- 2 weeks ago
60-year mystery: Questions surrounding Kecksburg UFO incident in Pennsylvania
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00you were one of the few people that were actually here on the scene that yes yes me and the wife
00:21come out from Greensburg and in 20 minutes military was already here that's Ronnie Struble
00:27a 50-year veteran of the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department telling me about that fateful night
00:33December 9th 1965 when some say an unidentified flying object landed in Kecksburg Westmoreland
00:41County a little less than 50 miles outside of Pittsburgh the 60th anniversary of that event
00:47is just days away and in today's edition of for the record I go deeper into the mystery what was
00:55it that came out of the sky that night what is it that so many people claim to have witnessed and why
01:02this mystery endured for so long let's start by going to my conversation with Mr. Struble so the
01:11first thing I want to ask you is what do you remember back in 1965 on December 9th okay remember
01:19is that's a long time ago 1965 the wife and I had just got been married for two years and I lived on
01:27429 Oakland Avenue in Greensburg and during that time period we heard it on TV and the radio and we
01:38seen a streak in the sky from Greensburg so you looked up in the sky and you could see something
01:43flashing we could see what did you think it was well at that point you know I was only 20 21 years old at
01:51that that point so you know we've seen the orange streak in the sky and of course they said then that
01:58it went down near a time of Weldy Town Weldy Town is where I was born and raised so I know this area
02:05like the back of my hand so we decided to come out so you were 21 with your new wife correct and you
02:15just were looking around the area for something what did you come across well we left and come out
02:20here as as soon as we heard heard about it and whenever we arrived out here we want what is now
02:28Meteor Road back then I was not a fireman at that point so wife and I were just people coming out to
02:41see what was going on at that point on Meteor Road and Snively Road is where I seen we seen the military
02:49what sort of military did you see well it was hard to tell from our vantage point because they were
02:55down in a hall and we was up on the on the roadway but it definitely was the military how do you know
03:01it was the military because of the uniforms they were wearing were they trying to keep people back
03:07what was happening well at that point the firemen already had a closure of the road up there and they
03:15wouldn't let us pass that point so there was a number of us there witnessing and looking down at
03:22the halls trying to see what was going on could you see anything anything we could see was the
03:28military going up in the hall but you couldn't see whatever it was that fell from the sky I could
03:33not how many people were around watching and waiting at that point there there had to be 10 15 maybe 20
03:41people standing around talking what were you guys saying and you know a lot of them I knew from living in
03:48the area I had met our president's dad who was president of the fire company at that time and we
03:58were talking about what was going on because I worked for him as a young guy at his farm what were you
04:03saying this you know we everybody was wondering what it was you know we had originally thought that it
04:12was a plane down but you know we couldn't see at that point down in the valley anything so we didn't
04:20know what it was I had heard reports that whatever it was in the sky was being controlled it was kind
04:27of directing itself had you heard stories about that not back then now yes we we realize that the
04:37whatever it was made some abrupt changes to come down in the valley at Kecksburg as if it was being
04:44controlled could have been yes what do you think it was well I've been asked that question 64,000 times
04:53okay and you know obviously something happened because we've witnessed and talked to so many people
05:01that were there and see things that something was in that valley what they took out I have no idea how
05:08do you know they took something out because initially the government came back the very next day and said
05:14we didn't find anything you are correct initially they said that that it's like the age-old saying here
05:22if it looks like a duck and it cracks like a duck it's a duck okay so a lot of people saw something
05:29many people that I've talked to over the years we've been doing this for a number of years and they've
05:38seen trucks going out of town they've seen the military that was there so I'm sure that something
05:47happened and something was taken out why do you think the government at first said there was nothing
05:52we found nothing $64,000 question I don't know what were they trying to stop everyone from finding out
05:59yeah well you know back then you know we just thought it was a plane down we didn't give it a
06:06second thought you know but now yeah there had to be something that happened back then have you talked
06:13to anyone personally who saw the object in the woods I've talked to people that witnessed the
06:20military have not talked to people that seen the object down in the woods so you don't know if
06:29this acorn this kind of brass colored acorn is what fell from your vantage point from my vantage point
06:37now we do have a researcher who has talked to people that has seen has talked to people who has seen it
06:45yeah so we'll get into that with him coming out how cool is it that the volunteer fire department
06:53benefits off of this every year with the festival well that's a story in itself there back in 19 this
07:01happened in 65 in 1975 I joined the fire company and during that time period I met a lot of the the firemen
07:12that were involved in the incident that would be Mr. Mays and Mr. Bittner who I have a lot of respect for they went to their
07:21deathbed stating that something happened that day so during about 2005 we got permission from the fire
07:34department to go ahead and sell shirts that one of the ladies in the town had made the sketch of and we
07:44had put it on a hat so we got permission from her to go ahead and print shirts and that's all the
07:50the UFO store got started we sold shirts out of the one of the farming had passed away and we bought
07:59Mel Reese's house for the fire department and we started in the basement of the house selling shirts
08:06only on Wednesday night and it got so big that we had to move out of the house and move over here to
08:13the hall great for a volunteer fire department to have that income it's one of our big fundraisers
08:19super important and what it does for from my vantage point it brings the the town people and people
08:28home we have visitors from all over the Union from Florida from from Canada from Missouri from Texas just
08:37anywhere you can think of and and they come to this little town just to just to be together it's more of a
08:43family gathering it is anything it's great but the UFO incident is a big part of it what have some of
08:51the theories been through the years of what this was well you know there there's and and our research
09:01will or talk on that but most of it is you know it was German oriented from overseas it was meteorites
09:13that come down but since then I've talked to people that seen it up on the ridge seen the streak in the
09:20sky and it turned from up in Acme and up in the Donegal area and come down here so and there's a lot of
09:28people that seen it in this area seen it in the sky and if it moved and directed itself changed
09:35directions that does not sound like a meteorite that's correct or an out-of-control plane part or
09:42out-of-control satellite part and and the fact that there was no explosion that it come down and
09:49was all in one piece so to speak then you want to believe that it was controlled so you've thought
09:58about this for 60 years what is your conclusion as to what this thing is well I have an open mind and
10:06you know I I really don't know but if you think about some of the shots that we put up and landed in the
10:14ocean you know it there's a lot of similarity there so you think it could have been from the U.S.
10:21government could have been I don't know do you think we're ever going to find out
10:27well someday we'd like to know yes but right now for us it's a it's a good venture money making event
10:35for us and we're capping on it the people in the town love it if it wasn't for the people in the
10:42town we wouldn't have it I went around excuse me before we started and I asked all the homeowners in
10:48the town about reenact a a festival for Kecksburg and we had had a fair years ago before this and we
10:58shut it down because of the liability insurance so I got went around asked them and they said what
11:05are you waiting on get it going so that's that's how it got started so the mystery of what this thing
11:11is keeps the legend going yes and there's more and more people coming forward that I visit that
11:20visits our festival they'll come to me and say hey my mom and dad was there and they give me their
11:26their story you're learning new things every year still yes can you believe it's been 60 years no
11:34I cannot we've been involved this for that length of time and it's been rewarding because I've met a
11:39lot of good people and and like I say if it wasn't for the townspeople and uh and the and the vendors
11:46in our area helping us we wouldn't have it still ahead on for the record I know they're out there but
11:51I have yet to see one a man who's been studying the kecksburg ufo incident for decades what he thinks
11:58really happened
12:20welcome back to for the record as I continue to examine the kecksburg ufo incident ahead of its 60th
12:25anniversary later this week I also have to share more about how it has become a tradition in this
12:33small westmoreland county town with the kecksburg ufo festival held every summer and I'm told that
12:40event is fun for the whole family oh it's so much fun the people are so great um it's an absolutely fun
12:48time I make a lot of tinfoil hats as well as other things we do a lot of things from our booth this year
12:53we're going to have a kids corner with a lot of our fun coloring books we've got more volumes coming
12:58out of other fun things and a few other things like mad libs and kids stories and a few things like
13:05that as well as our usual alien fest flare and I'm going to have much more on the kecksburg ufo mystery
13:11coming up in just two minutes
13:21welcome back to for the record as I continue delving into the kecksburg ufo mystery I turn my
13:28attention now to author researcher and documentarian Stan Gordon who has been looking into this incident
13:36for decades first of all can you believe it's been 60 years hard to believe I was 16 years old when it
13:44happened I still remember that night just like it happened yesterday tell me all about it what do you
13:49remember on that evening december 9 1965 so thursday evening um i heard the breaking news reports from
13:57the pittsburg area that evening that a brilliant fire object had been seen over ontario canada over
14:04michigan ohio and pennsylvania whatever the object was it came in over the greater pittsburg area about
14:094 47 pm just as it's getting dark and at that time from all the reports we heard the radio stations tv
14:16stations newspapers police departments were just jammed with multiple reports coming in of this fire
14:21object that was seen over the greater pittsburg area as the evening went on more reports were coming
14:26in now whatever the object was it came over pittsburg had fall from the sky in a wooded area outside of
14:32kecksburg pennsylvania and then it got more interesting with reports that the military was now showing up in that area to
14:38search for an unidentified flying object so it's a fascinating evening i remember very well we had
14:44the old black and white zenith tv console and i was running back and forth from the living room to my
14:49other room to listen on the radio trying to get all the latest reports and i was hopeful i said boy i
14:55sure hope this makes the news the next day in the newspaper so the first thing i did went to the local
14:59newsstand the next morning picked up all the local newspapers and here's all the local newspapers
15:05everybody had a front page story about this story well the greensburg tribune interview had more than
15:12one edition at the time and they had army ropes off area unidentified flying object falls near kecksburg
15:18that was the headline and other papers all over had similar type of reports coming in
15:25but interestingly the later edition of of the tribune had that searches fail to find object
15:31and it went on to say that there was a search at early morning hours that they had found absolutely nothing
15:40and also it indicated that um officially the state police blamed it on some young children's
15:48imagination and the official explanation was people apparently saw a bright meteor move across
15:53the sky but not to get fallen so you were 16 yes you were hearing all the reports coming in from
16:00pittsburgh that something was seen over the sky then you started hearing it landed in kecksburg
16:06and then you heard army members military service members were showing up to secure the site tell me
16:14about what you know about what was happening on the site right after this object fell well there was a
16:20lot we didn't know on that date or even the next day and in fact it took me months and years to
16:26i accumulated so much data from hundreds of different people who were involved in different
16:30aspects of this thing so what i found out was that that night as it's being broadcast on pittsburgh
16:36area radio and tv hundreds of people descended on the kecksburg community to try to get a look at
16:41the object reportedly down in the woods what did they see well interesting story is what we didn't know at
16:48the time was first of all the object came in over the greater pittsburgh area it moved out towards west
16:54morn county went over the city of greensburg made a turn to the south where the old gb store used to be
17:00or giant eagle is now made a turn to the south it's seen sequentially by people all along this community
17:05some marguerite mammoth norville out to the mountains of laurelville and then we were told
17:14that it kind of hesitated over the mountain of laurelville began to track back outside of kecksburg
17:19made another slow turn down went down to the woods what we didn't know at the time was that a number of
17:25the local people right in this area saw it come down very low over their head and some of them saw
17:30go down in the woods so again what we didn't know at the time was some of those local people went down
17:36soon after it fell and that's when they came across this large metallic acorn shaped object semi
17:42bare in the ground and what were they thinking at the time when they saw it well the first thought was
17:47was an aircraft was in trouble an aircraft on fire that had fallen that was their first thought going
17:52down into the woods and that's they are expecting to find but this thing's about 10 to 12 feet in
17:57length about 8 to 10 feet in diameter like a big kind of off gold bronze colored metallic acorn shaped
18:04object interestingly there was no weld marks no seams no rivet marks no wings on it and on the raised up
18:10back part like you have an acorn witnesses saw some type of unusual symbols unfortunately back then
18:17they only saw it from different distances didn't concentrate on it and they don't have a lot of
18:22memory what the actual symbols look like but they realized whatever they saw was something quite
18:26unusual and then as we found out later first you had the civilians coming in saw it then you had
18:34volunteer firemen who were being called out from different communities to search for a possible
18:38downed aircraft and then the military comes in and once the military comes in they apparently took control
18:45of all the operations in the area and there are so many people i interviewed who had so many amazing
18:52personal encounters how many people do you think saw the object
18:56before the military came in well if you're talking about in the sky we have no we've known it could be
19:01thousands downed on the ground very few very few handful just a handful got close enough but a lot of
19:08people saw it going out on the military flatbed tractor trailer covered with a tarp that's another
19:14whole story you know there were so many little details over the years that i got from so many
19:19individuals that i didn't talk about for years and years until i had enough independent confirmation
19:24one of those details was there was not one but two military flatbed tractor trailers with big surge
19:30lights on the scene that night and that's an interesting story in itself i can tell you the one with the
19:35object went out around one o'clock in the morning it was taken to lockbourne air force base near columbus
19:41ohio with a military convoy it was backed into a hangar at the base they set up a security perimeter
19:48around that hangar it stayed there for a short time then continued on to wright patterson air force base
19:55why are you so confident in that because the next morning the government said we didn't find anything
20:01i can tell you when you talk to so many credible people including military sources who were involved
20:09in certain aspects of this different people confirmed the fact that it went to lockbourne air
20:15force base then later others confirmed seeing it at wright patterson air force base are you suspicious of
20:20the reason the government said at first we didn't see anything at all well officially they still say
20:26it was nothing fail it was just a bright meteor in the sky but you have so many witnesses including
20:32numerous reporters and that's interesting too because they became a part of the story see i
20:37reported from all the major pittsburgh radio and tv and newspapers on the scene that night i interviewed
20:42many of his reporters they told me they saw military equipment they saw military personnel so them
20:49interacted with the military and yet the next day they said it was stated later that there was only three
20:54air force personnel involved and they apparently saw nothing so it's a fascinating story regardless of what
21:02the object was keep it here there's more on the kexberg ufo mystery coming up in just two minutes
21:17they denied anything had happened but clearly something had happened that's former greensburg
21:23tribune review reporter bob gaddy who was on the scene in kexberg on december 9th 1965 and who tells me he
21:31had no idea at the time he'd be going back to that night time and time again over the next 60 years
21:39i thought that was the end of the story but no i'm 82 years old and that thing has followed me my whole life
21:48it's the story that won't go away and now as we wrap up an episode all about mysteries and secrets
21:55it's time for me to reveal a secret of my own this is just part one of two episodes of for the record
22:02focused on the kexberg ufo mystery join me next sunday morning at 11 for my full interview with reporter bob
22:10gaddy as well as more from stan gordon as we continue the search for answers into what happened in kexberg on
22:19that december 9th in 1965 until then thank you for watching have a good week
22:40bye
22:41bye
22:41bye
22:42bye
Be the first to comment