- [Announcer] "Chronicles" was made possible thanks
to a community assets grant prov
by the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority,
support by the Department of Edu
and the generous support of Thomas B. Hagen.
- [Announcer] This is WQLN.
(machinery whirs and clicks) (dark brooding music)
(machinery clicks rhythmically)
(dark brooding music)
(woman screams and sobs) (car horn honks)
(baby cries)
(radio static hisses and buzzes)
- [Radio Announcer] If you're just tuning in,
it's a beautiful day here in downtown Erie,
but you better enjoy it while yo
as we're in for some cooler winds this evening.
I'll be taking requests all afte
so if you're near a phone,
you can keep me company and tell
how you're spending your gorgeous summer Sunday.
But first, let's shake it up
with that thing that makes everything groovy.
("Wild Thing")
* Wild thing
* You make my heart sing
* You make everything groovy
* Wild thing
* Wild thing, I think I love you
* But I wanna know for sure
* So come on, hold me tight
* I love you
* Wild thing (car whooshes past)
* You make my heart sing (engine hums)
- Where are all the people?
- The beach is further in a coup
- I bet most folks are headed ou
- So we'll have no time? - No.
That means we've got more beach
and I'm ready to eat.
- The girls are, too. Do you want some hot dog?
- Hot dog.
(people laugh)
(car whooshes past) (bright pleasant music)
(people chatter indistinctly) (waves crash in distance)
(Anita coos)
- Boo!
(Betty Jean screams and laughs)
I'm gonna grab some.
- Don't you. - Hey, hey, hands off.
These are gonna be first.
(people continue chattering indi
(tense ethereal music)
(boom echoes)
(phone rings)
- Jerry.
- Is everyone okay? Some people said they saw-
- Oh, Jerry. (cries)
- Hey, what happened, Anita?
(Anita cries)
I saw it. - We all did,
and there, there was a...
(tense brooding music)
Oh, we should come down here sometime, make a day of it.
- [Betty Jean] Yes, please, before I leave.
- Sure.
- You gonna forget about me? - Forget about you?
- When I go back to school.
Are you gonna go chase some othe
- Well, maybe just you and I could come down here instead.
- Douglas Tibbetts,
stop pretending you're - Hey, are we swimmin'
or not? - a real guy.
- Oh, we're swimmin'!
- Doug, don't you dare! No!
- Oh, we can't wait any longer.
(soft atmospheric music) (Betty Jean laughs)
(waves lap)
(footsteps shuffle)
- My name is Chief Dascanio.
I've been informed of what happe
I want you all to know that all of my officers
are out on the beach right now looking for what was seen.
We even have a few volunteers co
to help with the search, but rig
I need to understand everything that's happened.
This is Mr. Pintea. He's from the morning paper.
If there's something out there that's a threat to visitors,
we need to know.
What's your name?
- Gerald Labelle. Folks call me
- Anita Haifley. - Douglas Tibbetts.
- Betty Jean Klem.
- So tell me what happened when you get down to the beach.
- Well, we came up from Jamestow
I've been here before, though,
with some friends at Beach Six, so I knew where to go.
But the others, it was their fir
Just came up to picnic, you see.
- I mean, why did you come here?
There's beaches in Jamestown.
- Jerry had been here before and said it was really nice.
Great place to eat and swim.
- What time did you arrive?
- Around 8:00 PM. We pulled up on the sand near the tables.
- It was a little bit late to start a picnic.
You should've come earlier in th
- We weren't planning on it. It just kind of happened.
Betty had made the cake, so we decided to have a picnic.
- And we cooked some food on the barbecue and ate.
Then we were going to drive to the bath house
to change it to our suits.
- No, no. It's not going.
(engine revs)
Try forward again.
(engine revs) (Doug grunts)
- Okay, okay, just...
(door creaks open and slams)
(birds chirp) (tense music)
- This is good. This is kind of
Do you like it? - Is it stuck?
- It won't even budge. - What should we do?
- It's getting dark. - We just need
to get some traction. - We'll need to pull it out.
We need another car or truck.
- How is this?
- I have a friend who could help
- What friend? - In Erie.
He needed a ride to his house, but he could give us a hand.
- [Anita] Isn't there someone here who could help?
- Probably not without rope. Look, just don't worry.
Wait here with the car. Be back before you know it.
(baby cries)
- So much for swimming.
- [Doug] They're gonna drop him off real quick.
It shouldn't take long.
(Anita sighs)
- Jerry's been to here lots of times. He'll be fine.
- Let's go lay the girls down.
- What about the cake?
- [Dan] So how did you get to th
- I hitched a ride with a nice f
and I got some chains from this guy's brother-in-law,
but, but when I came back to the
there were, there were men with
I mean, is that typical?
- [Anita] Betty and I laid the girls down in the car.
- And about what time was this?
- The sun was almost gone. The sky was a reddish purple.
- And what'd you do while you wa
- We sat there and talked a while, and we just waited.
Then a car came up behind us. It was the officers.
Doug had told them that we'd already sent for help,
and they told us to stay in the
They had to go around the park and tell people to leave.
They said that they would be bac
in 45 minutes to check in on us.
So we stayed in the car.
(tense ethereal music)
And it must've been about 30 min
or so because it was dark now.
I kept looking out the back window for Jerry,
and then Doug said that he saw something in the sky.
- What was it?
- He said it looked like a meteor falling straight down.
- Did you see it?
- I didn't.
I, I, I didn't have a good view because I was in the back.
(tense electronic music)
I heard Betty gasp, and, at the
I felt the car vibrate.
I turned around and Doug said that it had landed.
(phone rings)
- Dascanio. - Chief Dascanio.
Hi, this is Major William Hall
with the United States Air Force outta Youngstown, Ohio.
My officer on duty to gave me last night's report
with what your group described,
and I'd like to bring a team out to investigate.
- Does what they say sound possi
- [William] Well, that is what we'll determine.
I can arrive this afternoon.
(tense ethereal music)
- [Larie] Have you ever seen a UFO before tonight?
- Like yes. Just last year, in f
- I've never seen anything like this before.
Could've never imagined it.
- (laughs) Oh yes, I've seen 'em before and so has my pops.
- I didn't believe in any of the
of things before tonight.
It was just like in the pictures
- God, you know, I can't believe I missed this.
I, if I'd just waited a little b
- Did you all see it? - Everyone saw it.
A red light flashed off and on o
At first, it had a hexagon shape
with its edges made out of light
It fell from the sky to above th
in about three to five seconds.
All of a sudden, it, it moved really fast across the beach,
several hundred yards from the a
It hovered there for a bit, and, and it was huge.
Then, then several rotating beam
of light scattered the ground as
as if it was searching for somet
- Why do you think they came to
- The way I figure it is the ship was coming to pick it up.
It, it was searching for it.
- The ship was gone when all this happened.
How could it be scared of the sh
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was gone, but it makes sense.
It must've been on the run.
Why else would a ship come to a quiet beach
and start shining lights?
(tense brooding music)
When the cops came back and pull
and I hit my brakes so that they would see my lights.
It was gone. We told officers wh
It vanished.
(voices overlap and echo)
Someone has to figure out what t
(footsteps shuffle)
(leaves rustle) (waves crash in distance)
- So what do you think of all this? Off the record?
- You're the one that got them to do the drawings.
- You think they could pick it outta a lineup?
I'm just curious if you think, after speaking with them,
this is a bonafide setting.
You see this kind of thing a lot
- Well, with most sightings,
it's fairly easy to determine what people saw.
Planes, balloons, atmospherics.
It's also easy to let your imagination run away
and even more so when it's a gro
- Any planes in the sky last nig
- Not here. - What do you make of that?
- I'd have to say this sighting has a lot more
to go on than many I've investig
- So if you don't mind me asking
what's your personal opinion on
Are they really out there?
- I've yet to see one.
I, I mean, I'm willing to believe they could be out there,
but I need to see it first to be
I mean, you were with the kids l
- Yes, about an hour after it ha
- Well, what's your read on them, being with the news media?
- Well, the Tibbetts boy,
he seems to be enjoying the atte
of this a bit too much.
However, that young girl,
she was in a highly emotional st
I'd say about 18 or so years of the newspaper business,
it seemed pretty genuine.
(tense music) (footsteps shuffle)
- Excuse me.
Great. Thanks, this'll be a big
Do you mind if we go through it just to be thorough?
- Miss Klem?
All right,
tell me about what happened when you first saw the lights.
- It was falling, but then it started to get closer.
So we sat there watching it.
(breathes heavily)
Grew to be the size of about a b
Rays of light shone from the obj
It lit up the whole woods along
It wasn't like a searchlight.
It was light along the ground, along its whole path.
- Can you describe the shape of
- It was mushroom shaped,
the, the narrow base rising to an oval structure,
having three lights on the back.
Doug got out of the car and told
"Something weird is going on her
- [Dan] And what happened when y
and Anita waited in the car?
(high frequency whines)
- What did it sound like, sound like, sound like?
(high frequency increases)
(soft tense brooding music)
(whirring undulates)
- Doug, do you see it? - Yeah.
(whirring undulates)
(whirring undulates and buzzes)
(door opens)
(crickets chirp)
- No luck yet?
- [Doug] Something weird is goin
- After a few minutes, I thought one of them was coming back
because I heard the sounds of sticks in the bushes.
(crickets chirp) (soft tense music)
Do you think it's still out ther
(sticks snap)
(dark brooding music)
(scary unsettling music)
- Close your eyes, it's coming! It's coming!
(Betty and baby scream) (horn honks repeatedly)
(sobs) No, please!
- Betty! What happened?
It's okay, it's okay. What happe
- No! (wails) - It's okay.
- No, please, no! - What happened? Tell me.
Tell me. You're okay.
(high frequency whines) (tense ethereal music)
- The newspaper man thinks she's genuine. What about you?
(birds chirp)
- I'm convinced these kids saw s
The girl's a credible person.
Of the two individuals involved,
she was the most specific about what she saw.
She didn't make any attempt to change her story
or fill in the gaps when she was
She was one scared girl when I first saw her.
You gotta remember, this was some time after she
was brought in from the scene of the sighting,
and my officers told me what I saw was nothing compared
to her emotional condition when they arrived on the scene.
So yeah, I'm convinced they saw
(soft music)
- We will contact each of them and get our own statements
as well as analyze the samples that were taken.
The standard protocol is informa
and results will only be publicl
if a definite explanation can be determined.
- And if it can't be determined?
- (laughs) That's above my pay grade, unfortunately.
I think for the time being, your beach is safe.
Issue a statement. Invite the people to come back.
There's no monster here. (laughs
You and your men have handled yo
with outstanding professionalism
and thanks for your cooperation with our investigation.
Good luck.
(folder crinkles)
- [Narrator] Betty Jean Klem and her friends
were not the only ones to see unusual sights
in the sky on the night of July
Local newspapers reported at least a dozen other sightings
by individuals and groups around the city of Erie.
All of them claimed they
had witnessed an unnaturally mov
over the lake and Presque Isle.
The event made its way into Project Blue Book,
the official UFO investigation p
of the United States Air Force,
which was ongoing throughout the 1950s and 60s.
Ultimately, they concluded that the discovery
of impressions, tracks, and signs of a creature
were circumstantial and unrelate to the initial sighting.
However, they were unable to determine the source
of light seen in the sky on the night of July 31st.
For the first time, the United States government
has formally acknowledged the existence of UFOs.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence
released a preliminary report revealing that,
over a 17-year period,
Navy personnel and other US arme
had observed 144 separate UFOs, now called UAPs
or unidentified aerial phenomeno
- [Speaker On Radio] There's a w
of 'em (speaks indistinctly).
My gosh. They're all going against the wind.
The wind's 120 knots to the west
- What are they, dude? - More than 50 years ago,
the US government ended Project
an effort to catalog and understand sightings of objects
in the air that could not otherwise be explained.
In 2017, we learned for the firs
that the Department of Defense
had quietly restarted a similar organization,
tracking what we now call unidentified aerial phenomena
or UAPs. - Put simply,
UAP are airborne objects that,
when encountered, cannot be immediately identified.
- Since the early 2000s, we have seen an increasing number
of unauthorized and or unidentified aircraft
or objects in military controlled training areas.
Reports of sightings are frequent and continuing.
- [Speaker] Reportedly appear
to exhibit unusual flight charac
appear to demonstrate advanced t
maneuver abruptly or move at considerable speed
without discernible means of pro
- The database has now grown
to contain approximately 400 rep
- [Speaker] It is also the respo
of our government and this panel
as much as we can with the American people.
- [Mr. Carson] That those who report UAPs be treated
as witnesses, not as kooks.
- [Speaker] We are all curious a
to understand the unknown.
- [Speaker] We are committed to a focused effort
to determine their origin. - To shed light
on one of the world's most enduring mysteries.
(deep atmospheric music)
(dramatic electronic music)
- [Announcer] "Chronicles" was made possible thanks
to a community assets grant prov
by the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority,
support by the Department of Edu
and the generous support of Thomas B. Hagen.
- [Speaker] We question and lear
(soft music)