This article was published in the daily newspaper The Daily Star, Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, Canada, page 37, on March 1, 1967.
GRAND HAVEN (UPI). -- It isn't often that sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are confirmed by police officials. But Tuesday night, most of the reports were made by police in Southwestern Michigan.
Ottawa County Sheriff Bernard Grysen and five of his deputies were among more than one dozen persons reporting reddish-orange objects in the dark, but clear sky over Ottawa County along the shores of Lake Michigan.
Grysen was reluctant to discuss his sighting because of the publicity surrounding many of the sightings made in Michigan in recent months.
"I've heard so many kooks talk about them, I don't like to say much about it," he said.
But he did describe a reddish-orange object that hovered low over Lake Michigan a short distance from his cottage. He said it moved quickly from side to side before disappearing.
Police officials in three counties bordering Ottawa County, Allegan, Muskegon and Kent, said they had received no UFO sighting reports. One deputy in Muskegon County said he had watched an "exceptionally bright star" for several minutes but added there was no movement and no color.
Ottawa Deputy Dave Heerspink reported sighting the object, or objects, at three different times at three different spots in the county Tuesday night.
"It looked like a cluster of lights with the centre intensely bright and the outer edges reddish in color," Heerspink said. "It seemed to be kind of oval shaped, more or less."
Heerspink said he was listening on his two-way radio when the first report came in from other deputies.
"I heard them asking if other cars saw it," he said, "and then I spotted my first one of the night."
The deputy said he came in to the station to pick up a pair of binoculars after making his first sighting and then spotted a second one with the binoculars. Heerspink said he saw a plane go by and the object he was looking at "was definitely not a plane."
Heerspink said he had never spotted a UFO before Tuesday night and had always wondered just what people were reporting.
"Maybe someone else knows more about these things. If they do, maybe they can explain it," he said. "At least now I know what other people have been talking about."
