THE CAPE MAY INCIDENT

by John A. Keel
Throughout 1966 and 1967, I investigated a long series of unusual UFO incidents
in the state of New Jersey. Reports on most of these cases have gone unpublished
but have been circulated privately to responsible researchers around the world.
The following article is condensed from my extensive review of a strange series
of situations in Cape May, N.J. I purposely withheld this report from print for
two years, waiting to see if similar or identical events might occur elsewhere.
Several of the apparently trivial or even coincidental details in this case hav
e now been repeated consistently throughout the U.S. even though they have recei
ved no publicity and are largely unknown to the ufological mainstream. The telep
hone wrong numbers have become a common correlative factor in many cases, to cite
an example. The inexplicable radio signals are another.
Ivan T. Sanderson summarized very briefly the appearance of Tiny, described here,
in his book, Uninvited Visitors (page 163), but I never intended to publish the
full report since it was certain to raise more controversy, and was inconclusive
. Now, however, we have corroborative incidents from many other areas and I feel
that publication of this report might lead other researchers to more fruitful i
nvestigations in their own locales. Essentially we seem to be dealing with an el
aborate and carefully executed plan designed to attract little or no notice even
among ufologists. The use of telephones, automobiles and other mundane objects
has been ignored by UFO-philes obsessed with the extraterrestrial concept. In fa
ct, 90 percent of all the techniques employed by the UFO-related entities are im
pressively ordinary and unobtrusive. These techniques can be easily overlooked b
y investigators who fail to extract every minute detail from the witnesses. And
it is necessary to collect and scrutinize the details from many such cases befor
e the broader plan becomes apparent.
In the Cape May incident, as in so many others, you will see that the objects si
ghted are of less importance than the other events surrounding this family.
The witnesses:
Edward Christiansen (40) & Arline Christiansen (wife) (38)
Children: Connie (17); Debby (13); Eric (9)
Gwendoline Martino (26) (Arline s sister) & Debbie Martino (7)
The locale
Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, is actually located on a thinly-populated island nea
r the tip of Cape May, a peninsula in southern New Jersey. Several good highways
link Wildwood with the mainland and the entire area is a popular summer resort
and haven for yachtsmen. The U.S. Coast Guard maintains a number of large instal
lations nearby. Directly across Jarvis Sound there is a large Coast Guard Electro
nic Station which is fenced off and guarded. Two very high antennae are located a
t this station and few of the local inhabitants have ever been inside the ground
s. No one knows precisely what the function of the station is, or what kind of e
quipment it contains. This station and its towers are plainly visible from the C
hristiansen residence.
In the wintertime this entire region is rather desolate, isolated, and most of t
he summer homes are closed. The total population of the island is about 8,000, s
pread over four small communities.
Sighting No. 1, November 22, 1966 (Wednesday), 7:45 p.m. The seven witnesses lis
ted above were driving southwards along the Garden State Parkway at a point just
north of Mayville, when they all observed a large luminous object directly in f
ront of them and falling straight downwards. It was bright red, green and white
and plummeted straight down until it disappeared from sight. Their first reactio
n was that it was a crashing airplane. They continued driving until they were pa
rallel to Burleigh, N.J. They then saw a large glowing sphere hovering just abov
e the treetops a few miles to the front and right. Thinking that it was a fire f
rom the crashed plane, they pulled over to the side of the road and stopped (it
is illegal to stop on a four-lane parkway...but they did anyway).
All the witnesses got out of the car (a 1966 Cadillac) to watch. Traffic was lig
ht, but several other cars did speed past them. They later estimated that the ob
ject was hovering over, or near, the small private airport near Erma, N.J. As th

ey watched, the object began to move and they realized that it was not a fire bu
t was some kind of flying sphere. The object seemed to move southwards a few mil
es, then executed a very sharp turn, flew back and passed directly above the wit
nesses. It was silent. They could not estimate its size or altitude, but it was
apparently quite large and was flying low. As it approached their position, thre
e powerful headlights became visible on the front of the object. These lights appear
ed to be elongated and passed from the top of the craft to the underside. The ob
ject disappeared northwards. The women became somewhat hysterical and their exci
tement alarmed the children. Two of the children began to cry. They all returned
to the car and drove home to Wildwood Crest.
Air Force interest
They were all naturally puzzled and confused over what they had just seen. Edwar
d Christiansen did not believe in flying saucers and was sure there was a natura
l explanation. His sister-in- law,Gwendoline Martino, decided to call the local
Air Force base at Palmero, N.J. She spoke to an officer there and he seemed quit
e interested in her story and asked several questions. An hour later the family
received a long-distance phone call from another Air Force base (none of them ca
n remember the name of the base or the names of the officers) and they were all
interviewed at great length by three or four officers. They were told that their c
onversation was being taped and the questions followed a pattern which suggested
the officers were filling out detailed forms on the other end of the line. Howe
ver, all the witnesses were disappointed to find that the Air Force would not gi
ve them any information or answer their own questions. As usual, it was a one-wa
y channel and the witnesses learned nothing from the Air Force.
The radio signals
Mr. Christiansen owns a cabin cruiser and has a portable CB radio which, when no
t in use, is kept in a case. He does not keep it on his boat, but stores it at h
ome when not in use.
Later on the night of the first sighting, Mrs. Martino was preparing for bed. He
r sister and brother-in-law were already sleeping. Mrs. Martino was in the bathr
oom when she suddenly heard a loud radio signal...a series of dots and dashes. S
he assumed that her brother-in-law had accidentally left his radio on. She conti
nued to hear the signals as she entered their bedroom and awakened them. (She di
dn t understand the radio and didn t want to tamper with it) However, Mr. and Mrs.
Christiansen were unable to hear the signals...and the radio was turned off and
was in its case.
The signals faded. Mrs. Martino went to bed baffled.
The next day Mrs. Martino called a radio program on WMID, Atlantic City, and rel
ated the sighting of the night before in a beeperphone conversation which was ai
red on a program moderated by Mike Potash. Other people called in and verified t
he sighting, claiming they had also seen the object. One couple told of having s
een a car-full of people parked by the Garden State Parkway watching the object.
..obviously they had seen the Christiansen family.
A full account of this sighting was published in the Sunday Press, Atlantic City
, N.J., on December 25, 1966. Mike Potash wrote the piece.
Sighting No. 2, December 9, 1966 (Friday). Two weeks after the first sighting, a
nother object appeared in the vicinity of the Christiansen home. Ed Christiansen
had decided that the first incident was a combination of falling stars, man-mad
e satellites, and airplanes. The second sighting, however, turned him into an av
id UFO believer.
Soon after 10 p.m. on the night of December 9, Mr. and Mrs. Christiansen were pr
eparing to get into their car outside their home at Wildwood Crest when a brilli
ant white object flashed overhead, coming in from the Atlantic. It streaked over
head at a very high speed and then suddenly performed an S -shaped manuever directl
y over the towers of the Coast Guard electronic station. While the amazed couple
watched, the object came to a sudden stop and hovered for several seconds over
the towers. Then it shot straight up into the air into the starlit sky and disapp
eared among the stars ; but it left a large cloud of smoke behind which lingered f
or several minutes and slowly dissipated. The sudden manuevers of the object lef
t no doubt that it was not a satellite or other known object. The witnesses were

badly shaken.
Soon after this experience, the Christiansen family drove to Florida to spend th
e Christmas holidays. They were gone for about three weeks.
Meanwhile in Cherry Hill, N.J.
Mrs. Martino and her daughter, Debbie (7), were preparing for a short trip to Eu
rope. Early in December, Mrs. Martino received a phone call which went like this
:
Female voice with slight accent: Hello, Gwen...
Gwen: Yes, this is Gwen...
Voice: Gwen Stevens? *
Gwen: No, this is Gwen Martino.
Voice: You re not Gwen Stevens?
Gwen: No...you have the wrong Gwen.
Gwen hangs up.
The woman called back again on two successive nights. The conversation was alway
s the same. Gwen Martino has an unlisted phone number.
Coincidence: A woman attempting to contact a Gwen Stevens dialed a wrong number
and got another woman named Gwen. The same woman then made the same mistake twic
e again.
Gwen Martino forgot this minor series of incidents until I asked her if she had
received any unusual phone calls or wrong numbers recently.
[ * Mrs. Jennifer (Jen) Stevens of Scoharie, N.Y., has never heard of this famil
y nor does she have any knowledge of the incident (except for the anonymous item
in Ivan Sanderson s book). She was not active in UFO research at the time of this
sequence of events.] (Editor s Note: Mrs. Stevens became the founder of the Extra
terrestrial Phenomena Investigating Committee, and edited UFOSkywatch magazine. L
ike the Christiansen family, her family came to experience similar inexplicable
events after a UFO sighting, complete with odd phone calls, an MIB encounter, an
d poltergeist manifestations)
Phase Two: Motel Power Failure
The Christiansen family started driving back from Florida on January 7, 1967. La
te on the night of January 8, they decided to stop at a motel outside of Richmon
d, Virginia. Driving north on Highway 95an eight-lane speedwaythey saw a sign indi
cating there was a motel at the next turn-off. They turned off and drove two or
three miles before they came to a rather old motel where they checked in. There
were a few cars in front of the bungalows near the office, but they were assigne
d to rooms in the rear where there were no cars parked. (None of them can rememb
er the name of the motel, but it was not a member of one of the large chains)
During the night, Ed Christiansen got up to go to the bathroom and discovered th
at none of the lights were working. His daughter, Connie (17), in an adjoining r
oom, also had the same experience. They all thought it was odd that a motel shou
ld turn off its power during the night. But none of them really were too concern
ed with this incident until I asked them to retrace every step of their trip hom
e during my interview.
Remember, the motel was directly outside of Richmond, Virginia.
Part Two: The Strange Visitor
To summarize the foregoing: the witnesses saw a UFO on November 22, 1966, and th
eir observations were later verified by other witnesses in the area. Their repor
t was made public on radio station WHID on November 23 and was published in deta
il in an Atlantic City newspaper a month later, while the Christiansens were in
Florida and Mrs. Martino was in Europe.
Mrs. Martino received a series of three wrong numbers after the first sighting, al
l asking for Gwen Stevens.
There was a power failure, or a power shut-off, in the motel at which the Christ
iansens were staying outside of Richmond, Virginia.
Let us now move on to January 9, 1967 (Monday). The route from Richmond, Virgini
a, to Wildwood, N.J., is long and circuitous. Wildwood, as stated earlier, is is
olated on the tip of Cape May and is a long way from Highway 95...one of the mai
n arteries which passes through several states, traverses the length of N.J. nea
r the western border of the state and ultimately passes into New York City in th

e north.
The Christiansen family arrived home in the middle of the afternoon of January 9
.
I should mention that they had recently changed addresses and had moved into a n
ew house some distance from their old home. Neither their new home or phone numb
er was listed in the current phone book. Nor was their address given in the news
paper story which had appeared two weeks previously.
They settled down rather wearily to unpack after their long drive. They entered
their house by the back door. The front door was still heavily bolted and locked
, the way they had left it when they had gone to Florida.
A knock at the door
A knock at 5:30 p.m. brought Arline Christiansen from the kitchen where she had
been preparing a lazy spaghetti dinner for her family. Her daughter, Connie, had
first glanced out of the window to see who was knocking.
If it s a salesman, don t answer, Arline had said. Connie reported: It s the strangest-lo
oking man I ve ever seen, and so Mrs. Christiansen had gone to the door, unbolted a
nd unlatched it. It was growing dark and was bitter cold outside. There was no c
ar on the road outside (the Christiansen house is removed from other houses and
settled areas), but there was a man standing on their doorstep.
Does Edward Christiansen live here? the man asked. Arline admitted that he did. I m f
rom the Missing Heirs Bureau, the man continued. Mr. Christiansen may have inherit
ed a great deal of money. May I come in?
Mrs. Christiansen was taken aback and hesitated.
Mr. Christiansen may have inherited a great deal of money, the man repeated. I woul
d like to ask him some questions. It will take about forty minutes.
It was an approach that was hard to resist. Mrs. Christiansen stepped back and i
nvited the stranger in, calling out to her husband.
Edward Christiansen is 6 ft. 2 in. tall and heavy set. The stranger towered over
him and must have been at least 6 ft. 6 in. He was also enormously broad. He wo
re a furry hat like Russians wear , but, unlike Russian hats, it had a black visor
on it. His hat was black and he wore a black coat with two ordinary side pockets
in it. It was a very long coat and seemed to be made of thin material...two thi
n for the cold weather.
The stranger entered and removed his hat. Ed, Arline and Connie all stared at hi
m. He repeated that the interview would take only forty minutes. For credentials
, he flashed a card which bore his picture and some writing. Later, none of the
witnesses could recall what the writing on the card said.
Edward Christiansen told him at the outset that a mistake had been made...that h
e could not believe that anyone had left him any money. The man assured him that
he might, indeed, be the Edward Christiansen he was seeking and, in order to ve
rify it, he would like to ask some questions. He removed his coat. There was a b
adge on his shirt pocket which he quickly covered with his hand and removed, pla
cing it in his coat pocket.
It looked like a gold or brass badge, Connie told me. But it wasn t an ordinary polic
e badge or anything like that. We just got a glimpse of it...but it seemed to ha
ve a big K on it with a small x alongside and there were some letters or numbers aro
und the edge. It was obvious that he didn t want us to see it.
Description of visitor
Height: 6 ft. 6 in. to 7 ft. tall
Weight: Very heavy...maybe 300 pounds
Dress: He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt made of a Dacron-like material. No j
acket or coat (unusual considering how cold it was outside). His trousers were o
f a dark material, grey or black, and were a little too short. They rode high up
his calves when he sat down. He wore dark socks and dark shoes with very thick
rubber soles.
Head and face: His head was unusually large and round but his face seemed angula
r, pointed. He had black hair which was closely cropped to his head, as if his h
ead had been shaved and the hair was just growing in again. There was a perfectl
y round spot on the back of his head as if that area had recently been shaven. H
is ears seemed to jut out because of the lack of hair. His nose and mouth seemed

relatively normal, but his eyes were large, protruding ( like thyroid eyes ) , and
set wide apart.
Body: His body was very broad...fat.
Arms and legs: His arms and legs were unusually thin in comparison to the grossn
ess of the rest of his body.
Complexion: His skin was very pale, almost a deathly white, and no body hair was
visible on his arms or legs, nor did he appear to have any trace of facial hair
.
Special features: One of his eyes appeared to have a cast, like a glass eye. His ey
es did not seem to move in unison.
Connie and Arline were most fascinated by a strange feature on his leg. When he
sat down his pants legs rode up his calves, revealing a long thick green wire at
tached to the inside of his leg. This wire or cord came out of his socks and dis
appeared up under his trousers. It appeared to be indented into his leg and was
covered by a large brown spot at one point on his calf. Connie, a bright 17-year
- old girl, seemed to have studied him the most carefully and gave the best desc
ription. However, I interviewed all three witnesses separately and at great leng
th and found that all their descriptions agreed.
Speech: His speech was very strange. His voice was high and tinny and it seemed od
d to all the witnesses that such a voice should come from such a large man. He s
poke in a dull, emotionless monotone in clipped words and phrases, like a compute
r. Connie said that he sounded as if he were reciting everything...that it seemed
he was giving carefully-memorized speeches.
I should mention here that all of the witnesses thought they were being visited
by a human being, albeit a most unusual one, and that it never occurred to any o
f them that he could be anything else. None of the witnesses were familiar with
contactee stories, although, like nearly everyone else, they had heard that littl
e men were piloting the saucers. In short, they did not connect this visit in any
way with their UFO sightings. They were, in fact, rather puzzled by my great in
terest in the story of this visitation.
The missing heir interview
After the man had introduced himself (none of the family could remember his name
: they all said it was something common like Brown or Smith, but they did rememb
er that he said his friends called him Tiny which we will call him in this report)
the family dog, Gigi, snarled and barked at him. He spoke to the dog and calmed
it. Before he left he was scratching the dog s ears and petting it.
When Tiny had seated himself, Mrs. Christiansen told him that they were about to
eat and asked him if he wished to join them. He replied that he was on a diet b
ut that he would like a glass of water in about ten minutes. He seemed to wheeze
, they all noted, like a man with asthma. He appeared to have difficulty breathi
ng.
He produced a small notebook and a pen and once again explained that the intervi
ew would take about forty minutes. Ed Christiansen repeated that he could not be
lieve he was an heir and that it was all a waste of time. Tiny assured him that
it was not, and he also carefully explained that this was not a confidence game
of any kind. He was looking for an Edward Christiansen who was due to inherit a
large sum of money and he would need information about Ed s past history to determ
ine if he was the man. He then proceeded to ask a long series of questions. He w
anted to know if Ed had any scars or birthmarks (a reasonable question for a mis
sing heirs investigator) and when Ed said he had a scar on his back from an oper
ation, and an appendix scar, Tiny asked for every detail...the length, width, an
d exact position of those scars. He also wanted a list of all the schools Ed had
attended, and so on. He showed no interest in Ed s marital or family history, nor
in Mrs. Christiansen. At one point he did ask the couple if they would be willi
ng to fly to any place in the United States to collect the inheritance, explaini
ng that they would have to be present when the will was read. Ed and Arline agre
ed that they would make themselves available for such a trip.
Plastic
Tiny told them that he was from Richmond, Virginia. He did not have a car, he ad
mitted, but had met a plastics salesman in the Elks Club in Richmond. The plastics s

alesman was driving to New York and had offered him a lift. The salesman had drop
ped him off at the Christiansen home and had gone for coffee but would pick him up
later. Later the Christiansens wondered about this story since it seemed unlike
ly that a friend casually met in a bar would drive hundreds of miles out of his
way (as I pointed out, Wildwood is far from the route to New York City) to take
a stranger on a mission. They also wondered why Tiny was so poorly dressed for t
he bitter cold weather.
Tiny also asked Ed for full details about the automobiles he owned. (He has a pi
ck-up truck and a 1966 Cadillac. He is a prominent local businessman.)
Pill
According to Connie, Tiny s face gradually grew redder and redder as he talked and
after a few minutes he turned to the girl and said: May I have that glass of wat
er now? Connie fetched the water for him and he took out a large yellow capsule w
hich he gulped down. He returned to normal after taking it.
As he asked questions, Tiny appeared to write down Ed s answers in his notebook. A
ll of the witnesses said that he seemed to be writing in some kind of rapid, ind
ecipherable shorthand. (None of them were able to duplicate the symbols he used.
)
The names
Tiny mentioned three specific names and asked Ed if he recognized any of them. E
d did not and when I interviewed him a month later he was only able to remember
one of them Roy Stevens. Connie said that she thought another of the names was Taylor
but she wasn t sure. In any case, they were all relatively common names and, since
the family attached little importance to the visit at the time, they all forgot
. (I recited a number of names in the UFO field, like Desmond Leslie, George Ada
mski, and so on, but none of these names sounded like those mentioned by Tiny.)
Coincidence
It is important that Ed did not know about Gwendoline s wrong numbers in December wh
en she was addressed as Gwen Stevens. Nor had Gwen heard about the three names, in
cluding Roy Stevens, until I brought this up in my interviews.
During part of Tiny s interview with Ed, Arline and Connie left the room and giggl
ed amongst themselves about the strange man s appearance.
The car
Finally, less than an hour after he arrived (it was probably precisely forty min
utes), Tiny closed his notebook and put on his hat and coat. He told Ed that the
y would be notified by mail within ten days and told whether or not Ed was the m
issing heir. Arline was in the kitchen when the man left and she decided she was
going to watch him and see where he went. She went out of the kitchen door and
stood in the dark watching Tiny as he walked towards the road. His shoes squished
loudly as he walked, she said. When he reached the road, he made a gesture with h
is hand and a black 1963 Cadillac drove through the trees and pulled up. Its hea
dlights were out and she could not see the driver. Tiny climbed into the car and
it drove away, its headlights still out.
The phone call
The next morning Ed was alone in the house when the phone rang. He answered and
a female voice spoke to him. It sounded like a local call, not long distance. We
have located the Edward Christiansen we were looking for in California, she said,
after she explained that she was calling about the interview of Mr. ----- (Ed d
oesn t recall Tiny s name) of the night before. Ed told her that he had felt sure he
wasn t the right one, thanked her and hung up. When he told his family about the
call, they all dismissed the incident from their minds until my interview with t
hem.
The riddle
As Tiny was standing by the door, about to leave, he recited a riddle to Connie
and Ed. He rattled it off very fast, Connie told me. It all rhymed and it was very
longit took him ten minutes to tell itbut it didn t make any sense to us. Ed remember
ed it as involving dogs: it was about dogs piddling here and piddling there and p
iddling all over. Tiny did not explain the riddle. Connie and Ed could not answer
it. He said good night and left.
Analysis

We have here a remarkable set of circumstances and coincidences.

Coincidence 1: The Christiansens originally planned to return home two days late
r than they actually did. None of their neighbors or friends expected them back
on the 9th. It is remarkable that Tiny should turn up a few hours after their re
turn.
Coincidence 2: It is odd that Tiny claimed to be from Richmond, Virginia, a town
they had passed through the night before and where they had experienced a power
failure in a motel.
Coincidence 3: Strange that Gwen should receive a Gwen Stevens phone call and that
Tiny should mention the name Roy Stevens. Neither Gwen Martino or the Christianse
ns know anyone named Stevens.
Coincidence 4: Tiny s visit came exactly one month after the family s UFO sighting o
f December 9. This thirty-day cycle has occurred in other cases I have investigate
d.
Tiny s story of how he came to Wildwood does not make much sense, nor does it seem
plausible that Ed would receive the phone call from the woman only a few hours
after his visit. That Missing Heirs Bureau certainly moved fast!
Speculation
The three names and the riddle were possibly clues thrown out to test the Christ
iansens. They did not respond. Perhaps one day they will meet someone else who w
ill repeat that riddle, and then they will know.
The easiest way to gain entrance to someone s home would be to use the magic word
money. Who would turn away a man who promised them an unexpected inheritance? A m
issing heirs investigator could also get away with asking personal questions abou
t scars, health, and so on. Ed Christiansen has lived in the Wildwood area all h
is life. He has not moved around enough to become missing.
The victims of this kind of interview would certainly be curious about the outco
me and the easiest way to get them to forget about the whole incident would be t
o call them immediately afterwards and tell them that it was all a mistake. This
is exactly what was done.
This could be a cunning method for collecting specific data about specific peopl
e without producing unusual curiosity. On the other hand, a person involved in s
uch a scheme would not have been so deliberately obviousthat is, if Tiny were an
Alien, it would have been reasonable for him to cover up his difference in physi
ognomyhe could have worn a wig to cover that strange shaven spot. He could have w
orn long socks to hide the cord on his leg. He could have been dressed for the w
eather. If the Aliens can obtain Cadillacs, they can also obtain conventional cl
othes.
Could cases like this indicate that a terrestrial agency, such as the CIA, was c
arrying out these interviews with men whose dress and appearance would seem unus
ual to the people interviewed? The government, i.e. the Air Force, did know abou
t the first sighting. Could this be a scheme to turn the witnesses into contactee
s and thereby discredit their sightings? If so, it failed in this case.
Or can we assume that Tiny was an Alien and that he had followed the Christianse
ns from Richmond, Virginia? If so, why was it important for him to obtain specia
l information about Ed Christiansen?
My Interview with the Witnesses
On February 25 I met with all the witnesses at Gwen Martino s apartment in Cherry
Hill, N.J. I have been investigating a series of strange UFO incidents in that a
rea and I had no idea that I would stumble on to this story. We talked at great
length about their sightings of November and December, and they went into minute
detail about both events.
One of my standard questions is: Did you have any strange visitors or phone calls
after the sightings? They all looked at each other and then launched into this s
tory. I separated and interviewed each person and from their accounts I assemble
d the present report. Gwen is a strikingly beautiful blonde of 26, now separated
from her husband. She is obviously well-to-do and is above average in intellige
nce. Ed Christiansen is a successful businessman, aggressive, opinionated and a
big talker. Daughter Connie (17) is very intelligent and observant, a good witne
ss.

Postscript, March 4, 1967

In subsequent telephone interviews with the Christiansen family (after filing my
initial report) I was told of two more significant incidents.
On January 13, 1967 (four days after the January 9 interview ), Mrs. Martino was vi
siting her sister and brother-in-law. Everyone had retired. Gwen was sharing Con
nie s room. About 3:00 a.m. they heard a strange sound, as if someone were hammeri
ng on metal with a rubber mallet or, possibly, walking over a metal surface. The
se sounds seemed distant at first and then grew louder until they were deafening
. The whole house seemed to shake, Gwen said. She started to get up to investigate
but the sounds stopped immediately. As soon as she was back in bed, they began
again. Both Connie and Gwen admitted being frightened. The house is secluded and
such sounds had never been heard before. They debated whether or not they shoul
d wake up Ed Christiansen (who is a very heavy sleeper). Gwen started to get up
again, and again the sounds stopped. They seemed to be directly outside the hous
e. Finally the sounds faded away.
The next day they examined the house and grounds but found nothing unusual. At n
o time did they relate these sounds to any kind of UFO phenomena. They were baff
led, having never heard anything like it before.
Two evenings later Connie and her 19-year-old boyfriend were alone in the house
with the younger children when, at about 10 p.m., they again heard this strange
hammering sound, followed by heavy footsteps on the thick layer of snow outside
the house. The boyfriend went to a window and pulled a curtain aside to look out
. He briefly glimpsed a strange figure hurrying across the snow away from the ho
use. This figure was tall and wore what seemed to be a long white cape. It rushe
d across the lawn to a fence about 5 ft. high and proceeded to leap effortlessly
over the fence and disappear on the other side. The young people did not go out
side to investigate.
When Mr. and Mrs. Christiansen returned home shortly afterwards they found all t
he young people very distraught.
The next day they examined the area for footprints. There were large human footp
rints deeply imbedded in the snow, leading to the fence and continuing on the ot
her side. Those footprints went on to another building some distance away and st
opped abruptly at the wall of the building. There were no other footprints aroun
d the building (an abandoned shed) and the witnesses were puzzled as to where th
e person could have gone.
None of the witnesses have ever heard of Howard Menger and the stories he told i
n 1957.