The so-called Portage County UFO Chase was an unidentified flying object encounter that began in Portage County, Ohio on the morning of April 17, 1966, when police officers Dale Spaur and Wilbur Neff observed a metallic, disc shaped object flying in the skies.
They pursued the object for about half an hour, ending up in Pennsylvania before losing sight of the UFO. Several other police officers became involved in the chase, and several civilians reported witnessing the same object, or a similar object in about the same area, during this time.
The UFO encounter earned significant mainstream publicity, and probably inspired a scene in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where three Indiana police cruisers are depicted chasing several UFOs into Ohio, eastbound across state lines.
After interviewing one of the police witnesses, Project Blue Book (the official UFO investigative arm of the U.S. Air Force) determined that the witnesses had chased a communications satellite, then the planet Venus. This conclusion was rejected by the officers involved as ridiculously inadequate, and was furthermore subject to some wider criticism, contributing to the opinions of some observers that Blue Book was a failure as an investigative project. The UFO chase was one of the cases that contributed to the creation of the Condon Committee, ostensibly an independent scientific investigation of UFOs.








What are your thoughts on this?I heard on the scaner yesterday that the sheriff deputy was called out for a ufo sighting in my area by a resident.:surrender

I remember that case.
There have been several cases now where police from adjoining districts were able to follow and track a UFO.

Here is a link to the full story along with a sketch:

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case79.htm

When I was in college, I remember going to meetings of a local UFO group in NE Ohio. Now that I think of it, one of the leaders of the group was named Neff. I wonder if it wasn't the same guy who was involved with this sighting. Darn - I never made that connection till now - 30+ years after the fact.

As it is, Dale Spaur was the real loser in this case. His life really fell apart after the sighting and he just sort of drifted through the rest of his life (he died in the early 80's).

Sadly, this is a classic example where a thoughtless investigation by Project Bluebook really had an adverse effect on people and families.

S
http://www.department47.com

1st I've heard of this. sounds cool. i live in stark country which is just below portage. ill look into this for sure.