This article was published in the daily newspaper The Crescent-News, Defiance, Ohio, USA on Friday, October 26, 1973.
From UPI
Hundreds of callers bombarded police and newspaper switchboards in Los Angeles Thursday reporting "shimmery, shiny" triangular- shaped objects in the sky, "just hanging up there" or moving very slowly.
Over Hilo, on the big island of Hawaii, three firemen and an air traffic controllerspotted an unidentified flying object (UFO), three times the size of Venus.
In Corvallis, Ore., the recent rash of UFO sightings prompted a radio station to offer $10,000 reward for the first living space visitor brought to the station.
Bob Houglum, manager of KLOO, stipulated that the extraterrestrial visitor, animal or person, "must never have been on Earth before."
One woman caller in Los Angeles said, "From my window there's a great big massive thing, and I'm not nuts.
"My friend called me to look and we had our mailman look. We didn't want to seem nutty," she said.
The objects turned out to be tetroons; plastic bags released in an air pollution study being conducted by Dr. William Perkins of Metronics Associates, Palo Alto, Calif., the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Air Resources Board.
In Hawaii, sightings have been made on several islands recently, some by newsmen, some by citizens. The latest was Thursday night, over Hilo, and was seen by firemen and an air traffic controller.
Lt. James Higashite Jr., a fireman, said it was moving east-northeast and three times as big as Venus. He said, "we are trained observers with binoculars and telescopes. It looked like a large star but it has artificial lighting." He and two other firemen saw it.
So did Hilo airport traffic controller Harry Marks. Marks said no flights were in the area, and the object shot straight up into the sky 10 minutes after it appeared.
In Chillicothe, Ohio, Sheriff's Deputy Dale Gillette captured a "spaceman" late Thursday night. The "spaceman" was wrapped in industrial strength aluminum foil from head to toe complete with antennae on his head.
Gillette said he found the "spaceman" in the middle of a rural road while on patrol.
"I shook my head and didn't believe what I saw," said a shaky Gillette.
He explained he jumped out of his cruiser, put the spotlight on the "spaceman," who took off running. The deputy said he called for the "spaceman" to halt, then fired a warning shot.
Gillette said the "spaceman" stumbled on the road, lost his antennae. That is when Gillette captured him and took him to the Sheriff's Department.
Officials would only say the "spaceman" was a 15 year-old youth.
