By C.J. Putnam
A possible sighting of an unidentified flying object northwest of Cheyenne was reported by various individuals early this morning, including a pilot flying freright for the FAA.
Denny Dennis, FAA coordinator for the state of Wyoming in Casper, said Cheyenne 911 Center reported about 2:35 a.m. they had received several calls about a posssible UFO spotted northwest of Cheyenne in the Horsecreek vicinity.
Regina Himmelman, a spokeswoman for 911, said the center received the initial call from Cheyenne Police Officer Marty Luna about an object hovering about 15,000 feet with white and blue lights and a series of red vertical running lights along the underside.
The 911 incident report indicated the officer said the object wa neither an aircraft nor a planet. Luna was unavailable for comment.
Himmelman said the 911 Center also received similar reports of visual sightings from unidentified personnel at F.E. Warren Air Force Base and Chugwater residents.
Dernnis said the Casper office contacted the FAA regional center in Denver and were told no objects were reported on its radar system.
Two freighters flying to Denver through Casper were "asked to look," Dennis said, adding that about 3 a.m. one pilot "reported a bright light with little or no movement" in the vicinity of the initial sighting while the other saw nothing.
Dennis said the FAA report shows that at 4:55 a.m. the Cheyenne police reported the object still was hovering on the horizon but nothing yet had appeared on the Denver center's radar.
Startled eyewitnesses claim a huge unidentified flying object dance a crazy ballet in the skies over Wyoming, causing farm animals to bellow in fright--and experienced law enforcement officers, airline pilots and military men to blink in astonished disbelief.
Dozens of people reported seeing the massive craft as it moved jerkily in a cloudless sky over an area know as Horse Creek, northwest of Cheyenne.
Horse Creek sits amid a complex of heavily-guarded silos housing top secret Minuteman and Peacekeeper missiles, a vital link in the nations defense network.
The first report, on October 12, came from Officer Marty Luna of the Cheyenne Police, who radioed that he was seeing a strange object in the sky.
He and another officer dispatched to the scene were positive that the vessel was not any kind of known aircraft. Each confirmed that it was ringed with blue running lights around the frme work and carried brilliant red lights on its sides.
Meanwhile, other calls were coming in and the Federal Aviation Administration in Denver was informed.
Air traffic controllers alerted two commercial airline pilots approaching Cheyenne to be on the lookout. One said he could see the brightly lit object, but could not identify it as any aircraft he had ever encountered.
During the same pre-dawn hours, Sgt. Scott Schaeffy, 24 a military policeman at Warren Air Force Base, saw the same bizarre sight. He exposed 27 frames of color film. Only three came out.
Schaeffy's shots were shown on a Cheyenne TV station, but later he told reporters that Air Force officials had warned him not to discuss what he saw. Before he became silent, he said: "It looked like a giant, invisible arm was dangling a light bar from the top of a police car."
Another witness, Rodger Gibbons, 25, adds: "There was this huge thing in the sky, the size of maybe a dozen football fields. Nothing that big made by man can fly.
"Around its middle. there was a belt of vivid lights -- red, green, blue and white. They flashed like a series of horizontal lightning bolts."
Laureen Bradshaw was jarred awake by the sound of howling dogs and bellowing cattle on her family's ranch north of Cheyenne. "It sounded as if the devil was amoung the animals," she recalls. "The neighbors' livestock on ranches to the north were raising a storm, too.
"Suddenly, the noise just stopped and you could hear a pin drop. I've never heard farm animals make such a commotion."
Kyle Welch, a 13-year-old newpaper carrier was on his pre-dawn round when he saw it. "It moved around all jerky for a minute or two and then shot away like a cannon," he recalls.