UFO investigators drawn to Bucks

By JAMES MCGINNIS
PhillyBurbs.com
updated 7:35 a.m. ET, Wed., July. 2, 2008

Since January, four UFO incidents have been reported over Lower Bucks.

The Mutual UFO Network said it will dispatch “field investigators” to Lower Bucks after four reports of strange craft hovering over the county between January and June.

The latest incident was reported Wednesday, when someone saw a craft “with six lights in the shape of a boomerang” over the Oxford Valley Mall in Middletown.

The first sighting was reported Jan. 27, and Falls police officer Jeffrey Omlor was dispatched to Don Pablo's on Route 1 across from the mall. Someone called 911 to report a craft “hovering like an octopus” over the Mexican restaurant. Omlor said he saw nothing strange over the restaurant that night.

But that same day, MUFON said it received a third report from a pizza deliveryman who said he saw an object “over the tree line of Vermillion Hills” that “appeared to be blinking red, white and green lights.”

The fourth report was from Newtown on April 25. Someone claimed to see “an orange fire ball that seemed to be crashing out of the sky.”

Each report filed with MUFON was anonymous. The caller to Falls police also didn't give a name. But that has hardly deterred MUFON.

Field investigator Elise Simon said the group probably would issue a finding in a couple of weeks. She wasn't sure when the investigators would arrive.

“We'll be talking to the local police, the FAA and the local media and any witnesses,” said John Ventre, state director for MUFON, who estimated about 93 percent of UFO reports turn out to be conventional aircraft. “That 7 percent, though, that's the great part, because it really defies explanation,” Ventre said.

MUFON has chapters throughout the world. It's considered one the largest UFO organizations, and claims about 3,000 members.

MUFON was featured in the Fox series “The X-Files.” Members helped FBI special agent Dana Scully, played by Gillian Anderson, locate a microchip planted in her neck.

Visitors to the MUFON Web site — http://www.mufon.com/ — can search through and review UFO incidents dating to 1938.

To become a certified MUFON field investigator, applicants must study a manual available for $28 and pass a 100-question test.

James McGinnis can be reached at 215-949-3248 or jmcginnis@phillyBurbs.com.