Centerville couple convinced UFO appeared in sky

Dayton Daily News - Dayton, Ohio, USA - 5/8/2004

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A full moon shone over Centerville when a young mother nursing her 3-week-old baby at 5:30 a.m. saw the electricity go off and on, the tops of trees glow, and bright lights arcing outside.

Neighbor say transformer exploded

By Katherine Ullmer

CENTERVILLE -- A full moon shone over Centerville when a young
mother nursing her 3-week-old baby at 5:30 a.m. saw the
electricity go off and on, the tops of trees glow, and bright
lights arcing outside.

Numerous 911 calls streamed into the Centerville Police
Department from Lakeview Drive residents near Stingley
Elementary School about explosions and electrical disruptions.

The couple, who asked that only their first names be used, said
they saw an alien spacecraft hovering in the sky.

The March 8 event has an area UFO researcher claiming a cover-up
by city officials who have shown disinterest in investigating.

"My wife first saw it. It was right outside our window" Mark
told a police dispatcher in his 911 call.

"It was like an alien ship and it blew up" he said. "It was
like a bomb going off. It was going to the power lines. I don't
believe I'm saying this. It hovered down over the school and it
was streaming lights and flashing. It came down all the way over
the school towards my house and then it would just go 'Boom!'
All the electric would drop"

Mark later described it as a disk-shaped ship "about the size of
a small house. I thought it was a ship attacking in the night"
he said. The ship appeared and disappeared over the school, and
was gone by the time police arrived, he said.

"It was only about 50 feet away and 15 feet off the ground and
it had lights" wife Deanna said. "My first initial thought was
that they were trying to get the baby"

Mark described the craft as having a "burnt polished aluminum
surface" to Kenny Young, a UFO researcher from the
Kentucky/Cincinnati area who manages a UFO Web site. Young said
he plans to post a story he wrote about the event along with 911
tape he got from Bruce Forrester, a Bellbrook UFO investigator.
He said he's concerned about radioactivity in the area and the
fact city officials have dismissed UFO claims.

Centerville police say they don't have any plans to investigate.

"We are convinced it was a transformer blowing" Centerville
police Sgt. Scott Owsley said.

Dayton Power and Light Co. spokesman Ted Tathan said DP&L had
"one brief outage in the morning that affected 200 customers. A
tree limb got on the lines at Main and Normandy streets north of
Franklin Street and a circuit breaker in a substation (260
Zengel Drive) opened up" to protect the system, he said.

Regis Higgins, 91, who lives across from Mark and Deanna, heard
three loud explosions. He said he understands how they might
think it was "something else. They're not imagining, but it was
a mistake on their part" he said. "I don't think we had any
UFO. It really was an illusion"

Centerville Assistant City Manager Judy Gilleland and Washington
Twp. fire Chief Ken Parks said high winds made electrical wires
arc and spark on Lakeview and North Johanna drives. "It's a very
frequent occurrence" Parks said.