Home | File a UFO Report | View UFO Reports Photo & Video | UFO Education UFO News | Calendar Sky Watch | Help UFO Wisconsin Store | Holiday Shopping | Contact Us Your complete source for Wisconsin UFO Sightings, News, & Information!

- Learn More - - Buy Now -

This file was created as a compilation of writing and newspaper articles about the famous early 1987 sightings in and around Belleville.



Type: Miscellaneous accounts of the 1987 Belleville sightings.
County: Dane

Source: E-mail submission.

Details of Incident:

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

WISCONSIN'S MOST FAMOUS UFO WAVE

By Donald Schmitt
Part 3.
"The Belleville Sightings"
Published by the Roswell Reporter P.O. Box 85 Hartford, Wisconsin
Copyright 1997.

A very special thank you to:
Richard Heiden for all of his valuable assistance in conducting this investigation. Next to the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, no one has taught me more about this subject than Richard.
- Donald R. Schmitt INTRODUCTION

From mid-January through early April of 1987 both Dane and Green counties experienced a major UFO wave the received worldwide attention. Over forty sightings during that period were actually reported by law enforcement officials, teachers, clergy, pilots and other respected and credible witnesses.

Months were spent conducting investigations at sighting locations, interviewing dozens of individuals, inspecting official records which included computer radar charts from the Federal Aviation Association. A professional inquiry was conducted until we had reached a conclusion concerning the many unexplained observations of these aerial phenomenon that had local authorities puzzled, residents frightened, and people from around the world fascinated.

What was flying through Wisconsin's crisp winter sky in the early part of 1987?

Here is an assortment of local newspaper headlines from Wisconsin. "UFO center probes abduction reports from Belleville, New Glarus areas.", "UFOs seen again near area town", "UFO Sightings Continue To Be Reported Here", "UFO sited in area by Belleville police, am", "Night-time UFO Sightings Continue In This Area","Area UFO Sightings Top Of Friday Meeting", "State Town Swept Up In 'UFO' Fever".

THE BELLEVILLE SIGHTINGS: PART TWO

In the article we will examine an ongoing series of events in the Dane county, Wisconsin, area. These events preceded the activity in the Belleville area discussed in the last issue. Most of these cases, it should be noted, were never reported in the press. In other words, neither the current nor the past flap of sightings influenced the other.

UFOs have often demonstrated unusual light beam characteristics. What may be an example of this took place during the summer of 1974, southwest of the town of Lodi which is just north of Dane County.

It was late evening, the weather clear, with little moonlight. Mr. G, looking out his front door, was surprised by an intensely bright light which just "turned on" from above. The entire hill to the north within the local golf course was lit up like daylight. Mr. G, excitedly called for his wife who was working in their kitchen. By the time she joined her husband the strange light had turned off as mysteriously as it had appeared.

Very bright lights of high intensity and pure color or lack thereof generally indicate a narrow range of bandwidth of emission frequencies, a common UFO light characteristic.

A few hours later that same evening a husband and wife driving on Highway 113 just south of Lodi observed a triangular shaped object with red and blue circular lights suspended beneath it. The object passed within 20 feet above their vehicle, momentarily hovered, then resumed its slow pass overhead. The couple described it as twice the size of their auto with multiple alternation colored lights. Because it was a warm summer evening they had been driving with windows down, but they heard no sound. They watched as the lights disappeared or shut off and the object was gone. The car was unaffected and they continued their drive home.

It was shortly after this incident to the north in Lodi that a man, Mr. W, saw what he thought were the headlights of a car pulling in his driveway. He went to the back door but it was once again dark. No visitors had arrived, at least via his driveway, so he went out to investigate the prying light. It was about 1:00 a.m. When he saw three very bright points of light fixed horizontally in the black sky, he raced back inside and called his brother who reluctantly agreed to set up his high powered telescope in their parent's driveway.

Within a half hour the two men were attempting to locate the lights, there were now only two with the scope. They had some difficulty focusing the piece and the slightest jar necessitated further adjustment. So W was understandably annoyed when he felt this brother strike him from behind. "What the hell you doing?" he snapped. "I almost had it." Then looking away from the eye piece he turned to see his brother pointing upward. Hanging right over them, slowly floating in front of the starlit sky, was a large delta winged, triangular shaped object. No lights were visible; yet its undersurface was clearly defined and resembled the metal tube coiling on the rear of a refrigeration unit.

The two stood wide eyed and open mouthed as the dark machine silently slid over their parents house. Extremely low, the object was lost to sight as it moved behind the two story roof line of their parents house. Running to the backyard, they abruptly stopped when the soundless vehicle turned, tipped upward at a 45 degree angle, then shot away soundlessly at a fast rate of speed. It was soon lost to sight.

None of these previous experiences were reported. We will see how they relate to more recent activity in this same region.

On the night of November 10, 1985, near Madison, a woman was returning to her home. The streets were deserted and the houses dark. There were few street lights. Suddenly three lights above a row of trees caught her eyes. At first she assumed they were from a helicopter. She watched as the configuration descended toward a house on the north side of the street. "I was curious," she said, "because if the craft had continued on its course, it would have crashed into the house."

She pulled over to the curb never taking her eyes off the lights, which made a sharp, graceful 90 degree turn toward the woman's parked automobile. The object ascended several feet in front of the car avoiding the power lines. The street lights illuminated one side and she could then make out the objects shape and color. Triangular and black, the craft was the size of a large car with a light shining from its narrow nose. A light on each side was also visible. There were no wings, propeller or visible engines and the craft moved in complete silence.

Sweeping to the north, the triangle stopped, hovering directly over a house. The rear of the object about half the width of the roof, then faced her. Two lights flanked the rear with a small red light near one of the lights on the right. Rectangular white lights flashed on top and blinked in rapid succession. They seemed to move in a circular motion. She described the bottom as slightly convex which adding to the motion of the lights gave it a "saucer" appearance.

"I was frightened, "she said, "so I left and called the Madison Police Department."

Sgt. Ray Warner, who calls himself a "born skeptic," remarked, "She was real rational. She definitely saw something. I don't know what, but she saw something."

Three days later, on November 22, a Wisconsin state employee was driving home to Deforest shortly after 5:00 p.m. It was still daylight and the weather was clear. The traffic was normal for a Friday afternoon on Highway CV. Suddenly the driver noticed three white lights hovering 20 to 30 feet above the farmhouse.

"At first I thought it was a helicopter, "he said," and then I realized I didn't know what it was." Curious, he exited off the highway near the Chase Lumberyard and approached the configuration of lights.

As he continued down the road he was soon able to make out a shape. The craft was roughly triangular, with the bottom sloped into contours. It was hanging stationary over a 60 foot high tree and was perfectly visible as the witness pulled his auto just slightly past the dull gray object. He got out of his car, amazed by what he was seeing. It now as only about 200 feet away. Within seconds the object began to move silently toward the witness.

Gliding slowly, almost directly overhead, the craft slide approximately 100 feet over the road. Impressed by its size and shape (estimated to be about 40 feet across), the witness stood gazing now to the west as the unknown object moved away on a straight trajectory. Smoothly, quickly, it was lost to sight. As usual there was no sound.

Because of the witnesses extensive medical, scientific and military background, we found him to be an exceptional witness and he proved a tremendous help in our investigation.

A similarly shaped object was observed by a young lady during this same time period. Unfortunately, because of the emotional effects of the experience to the woman, she has refused to discuss the incident. We have had to rely on a secondhand account from her sister.

We are told that the sister was returning home late on the evening in question when she noticed a triangular shape positioned over a local farmhouse. As she approached the location in her car, she was soon within a couple of hundred feet of the object. Red and white lights blinked intermittently. The object had a window and through the window she could make out the silhouette of a figure. Frightened, she sped home, leaving the strange object and its occupant behind her.

She had the uneasy feeling that she was being watched during the sighting and she suspects that something else happened. She also had the reason to believe that she experienced a period of missing time. We hope that in the future she will be willing to discuss her experience with us. For the present, however, the account seems to fit the overall pattern of reports in this area of Dane County.

Our next report takes us to Kenosha County in the southeast corner of the state. The area of concern is only 55 miles from Dane County.

A husband and wife were driving north on Highway 45 from Antioch, Illinois, returning home from a bingo game. It was Tuesday, October 14, 1996, and it was about 11 o'clock. There was little traffic and the sky was clear. Just north of the small town of Bristol, they saw what they took to be a bad car accident up the road ahead. Red and white lights flashed in all directions and the husband slowed their vehicle as they approached the scene. When at first were perceived as police and rescue vehicles now became something else altogether.

It was a huge triangular shaped object hovering just above the pavement. The red and white lights outlined its outer edge. The couple found themselves parking the car just off the shoulder of the road almost directly beneath the large pyramid suspended over the small hollow where they stopped.

"It was the size of a two story house and spanned the width of the road," the husband later told us. It was, he said, definitely a machine of some type. In fact, he first thought that it was a military aircraft.

The two got out of their auto and stood staring up at the noiseless object, which was only 30 feet above them. "It was so low that if we would have stood on the roof of the car we could have touched it," they recalled. There was no feeling of fear or apprehension, just utter amazement and intense curiosity.

Behind the flashing lights on the lower surface they were able to make out a grid understructure which confirmed that they were observing a manufactured object, albeit unlike any they had seen before. After two minutes the structure slowly moved to the southeast.

Getting back in the car, the witnesses resumed their drive home, saying nothing about their interrupted journey. The wife in particular felt disorientated the rest of the way home, and had trouble remembering the trip itself. There was also some confusion a bout the time of their arrival home. It turned out that they owed the babysitter for an extra hour of time.

We followed the same course of investigation with these reports that we did with those described in Part One. The reports remain unexplained.

As I said at the beginning of this article, most of these cases were never reported to the press, so none could possibly have influenced the other. Yet in a detail indicative of some type of hardware (as opposed to atmospheric effect) witnesses reported the same understructure. Were there conventional aircraft? Unless we learn of new aircraft that are able to hover for extended periods of time and then accelerate away from the scene without making a sound, the answer will have to be no. Three months later that Belleville flap would begin.

Read more about Belleville UFO sightings exclusively in this book:

Learn More!

Wisconsin's Top Five UFO Hot Spots, see where Belleville ranks!

 

UFO INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

By Jane Weihmeir
Times News Team

BELLEVILLE: Reports of unidentified flying objects in the Belleville area continue to surface. But the real story may still be hidden.

In other instances of UFO flaps, a high concentration of sightings in a short period of time, citizens have reported being abducted by aliens. Because of the number of recent sightings, one may be inclined to believe something more is happening in the Belleville area then mere sightings.

"We are checking into that possibility," said Don Schmitt, who is an investigator and director for the Center of UFO Studies known as CUFOS.

According to Schmitt, investigators have met with a number of doctors in the area, and the doctors are somewhat reluctant to talk because of doctor patient confidentiality.

"I am surprised in as much publicity that we have generated in the area, that we haven't been approached. And the center office itself has not received any calls of letters concerning anything about a close encounter.

"Sit there, and you can't help but wonder. Here I am sitting with this person and what if they actually have been. What if they actually were abducted. What if they actually were taken into a ship and physically examined and tested and here I am one. Step away from that phenomenon.

"I think I can confidently say that we CUFOS are of the position right now that the abduction cases are the UFO phenomenon. That that is the phenomenon. That the sightings and the photographs and the others are just maybe driving or passing by." Schmitt said.

Billy Dee Remarks

Please keep in mind, being a native of Wisconsin, I am aware of the Belleville UFO Incident. However, I am in awe to have read all the details, of which I did not know. I am convinced, that this series of UFO encounter's and sighting's, should be viewed as second to the Roswell UFO crash of 1947. I hope I am not being to dramatic here. But the magnitude of the sighting's, and all the witness's, as well as seeing the UFO so close up, and seeing an image of a alien being in a window of the alien craft, that this to me, one of the most extraordinary reports I have read.

I can understand the person and or persons who saw the ship close up, and the occupants through the windows. I say this, because I to, also had much the same experience. There is no way to explain the rush of adrenaline, and the stark reality of being within 50 feet of a real, genuine, and alien UFO! I have been there, I known what it is like, and will never forget, for the rest of my life.

BE WATCHING FOR FUTURE UFO REPORTS WRITTEN AND INVESTIGATED BY Donald Schmitt, National and World renowned Ufologist. Also, Number One investigator of the Roswell 1947 UFO crash. Also co-author of the popular TV movie, "Roswell", and author of many well known and well read books on Ufology and Roswell... Also be watching for Don's new book, "Roswell II" to be coming out soon! I have read it, it is powerful to say the least. The compiling of all the witnesses, and statement's, and documents and more, leave the reader with only one conclusion. The crash at Roswell was real! It happened, and the military and the government have lied to us about it. It was never weather balloon, and they know it! There is enough personal testimony and witness in "Roswell II" to be presented before a court of law, to force the government and military to come clean! Truly! This book and the work that went into it, will stand up in a court of law. Lets hope that "Roswell II" will be that book and work, that will finally bring the truth out into the open. As far as I am concerned, after reading the book. I am totally convinced that what Don Schmitt has found through investigation, proves out 100% of the crash at Roswell. I cannot emphasize that enough! Read it! And you too will be convinced.

Thank You
Billy Dee
Ufologist & Founder
UFO Sky Searchers International



Source: Monroe, WI Evening Times, March 28, 1987

Belleville site of UFO investigation

In the pursuit of answers or at least clues, a mini-caravan recently traversed the Belleville area to investigate multiple sightings of unidentified flying objects.

Because investigating UFOs is about as common as ghost busting, people often ask what the investigators do.

Judging from last Sunday's probe, it appears a UFO investigation is much more complex than mere questioning of witnesses.

A network of persons combines efforts to gather information beforehand, and an agenda is established so that the maximum possible number of interviews can be conducted in a single time period. Because investigators volunteer their time, meetings with witnesses often are slated for weekends.

Once in the area, investigators visit the observation sites. There they get a feel for the area and check for possible explanations.

Neighbors are questioned in an effort to uncover witnesses who can produce more evidence or at least corroborate information already reported.

Behind the scenes, checks are made on conventional air traffic at the time of the sighting.

And sometimes, such as in the probe of the Belleville flap, investigators go a step further.

Doctors and ministers have been called upon to find out whether any unreported witnesses might have sought treatment or counseling after a sighting.

According to Don Schmitt, one unnamed couple went to a minister regarding a close encounter experienced Jan. 13, two days before the first sighting by police officer Glen Kazmar.

Schmitt, who is affiliated with the Center for UFO Studies, said the couple went to the minister and asked him to go to the police.

The couple's sighting was within 500 feet of an object, making it a close encounter of the first kind.

The object they witnessed was described differently than other objects involved in Belleville area sightings. In this case, the object was described as circular with a row of lights. It appeared to have ascended slightly while under observation.

In Kazmar's report, no shape was discerned, but colored lights were seen. The object seemed to have lingered in the area for more than eight hours. It was officially reported Jan. 16, and a radar tracking verified the sighting.

Other reports have involved cigar or submarine-shaped objects.

Harvey Funseth said the object he saw March 6 reminded him of a submarine. Fred Gochenaur, who was with Funseth at the time, agreed.

Gochenaur explained earlier that he and Funseth first saw four objects, but three of them just sort of disappeared. It was the fourth one they watched for a good 10 minutes.

Funseth said it seemed to have a flat bottom, definitely had no wings, and had a light that flashed on top, he said.

What impressed him, he said, was that it seemed like a big ship going through water - it was so steady.

According to Funseth, no sound from the object was heard nor was any animal reaction heard. He said two things glowed in the back, reminding him of a rocket without flames, and a short vapor trail followed it.

With his arm outstretched toward the sky and hand shaped in a fist, Funseth gave comparisons to the object's size, speed and direction. It was at least fist-width in length, he told the investigative crew Sunday.

Funseth, who maps out areas for aerial photographs, estimated the height of the object to be about 2,000 feet, although he said if the object was bigger than he guessed, it could have been higher.

He said it didn't seem to have picked up speed, but after it got to where he could only see the back end, it disappeared kind of fast.

It wasn't an airplane, a saucer or marsh gas, he said with confidence.

If it was a jetliner or plane that low, it would have travelled much faster and if it had been a balloon, it would have moved much slower, Funseth stated.

Funseth took 11 pictures of the object, but each negative turned up blank while unrelated photos at the beginning and end of the roll of film turned out fine.

Investigators checked the site to determine if it is in a microwave area because that can affect film. But Schmitt said no receivers, dishes or transmitters were found to indicate it was a microwave area.

He said the negatives are being analyzed in laboratories and he hopes to have the camera checked, too, but so far all the photographers consulted on the matter are just shaking their heads.

Officials previously reported that pictures of UFOs often turn out black. Sometimes that is attributed to radiation.

"It is a common thing as far as taking photographs at the center of radiation," Schmitt said, "we do get a totally washed out negative. That's just always an aftereffect."

But, the investigator said, that generally happens in close encounters.



Source: Monticello, WI Messenger, June 17, 1987

Additional winter UFO sightings revealed

What flies at night, low to the ground less than 10 miles per hour, is large, has lights and makes no sound?

Jeff Zweifel, rural Belleville, doesn't know - but he knows he saw one.

A chance encounter last week and an overheard comment led to an interview with Zweifel, 21, who described a strange, lighted aircraft that passed over his head one dark evening Feb. 6. Zweifel, however, who said he was walking his bike home from his farm job that evening, is not the type to jump to the conclusion that he saw an extraterrestrial craft.

"I saw a UFO," he said, "but I still don't believe in them."

However, Zweifel said he cannot explain what he did see that night, and he "absolutely" rules out it's having been an airplane or helicopter. He cites its silence and speed as evidence.

The conversation with Zweifel quickly led to two additional sighting reports from that same area, including one in which two Belleville High School students tried to follow a low-flying object by car early one morning several months ago. The other sighting was reported by one of the girls and her father, Glen Morrick, a farmer who lives near Zweifel.

After finishing work about 7:30 p.m. that night, Zweifel said, he was walking out the driveway to Montrose Road for the quarter-mile walk home. He first noticed the object, perhaps 500 feet away, as a bright, white, directional light aimed at about a right angle to the direction in which Zweifel was looking.

"There was something big behind it, blocking out the other lights" that he soon saw, Zweifel explains.

"I saw one red light the whole time," Zweifel said. "Then a blue light came on - I'm not sure if it came on or if it was on the whole time (and had been hidden from his original angle of view)." Both lights were blinking.

As he walked west on Montrose Road, the craft approached him, following the road straight east, Zweifel recalled. At the time, he was about 1.5 miles west of County Trunk PB, he estimated.

When the object was about 20 feet in front of him, a white light came on, Zweifel continued.

From the front, the blinking red light was on the left and the blinking blue light on the right, he said. Between the two was the white light that started from the right, moved straight toward the left, and continued moving rapidly back and forth between the two outer lights.

"When I looked straight up at it, it looked like a short grey tail of smoke coming out the back or something long and narrow attached to the back of it," he said. However, he could not discern the shape or appearance of the object.

"When it was right overhead, I couldn't see what it was, but I could see lights," Zweifel said.

"I know it was pretty big because when I got behind it, I lined it up with the road," Zweifel continued. "I turned around and watched it go; there was something big blocking out the light." He estimated the width as about 25 feet.

The object continued on its easterly course at the same altitude and speed, Zweifel said. By the time he went into his house, he had observed it for about 15 minutes, he estimated.

On two other occasions, including several days later, Zweifel said he observed similar lights in the night sky. On both occasions his mother, Virginia, also saw them, she said. However, those times the lights were much further away. One night, he said, they saw two such objects "flying around" for at least an hour.

Upon hearing of Zweifel's description, Don Schmitt, co-director of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) said, "His description is totally consistent with all the other reports we had from around there."

Schmitt, who was involved in the June 5 news conference/UFO program at Belleville High School, added that "about a half-dozen" people approached him afterward saying they had UFO sightings this spring.

Zweifel said he called Belleville Police Officer Glen Kazmar, who made the first publicly known UFO sighting this spring in this area, after the first, close-up sighting. However, Kazmar's wife took the call and said Kazmar would call Zweifel back. "When he never called me back, I just sort of forgot about it," Zweifel explained.

Zweifel's reported sightings does not go unsupported. A telephone call to one of his neighbors, Glen Morrick, quickly turned up at least two more incidents worthy of being called UFO sightings.

Morrick himself saw, along with his daughter, an unusual configuration of lights hovering in the night sky earlier this spring, he said. "My daughter one night said, 'hey, you want to see a UFO?'" he recalled. He then watched for several minutes three separate lights either blinking in series or on a spinning object.

Morrick said, "It was just sitting there (in the air)." With a pair of binoculars, he watched what he thinks were red and green lights, although he is not sure of the colors. They were north-northeast of his house and at about 60 degrees from the horizon, he said.

Could he have been observing a star or a planet? "Absolutely not," Morrick said, citing the different colors and that the object was "so much larger than a star." In addition, he was quite sure the lights were separate from each other and coming on from right to middle to left.

His daughter, who watched the object off and on for about a half-hour, said the object did move, although very slowly, as it was in a different spot each time she looked. She called it oval shaped, based on her memory of the light pattern, and said there were lights on top as well as blue and red flashing back and forth on the sides of it. Her impression was that it was rotating, she said.

"I think it could have been a weather balloon," she said. "I don't know if they do that."

A call to Ed Addison at Truax Field, Madison, eliminated weather balloons as a possible explanation. He said they are not released around here, rise rapidly to great heights and then burst, carry only one small light if any, and are only 30 inches across.

Morrick's daughter and a friend of hers, a junior at Belleville High School, had sighted yet another strange object before the sighting described by Morrick. The friend told how the girls tried to follow the object one night between midnight and 1 a.m.

The girl had just taken Morrick's daughter home that night, she said, when they spotted what looked like two red automobile taillights approaching them slowly at about the height of a utility pole. "We couldn't figure out what it was; it was like it was playing tricks with our eyes," she said.

The girls decided to follow the object in order to get a better look. As they got onto County Trunk PB, the object reversed its direction and headed north, for a while following the road. As they followed at about 55 mph, they neither gained nor lost ground, she said.

The two red lights stayed in the same configuration both as it approached and as it moved away from them, the girl said.

They followed the craft from about the bridge across the Sugar River to about the cemetery. As she sped up to about 60 mph, the object veered off to the left and was lost from view behind a hill. At no time did it change its elevation, she said. Nor did the girls ever hear it make a sound.

"We didn't think much of it, except 'what is this?'" the girl said. The incident was soon forgotten.

A call to Addison eliminated all possible explanations except perhaps that of a helicopter.

A person with the Air National Guard helicopter unit said the described sighting could not have been a helicopter. She said a helicopter can be heard at 1,000 feet, does not fly that low at night, and has one red light above and one white below.

Read more about Belleville UFO sightings exclusively in this book:

Learn More!

Wisconsin's Top Five UFO Hot Spots, see where Belleville ranks!

Source: Monroe, WI Evening Times, January 24, 1987

Some UFO reports notable

A UFO field investigator tells of the unexplainable

UFO nonbelievers may think twice if they knew what Don Schmitt knows.

"It's such a strong curiosity and such a conviction of having dealt with so many people and especially dealing with the military people involved...that there is a UFO phenomenon, that it is being observed in almost every country in the world," said Schmitt, a field investigator for the Center of UFO Studies and a director of the Mutual UFO Network.

"The reports are coming from very competent, very reliable sources," he said. "The Russian accounts that we receive, the Chinese, Japanese, Australian, French match ours almost identically. (In) the photographs that we receive from overseas the same device is involved."

The Milwaukee man, who is studying the recent sightings near Belleville admits he is concerned advanced technology will add to the confusion of UFOs.

"It's going to be up to the competency of the investigator to sift out the military devices," he said. "We explain 90 percent of the cases we do get as conventional aircraft and natural phenomenon."

But that other 10 percent involves some very weird happenings.

Among the more notable cases Schmitt spoke of was the 1975 Mellon case in which an entire northern Wisconsin family observed what they termed a "turtle-shaped" object hovering nearby. Several others, including police, also observed the object, which was picked up by radar. The object appeared to leave, but the next morning a girl in the family saw it again above the road. Inspection of the location revealed snow blown off the roadway where the object was observed.

The center did not identify the object as an alien spaceship or anything, but rather left it classified as an unidentified flying object.

"The policy of the center is that we have yet to really make a straightforward statement in regards to the origin, the whos, the whys and the whats," Schmitt explained. "We are just evaluating the information and data as it comes in, and we are strictly working with the reports and the observers as they come forward."

"Unfortunately only one of 10 sightings is even reported so we feel there is a tremendous...wealth of material that is still out there."

Based on that statistic, Wisconsin has had a good share of sightings. Schmitt, 32, currently is investigating roughly 11 state reports.

"Happenings in Dane County very closely correspond to a number of sightings in the Waukesha area and Kenosha County. One matches identically to one in northern Dane County," he reported.

Those reports involved a triangular to rectangular-shaped object with flashes of red and blue, he said, and evidence from separate witnesses places the happenings in the same areas.

One Dane County woman, who reportedly saw a silhouette of a figure through a porthole or window of the object, might prove particularly helpful to the center. According to Schmitt, the woman's sister is concerned something more may have happened.

"She's afraid something else may have happened beyond the close observation of the object...something may have happened beyond her control that she had no memory of...not necessarily suspect an abduction, but I think it's enough that she's rather unnerved by the whole thing."

The woman, who is in her 20s, is very reluctant to come forward, Schmitt said. "That's why we have consultants." In that particular case, a medical doctor from the Madison area will try to talk to the woman.

The object reportedly was hovering over a farm area, Schmitt said. "All of the sightings, especially the one, was observed in close proximity."

Most of Schmitt's current investigations began with reports made in the last month, but the objects actually were observed several months back in time.

"Very often that is the case. Very often it is even years after the fact," he said.

A 1965 sighting of a humming, saucer-shaped object north the Dells was not even reported until decades after the event. Schmitt said that by that point investigators usually can't do anything with the report, but in this case there were at least eight other separate witnesses who observed the object very closely.

Some investigations turn up answers right away. "Once in a while it can be as quick as a phone call," he said.

The Belleville case is not that simple. "This was something out of the ordinary. Once again we will eliminate all the normal possibilities."

The incident was picked up on radar, and the movement was unusual, he said. Schmitt explained most sightings are not tracked on radar because ordinarily a person won't request a radar check. He also said many persons are reluctant to report an incident immediately.



Source: Monroe, WI Evening Times, February 12, 1987

Midwest hot spot for UFOs

The Midwest seems to be the current hot spot for unidentified flying object sightings, according to Don Schmitt, who is investigating the report of mysterious sky lights near Belleville.

Schmitt says Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Iowa have had similar reports within the past year of triangular to diamond-shaped objects with red and white lights. Other states are not having much UFO activity, he said.

In Waukesha a sighting was reported of an object hovering above an intersection of roads. The object was wider than the distance between road shoulders, and people claim it was so close they could have stood on the roof of the car and touched it.

Another motorist said from a distance he thought it was an accident because of the red and white flashing lights. Upon closer examination it was "like seeing a car accident in the sky" Schmitt recalls the witness as saying.

Near Mukwonago a UFO is believed to have landed. No UFO observation was reported, but the nature of the physical trace lends itself to a possible landing.

A night pilot noted a "perfect circle" impression on a swamp. He thought the area seemed to be a natural landing approach through the trees.

The barren 60 foot circle has tripod depressions in the center and rests at the base of a swamp which covers 25 square miles.

Schmitt noted the depression is in a direct line to a microwave tower about one mile away. He said that may be significant because two other cases have involved towers.

Some have suggested towers serve as beacon lights or possibly a power source - several sightings have involved power surges in buildings and stalled vehicles.

In Ohio, an object was seen hovering over a neighbor's garage and was described as tremendous in size.

Several Dane County sightings have also been reported. In one instance a woman reported seeing the silhouette of a figure inside a porthole or window of the object.

Schmitt has come to realize Wisconsin is novel in that peak UFO activity in recent years has occurred in winter months. This is the third year in a row when January has been the busiest month, he said.

He noted the oddity of winter reports because that is a time when people are less apt to be outside watching the skies.



Source: Monroe, WI Evening Times, February 12, 1987

Lights in Belleville a mystery

The sighting of colored lights in the night sky Jan. 16 near Belleville remains a mystery, but the Center for UFO Studies has some of its best help continuing to study the case and other possibly-related reports.

"When I get involved, it's because it's a good case," said Don Schmitt, the main investigator.

A free-lance technical illustrator, Schmitt is a director of CUFOS, an organization with highly-rated volunteers.

Schmitt explained that people don't apply to work at the center - the center seeks people to join, recruiting volunteers to investigate reports, but he is personally working on the Belleville case.

He was in the small community last Sunday to touch base with approximately 12 witnesses.

The initial report, which came from a Belleville police officer and was confirmed by others in places including Albany and Monroe, has CUFOS' interest partially because the observation was tracked on radar.

"We have already eliminated the possibility of any conventional air traffic at that time," he said.

Because the lights were observed from different angles defining an outer perimeter, the investigator may be able to come within a few miles of determining the actual location. He will also employ radar tapes once available.

Schmitt said reports from other witnesses may or may not be related.

Feb. 6, exactly three weeks after the initial report, the same lights were observed from Belleville - the lights were in the same area as before.

Some observers reported that from a distance estimated as one football field away, they saw red and blue rotating lights on top and a white, constant light, on bottom. The witnesses were not able to discern the shape of the object.

One woman reported seeing three sets of lights. All seemed identical.

Schmitt said it is unusual to see more than one series of lights, but it occasionally happens. There have been reports in which the objects seem to merge and become one before leaving the area, he said. In some instances, radar has tracked the lights as a single object once they've merged.

Other reports indicate an object was observed Jan. 17 above Elmwood. Two reports were made of sightings Jan. 18 in Dane County. Feb. 5, the day before the second Belleville sighting, there was a sighting in Washington County.

Although the initial report may be related to the other sightings, each report is handled as a unique case because that eliminates leading questions, the investigator said.

"We go in assuming it can be explained," Schmitt said. Investigators use the process of elimination to determine the sighting was not a plane, star or other common object.

He noted that it is not unusual for more reports to come out after a publicized sighting. People get bit by "UFO fever" and want to see something so much that they study the sky until they find lights, he said, explaining that often the lights exist but the observer is not trained and misinterprets a common object for a UFO.

It is up to the competency of the investigator to weed out bogus reports and misinterpreted sightings from valid ones.



Source: Baraboo, WI News-Republic, June 26, 1987

UFO center probes abduction reports from Belleville, New Glarus areas

A director of the National Center for UFO Studies says his agency is studying two reports of women being abducted by UFOs in the Belleville and New Glarus areas of south-central Wisconsin.

Don Schmitt, a Milwaukee-based director of the non-profit center located in Glenview, Ill., said Thursday in a telephone interview that the two reports surfaced after a June 5 presentation in Belleville.

During the presentation Schmitt said several January UFO sightings in the area could not be explained by natural phenomena.

"One of the alleged abductions occurred the same day the Belleville officer made the first report that was later classified as a UFO. One of the cases appears very promising in that there is physical evidence of traumatization.

He said he could not be specific about what the trauma involved because he had not seen the doctor's report.

"The second abduction allegedly happened several years ago in New Glarus, Brooklyn area and there were several witnesses," said Schmitt.

Both reports were of women being abducted and later returned, Schmitt said. The women were not identified.

Schmitt said he was surprised at the number of people who came forward after the June 5 news conference.

"In 90 percent of these cases (UFO reports) we can explain away what happened to natural causes. It's those 10 percent that are so perplexing. In the Belleville case, the level of activity there is unprecedented this year around the world and the level of activity in the Dane-Green county areas is unprecedented in the world in the last 10 years," he said.

The center correlates international data.

There are various reports of people claiming they were abducted and held by UFOs, said Schmitt, who does not like to use the term "extraterrestrial".

"When I hold it in my hand and decide it is not something from here, then I'd classify it as an extraterrestrial, until then, we have UFOs and no one is sure what's in them," he said.

Some of the additional sighting reports are exciting to the center because one of them concerns a possible landing of an object and that report may yield what he calls "trace physical evidence" if the center can pinpoint the site, Schmitt said.

"That would actually be two types of physical evidence because the farmer who reported it said his farm animals were unnerved and jumpy about the alleged landing which means there must have been some audible sign," he said.

He also said a young man came up to him during the June 5 news conference and said he and his grandfather had seen a hovering saucer-like object, but Schmitt said the youth left before he could get his name to verify the report.

Read more about Belleville UFO sightings exclusively in this book:

Learn More!

Wisconsin's Top Five UFO Hot Spots, see where Belleville ranks!

Help show your support for this site and our efforts by visiting www.GetGhostGear.com and any links below!  

 

All information contained above and elsewhere on www.UFOwisconsin.com has rights reserved to GetGhostGear.com Enterprises and appropriate permissions must be gained before utilizing anything contained here on www.UFOwisconsin.com to aid in assuring our visitors, report filers and resources used to bring this site to you have all protections and due rights made available.  Interested parties please contact us through "Copy Right Services @ GetGhostGear.com"

 

Disclaimer: UFOwisconsin.com has not verified the validity of every UFO report published within UFOwisconsin.com.  All reports are added to the database 'as is' received.  The sighting reports posted have many possible explanations, including but not restricted to stars, planets, airplanes, known natural earthly phenomena, hoaxes etc.  We leave it up to the individual viewer to judge the report based upon the content of the report itself.  As investigations occur, that information will be notated on the individual report.