs. Windt remembers her son asking: "Mom, what if I take a shot at it going over the house?"

I said, "No, John, don't," recalled Mrs. Windt.

As the glowing object came closer, Mrs. Windt said that she became afraid.

"I had one hand on the doorknob and I said, 'Come on,'" recalled Mrs. Windt. " 'Let's get in the house, so they don't grab us.' But he just laughed and said, 'Mom, if they're going to get us, they'll get us in the house as well as here.' "

While they talked, the object passed over their garage which is about 15 feet from the house. Mrs. Windt said that as it got closer she could hear the sound of a motor, but it sounded like no motor she had ever heard before.

"It was a real low sound," she said.

After the light passed over the garage it disappeared, according to Mrs. Windt.

"I don't know if it just vanished, or if it kept going and we couldn't see it anymore," she said. The entire episode lasted about 15 minutes.

In retrospect, Mrs. Windt said that she never thought of notifying the sheriff's department.

"I was so astonished," she said, "so involved in just watching it, that I never gave it a thought to call anybody."

She has since asked the Mellen City policeman who was on duty that night and he said that he saw nothing unusual in the sky.

"It was really exciting," said Mrs. Windt. "I would like to see something like it again. I just don't want them to take me away."

A few days after the incident, Mrs. Windt's son left the area to start a new job in Nebraska. There is no connection between his departure and the strange sighting, his mother said.

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Date: February 14, 1981 Location: Mellon County: Ashland Source: Superior, WI Evening Telegram, March 4, 1981

Details of Incident:

Mysterious Flying Object Said Seen Over Mellon

Date: February 14, 1981
Location: Mellon
County: Ashland

Source: Superior, WI Evening Telegram, March 4, 1981