MILITARY HELICOPTER VS. UFO: THE MOST CREDIBLE SIGHTING EVER REPORTED by Bill Knell
MILITARY HELICOPTER VS. UFO: THE MOST CREDIBLE SIGHTING EVER REPORTED
In 1973 I was in high school and had started a successful UFO club. I did that because the after school clubs they offered were not attractive to me and there were just a few (chess, math and so on) to choose from. I was encouraged to do this for Mass Media class (my fav).
Although I expected a few attendees at our first meeting, our double classroom was packed out with standing room only. Even the school principal came to share his story about a UFO sighting he had while in the military in Vietnam.
After the meeting, he came to congratulate me and asked if I heard about the helicopter and UFO encounter in Ohio? I hadn't and realized that I needed to read the newspaper delivered to our home more often. Fortunately, our school library had several popular newspapers that were distributed nationwide. I soon found out the incident acurred two weeks before in central Ohio on October 18th (1973).
Around 10:30 at night an Army Reserve UH-1H helicopter flying out of Port Columbus took off and was on it's way to Cleveland Hopkins airport. Capt. Lawrence J. Coyne was in command, in the right seat. At 36 years of age, he already had 19 years of flying experience. In the left seat, and at the controls, was Arrigo Jezzi, a 26 year old chemical engineer. Also on board was Sergeant John Healey, a 35 year old Cleveland policeman, flight medic and crew chief. Finally, there was Robert Yanacsek, a 23 year old computer technician.
Around 11 pm the chopper was flying at 2500 feet with clear skies in all directions. Below were mostly farms, hills and woods. Just around that time, some north central Ohio residents noticed odd lights in the sky over Charles Mill Lake. Many made reports to police and the press got wind of it. Years later it was revealed that some ground witnesses were visted shortly after the helicopter and ground UFO events by investigators who identified themselves as either government agents, military personnel or UFO researchers.
In the helicopter, 10 miles south of Mansfield, John Healey noticed a red light to the west. It was heading south. Yanacsek also saw a single red light, right around the same time, on the southeast horizon. He thought it was a tower beacon. Suddenly, the red light began approaching their aircraft.
Coyne descended 500 feet and notified the National Guard air tower in Mansfield to check if it was one of their aircrafts? While in the middle of the first sentence of the tower’s response, Coyne lost contact with the tower.
Now more concerned than ever, Coyne descended 2000 feet as fast as possible. Despite the efforts of the crew, the object was closing in on them fast. Convinced that impact was immenent, everyone braced themselves. Then, to their utter astonishment, the object came to a dead stop and began moving above and in front of the chopper, as if it were making some sort of an inspection.
The crew later described the object as gray, cigar shaped, with an imbedded dome on top that looked like it had some sort of windows. There was a red light in front and a white light at the rear; it was otherwise featureless.
The crew was able to see the bottom of the craft as it hovered above them because of windows in the roof of their cabin. As they were looking at it, a green “pyramid shaped” light beam began scanning their helicopter until the cabin was bathed in green.
For several seconds the unknown craft then somehow dragged their chopper upwards, then let it loose and flew off in a westerly direction. The object moved at about 250 to 600 knots (about 700 mph at the most) and flew over Lake Eirie. Speed was based on guesses by the crew and ground witnesses.
Coyne and the crew continued their journey to Cleveland hoping they would somehow find an answer to explain what they experienced. Prior to that event, Coyne did not believe that UFOs were real; or at least thought that they had logical, non-extraterrestrial explanations.
Arrigo Jezzie later told the local newspaper, “The first thing I thought was those Commie bastards … what are they up to?”
Not surprisingly, when Coyne and the crew tried to get any audio recordings or other records from the National Guard tower, none were found. It was as if the incident never happened. Their only comment to them, and the news media, was that no other aircraft were in the area at the time. Did they mean known, or unknown?
During the incident, Coyne noticed that the helicopter magnetic compass stopped working. When maintence tried to repair it, they found out it was seriously damaged in some way and beyond repair. The entire unit was replaced.
After becoming aware of what's come to be known as the COYNE HELICOPTER UFO ENCOUNTER, the National Enquirer got right on the story. They later awarded the flight crew the National Enquirer Blue Ribbon Panel’s $5,000 award for “the most scientifically valuable UFO report” of 1973.
I'm certain that the many ground witnesses, who were ridiculed by skeptics and neighbors alike, were thrilled to have such a legitimate report filed by credible and trained observers. More importantly, many influencial people in the media believed them.
Here's a report from Jim. He had his own experience that night…
“I saw a flying saucer on that night. I live near Cincinnati. I was out in the country riding around and a large flying saucer flew over the road ahead of me. It slowly went by and then took off at an otherworldly speed. It looked like two saucers put together. It was red and green.”
After thoroughly researching the incident, I decided to present what I knew at our next UFO club meeting. Our principal spread the word about it that morning and moved our meeting to the lunch room. Even with all that space, we had an overflow crowd.
I was always shy by nature, but manned up for my UFO talks. Everyone, including the principal, enjoyed the meeting and it was covered by the school newspaper. After awhile, our UFO club was covered by local newspapers and media.
I attended Boca Ciega H.S. (Bogie) in Gulfport, Florida. We moved to Florida from NYC around 1970. Overall, it was a really good experience for me. Thanks to all the investigations I did and presentations I made for the UFO club, I became a speaker, author, writer, media consultant and popular media guest. Thanks, Bogie!
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