10-13-89
by Kathy Jumper
A Mobile couple said they spotted the same fast moving, metalic unidentified flying object that Mississippi residents saw Wednesday.
"I called my wife and then my neighbor to see it so people wouldn't think I was drunk," Paul Hannie said Thursday. "It was round and about as big as a jetliner. It would turn colors -- from a dark clor to bright aluminum. It was up about 15,000 to 20,000 feet in the sky. We watched it for about 20 minutes.
"I've been flying all my life and I know it wasn't a weather balloon. Then low and behold I picked up the newspaper this morning and what we saw was identical to what the men in Mississippi saw."
Lee Abide Jr. of Greenville, Miss. said he saw the object three or four months ago and again Wednesday while on his way to work. A Greenville pilot, Bill Kimmel, said he was flying to Memphis two days ago when he saw a round, metalic object that kept changing colors and was flying about 800 to 900 mph.
The local offices of the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Weather Service and the U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday they did not receive any reports o UFOs.
A spokesman at Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. said Thursday, "we've been out of the UFO business for years."
"Usually when we have some bright planets out wehave a rash of UFO sightings." said Dr. Pual Heminger, a physics professor at the University of South Alabama. "That's usually in the spring or fall when people are out enjoying the weather. Venus has been out early in the evening and so has Saturn. Jupiter is out around midnight.
"And the dark star, Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, comes up in the morning. This could be what people are seeing."
Helminger said he watches the stars and has never seen a UFO. "Our library is full of books from people who have had unusual sightings," he said. "I don't know what people are seeing. But have them bring a photograph in and we'll take a look."
Hannie said he was doing yard work at his Alpine Hills home about 4:15pm when he looked up and saw an airplane fly overhead. "A few minutes later I looked back up and I saw a pretty huge object floating south to southwest. I thought it was part of the airplane at first. But th plane went on."
He called his wife, Abiline, and his neighbor, Jack Parsons, over to watch it. "We watched it go all the way across the sky until it wnet out of sight around Theodore area," Hannie said. I called my sister in Semmes and she said she'd seen the same thing.
Hannie said he believes in UFOs, "And our country does, too," he said. If they didn't, why would they be sending shuttle to Mars with all kinds of pictures and cassettes? I'm not a fanatic about it. But I was carried away when I saw it in the paper this morning.
"I don't drink and I don't smoke. I did get witnesses. I didn't want anyone to think I was crazy."
9-29-89
A Nashville couple who say they were taken aboard a spaceship from another planet will conduct a seminar on UFOs Oct. 10 at the Parliament House in Birmingham.
Dan and Leilani Dering, founders of the Southeast Regional UFO Communcations Center, will discuss their reported encounters with aliens.
The meeting is open to the public.
The seminar is entitled, UFO Contact: So What's Reality Anyway?"