From the Archives of the Tillsonburg News
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UFO spotted in Bayham
Published in the Tillsonburg News, Sept. 8, 1978.
By Jim Hevenor
Despite the tendency of both government and the general public to downplay the possibility of visitors from space, at least seven Straffordville area residents are convinced they saw an unidentified flying object last week.
While travelling home to Port Burwell by car from a ball game in Straffordville, Aug. 28, Debbie Teall, Kelly Brooks, Diane Marr, Tracey Bradt, Pam Nevilles and Laura Wall saw an object with red, white and green lights following a car along Highway 19 at about 10:30 p.m.
“When we stopped it slowed down to almost a halt and a white light came down out of the object,” the girls said in a letter to The News. “The sound was indescribable, nothing like a plane or a helicopter.
“We got back in the car and began to go south. It seemed to follow us because it was right above the car about 50 feet. The radio was on and it was going on and off for about two or three minutes. We watched it move westward for a couple minutes then all of a sudden it disappeared.”
“It was a strange coloration of lights,” said Straffordville insurance agent Ed Matschke, who saw the object while driving home from Port Burwell.
“It was really whizzing. I heard a noise and I thought it might be a jet or something. I opened my car window and it hovered above me.
“It wasn’t a jet,” he said, because a jet would not be flying that low.
“It stayed in the area for quite awhile and it followed my car. I drove slowly just to see what would happen and this thing didn’t go away for quite awhile… I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
In a telephone interview later, Kelly Brooks, one of the girls, said “we didn’t report it to the police because we were too scared.”
Mr. Matschke also kept the incident to himself.
“I didn’t say too much about it to anybody,” he said. “I thought maybe I was just seeing things.”