UFOs in the daily Press:

UFO researchers probe lights at Booger Bottom

(AP) UFO investigators Olivia Newton and Jim Clifford are trying to solve the case of the red dots at Booger Bottom.

The two are used to the prank calls, publicity seekers and strange natural phenomena. But the story of three people driving on a rural stretch of highway called Booger Bottom, near Greenville, got their attention.

Newton and Clifford work for the Mutual UFO Network of Georgia. They listen to the stories no one else will hear, and then they try to find an explanation.

A 50-year-old Tucker man, his brother and his 73-year-old sister-in-law from Warm Springs reported seeing round red objects the size of silver dollars inside their sport utility vehicle as they were driving home last month.

The three, who declined to give their names, said about 50 red objects appeared inside the car as some sort of solid lights and seemed to scan them. Then the lights vanished.

"They all said it was not of this world. They felt it was intelligent. They felt they had sought them out for the sole purpose of scanning them. Scan. That was the word they used," said Newton.

The 73-year-old woman called the police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, but they didn't want to hear her tale of aliens in the dark. Then the National UFO Reporting Center referred them to MUFONGA.

"She said, 'I've got to know what this is. Are they coming back after us? What if they cart us off?"' Newton said.

Most seemingly extraordinary experiences have a reasonable cause, Newton said, pointing out that the planet Venus is often mistaken for a spaceship.

But she hadn't heard a story like this one.

None of the witnesses gave Newton any reason to doubt their account.

"We watch for body language, any discrepancies," she said. "They looked at us right in the eye and were very forthright. They said, 'Surely you have heard of this before.'"

The Tucker man told the investigators he saw a red swirling object next to the vehicle on the driver's side before the lights appeared.

"The floor board again was red hue as it was in the back seat. I looked out the window and over the dash board onto the hood and did not see any activity as was being awesomely and erratically displayed in the front and back seat," he said on the National UFO Reporting Center's Web site.

Newton and Clifford couldn't find any explanation. There were no trains, no airplanes, no close houses that could reflect light. Newton said there wasn't an area where practical jokers could have hidden and used red pointer lights, especially when the three were traveling at 35 mph.

Newton plans to look into why the area is called Booger Bottom, to see if maybe it was called that from a similar incident. Locals say the name may have come from the "Boogey Man."