Freaky Fests: Kecksburg, Pa.

A little more than 45 years ago, something flashed across the sky over Canada, Michigan and Ohio before crashing in Kecksburg, Pa, 30 miles east of Pittsburgh. Ever since, people in the small town have been trying to figure out what fell out of the sky and into the woods at 4:45 p.m. on Dec. 9, 1965.

Military personnel converged and closed off the crash site within hours. People could not get near the object; Bob Gatty, a local reporter, was threatened with arrest when he tried to enter the woods. The unidentified flying object disappeared, reportedly hauled off on a flatbed truck, and at one point, the government denied that an object was recovered. But the flash was too brilliant and seen by too many people to be denied.

Witnesses to the crash included a Mrs. Kalp and her young son Nevin, who were interviewed by the Tribune-Review. In the next day's edition, Kalp was quoted as saying, "Nevin saw it first…He said it looked like a flaming star. It left a trail of flames behind it and fell in the woods."

Ronnie Strubel, saw the flash from 12 miles away in Greensburg. Strubel is a former fire chief with the Kecksburg volunteer fire department. He is also one of the people who are skeptical of the original government account.

"That's a farce. I did see the military," Struble said. "Something did drop out of the sky. I had seen the streak in the sky."

This past weekend, Strubel and the rest of the fire department hosted the sixth annual Kecksburg UFO/Old Fashion Festival. The two-day event is part celebration of the village's quaint atmosphere and part celebration of the world-famous UFO sighting. Saturday was the former and was complete with hay bale tosses, water bucket races and a burn out contest, when entrants spin the back tires of their cars until the wheels literally melt off.

Day two was highlighted with a UFO/Bigfoot panel conference. The discussion centered on supernatural events in Pennsylvania.

Among the speakers was Stan Gordon, a writer and documentarian who writes about bizarre and unexplained occurrences. At the time of the Keckburg incident, Gordon was 16 and living in Greensburg. Since then, he said, he has tried to piece together what occurred day through witness testimony. One theory is that there was a landing, but not a crash landing, which would dismiss the meteor explanation.

On Saturday, Gordon said some eyewitness accounts include allegations that the object turned several times while still in the sky. Some witnesses don't believe the object crashed at all; they say it looked like it landed as if it was piloted.

"When it fell, people said it came down slowly, like a controlled landing," Gordon said. "It seemed to have control capabilities."

Many witnesses also claim the object was bell shaped, Gordon said. One man Gordon interviewed said he was able to get to the object before the military. The man said hieroglyphic-like characters were written at the base of the bell.

Another witness told Gordon he tracked the object's movement from the forest in Kecksburg to Lockbourne Air Force Base in Columbus, Ohio, and then to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.

After that, the trail for the objects turned cold.

The mysterious story has been told by the town and outsiders alike. In the 1970s and 80s, Kecksburg hosted a weeklong festival, but its popularity declined over the years. In 1990, the television show Unsolved Mysteries explored the incident in an episode. The show recreated the bell shaped object for a dramatization. After filming, they gave the recreated object to Kecksburg, and it currently sits atop a hill that overlooks the fire department. History Channel revisited the issue in an episode of their UFO Files show.

Abe Hayes, a volunteer firefighter, has lived in Kecksburg his whole life — 33 years. His family's house sits atop a large hill near the corner of town, high enough to look over the festival's fairgrounds.

Hayes estimated that about half the town enjoys the notoriety, while the other half derides the infamy.  

"You heard stories, but who do you believe?" Hayes said.

Gordon has been hearing about and researching the same stories for years. Over time, people have described to him the UFO as a rocket from either the U.S. or the Soviet Union, and sometimes from Canada. Maybe the wildest is the claim he's heard is that it was the Die Glocke, a fabled supernatural weapon developed by the Nazis during World War II. One lingering rumor is that there is photographic evidence that could settle the issue.

"There has been talk for years that there were black and white photos. Those have never come forward," Gordon said.

Leslie Kean, an investigative reporter, headed up an effort to recover government files with the support of the Sci Fi Channel (now SyFy Channel). NASA released their available files, but many were missing, redacted or destroyed. The lack of documentation may leave the flying object unidentified for good.

"We may never know for sure what really happened," Gordon said.