This article was published in the daily newspaper The Crescent-News, of Defiance, Ohio, on Thursday, October 4, 1973.
TUPELO, Miss. (UPI) - A National Park Service ranger said Wednesday night he saw a flying saucer the size of a two-bedroom house hover over this area for about 15 minutes flashing "red, green and yellow lights."
"I've been dealing with the public for years and I know people exaggerate and see what they want to see, but I know I saw this," said Thomas E. Westmoreland.
Westmoreland, a ranger for the Tupelo subdistrict of the Natchez Trace Parkway, said three other rangers and a deputy sheriff were with him when he saw the strange craft.
"Our theory is that it's some highly secret experimental aircraft the Air Force is trying out and doesn't want the public to know about," said Westmoreland.
Highway patrolmen, policemen and a sheriff all reported seeing strange flying objects over northeastern Mississippi Wednesday night. Similar sightings have been reported in southern Georgia and parts of Tennessee in recent weeks.
Most of the latest reports were around the Tupelo area, although radio stations from Corinth, 50 miles to the north, and Kosciusko, 100miles to the south, said they were swamped with calls from persons who said they had sighted unidentified flying objects.
Westmorelarid said the object he saw had lights, but not the same kind of lights that are on airplanes.
"I know this sounds strange, and I can assure you I'm sober, " Westmoreland said. "It was approximately 1,000 feet in altitude and roughly the size of a two-bedroom house or a little smaller.
"It had red, green and yellow flashing lights -- not the standard beacon type you have on aircraft," he said. "They were circular and they were rotating continuously."
Arlin Mohundro, sales manager for radio station WKCU in Corinth, said the object he saw hovered about 100 feet off the ground behind the station.
"It's lights are red and green and white," Mohundro said. "When it gets close it has kind of a black color. The lights are flashing and it looks like it might be the size of an automobile, but it's in an oval shape."
