When she awoke at 11:00 the next morning and mentioned her experience to the family, she learned that ten-year-old John Fitzgerald, sleeping in the second bedroom, had also seen a strange light. He had apparently wakened during the night to go to the bathroom and had returned to bed, when he saw a bright light shining into his room and heard an unusual noise. Climbing up on the radiator to look out of his window, he saw something the color of a tin cup moving across the yard. After watching for a few seconds until the light had gone, he went to bed and to sleep.
Puzzled by the incident, Mrs. Fitzgerald telephoned the local newspaper, the Lorain Journal, and the story appeared in several Ohio newspapers. Members of the Akron Committee, one of whom lived in the nearby town of Lorain, soon arrived to question her and prepare the summary of her experience. Other witnesses in Lorain were reported to have seen the same UFO.
Even at first glance, the situation presented several unusual features. The witness had delayed more than a week before notifying Air Force investigators, yet she threatened to notify her congressman unless some action were taken soon. She had not waited for action, however, but by the same mail had written to her congressman requesting him to obtain an explanation from the Air Force. The summary of her experience, prepared with the help of members of the UFO Research Committee of Akron, was equally remarkable. Even though her dark-adapted eyes had just been assaulted by a bright light and the object had been in view for a maximum of only thirty-six seconds, she provided a description so detailed that it almost suggested a photographic memory.
On October 3, three days after her letter reached ATIC, two Air Force men, Technical Sergeant A and Technical Sergeant B, who were specially trained in the investigation of UFO incidents, arrived in Lorain. After a day spent in studying such pertinent matters as the local geography, the records of the Weather Bureau, the Coast Guard station, and the local railway, on October 4 they called on the witnesses.
Again the situation was unusual. Mrs. Fitzgerald’s husband did not appear. With Mrs. Fitzgerald and young John, however, was Mr. C, the member of the local UFO group who had spent several days helping her prepare her account. To the amazement of the sergeants, Mr. C seemed to assume that he was in charge of the interview, answered the questions put to Mrs. Fitzgerald, and continually interrupted with questions and statements of his own. After half an hour of this frustrating procedure, Sergeant A led Mr. C out into the yard. In the house, Sergeant B resumed the inquiry and filled out the official report form.
Few questions were asked of the boy because both the details and the phraseology of his description seemed to echo adult conversations overheard during the two weeks that had elapsed since the sighting. According to the account prepared by the Akron Committee, the boy had been frightened by a light so bright that he had to shield his eyes. (The time was unknown, and the light may or may not have been the one observed by Mrs. Fitzgerald.) Climbing on top of the radiator to look out of the window, he had seen the UFO and watched it take off into the air, and then had gone back to bed and to sleep. Sergeant B had a young son of about the same age. That a normal ten-year-old boy should not call out and try to awaken the household when confronted with a whirling, humming, dome-shaped spaceship some twenty-two feet in diameter and six feet high, moving through his own yard in the middle of the night, seemed too improbable to warrant serious questioning.
After finishing with the Fitzgeralds, the sergeants called on other supposed witnesses in Lorain. Satisfied that they had completed a thorough investigation, they returned to Dayton and presented the information to their superior officers for evaluation. None of the evidence suggested that the phenomenon had been a spacecraft[[XIII-12]]. The UFO had been the “special effect” of a peculiar combination of circumstances:
1. The time. The sighting had occurred about 3 A.M.; the exact moment was not known and could not be determined.
2. The geography. The shore of Lake Erie lay about three fifths of a mile north of the Fitzgerald house. South of the house, roughly 100 yards away, ran the tracks of the New York Central Railway. Southwest of the house about one and a half miles stood a steel foundry.
3. The weather. A drizzling rain was falling at the time of the sighting. There was some haze and wind; no moonlight.