This article was on the front page of the Lincoln Journal, 1/28/94.

-=BEGIN ARTICLE=-

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT STOPS COPS IN THEIR TRACKS.

By Margaret Reist.

It was a weird night for Lincoln police officers Dave Munn and John
Clarke.

Strange things can happen late on a cold Saturday night, when
police officers working the night shift can be the only people out and
about.
But last weekend at about 4 a.m. Sunday, things seemed even
stranger, Munn said.

First of all, he and Clarke had a conversation about UFOs, stemming
from a discussion of a television program. Different.

That conversation was interrupted when the officers were sent to
check a report of two men running around outside in their underwear at
18th and J streets. Odd.

Then while Munn and Clarke were driving to the area, in seperate
cruisers, both saw an object high up in the sky with a tail of fire
and colored lights flickering at its base. As it passed in their
line of sight behind the state Capitol, it disintegrated in a spectrum
of colors, kind of like a fireworks display. Whoaaaa - VERY strange.

"It was so bizarre," Munn said. "We were sitting there thinking,
`What's going to happen next?'" Both got on the radio and said,
"Did you see that?"

The officers talked to a resident concerning the reported
disturbance - who also happened to see the strange flying object -
but didn't find any men running around in their underwear.

Munn was curious enough about what he saw to call the Lincoln
Municipal Airport to see if they'd picked up anything on radar. He
was told he'd have to call Omaha about that. He wasn't that curious.

But at the end of his shift, Munn returned to the department and
learned that four other officers had seen the object.

The incident was reported to Scott Colborn by the resident to whom
police talked at 18th and J streets.

Colborn, director of the Fortean Research Center which
investigates, studies and collects information on logic-defying occurances, called Dr. John Kasher. A physics professor at the University of Nebraska
at Omaha, Kasher is the head of the state chapter of the Mutual UFO
Network. Kasher said he plans to investigate to see if there is a
plausible explanation for the sighting.

Munn is sure there is, though he believes in the concept of UFOs.

"But to describe it as a flying saucer or extraterrestrial, no," he
said. "But, who knows?"

At first, he said, he thought it was a plane crashing but it was
too high in the sky for that.

His best guess: space junk or possibly some kind of comet.

A caller to a local radio station suggested it was caused by the
recent earthquake in California. There was also a small earthquake
Monday evening in northeast Nebraska.

But Ray Burchett, professor and research geologist in the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln's conservation and survey division, ruled out that possibility.

Although there have been reports of colored lights connected to earthquakes, that normally happens during or immediately preceding
an earthquake and is usually seen by people close to the epicenter, he
said. An earthquake causes the atmosphere to become highly ionized,
like in a thunderstorm, which can result in lightening-like
effects, he said.

But an air traffic controller at Eppley Airfield in Omaha who saw
the object had another explanation: a satellite re-entering the atmosphere.

The controller, who asked not to be identified, said a fellow
worker also saw the object Sunday morning. He concluded it was a
falling satellite because air traffic personnel had seen similar
things in the past that were satellites burning up as they
re-entered earth's atmosphere. The object was too high to be captured on
radar, the unidentified controller said.

So there's the explanation for the strange events last Sunday
morning.

Maybe.

-=END ARTICLE=-

Would somebody call NORAD to see if one of their satellites is
missing? <g>



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