I've seen Venus many times,
but I never saw Venus 50 feet above a road
and moving from side to side like this was....
(Portage County Sheriff Ross Dustman to UPI)

At about 5:00 A.M. on April 17, 1966, Portage County, Ohio deputies Dale Spaur and Wilbur "Barney" Neff stopped on Route 224 near Ravenna to investigate what appeared to be an abandoned car. The car was full of what seemed to be radio equipment and had an insignia on the door consisting of a triangle with a lightning bolt inside it and the words Seven Steps to Hell written above the triangle. (Note: "Seven Steps to Hell" is also the "motto" of the 7th Army. However, their insignia is an "A" with stepped sides.)

As they checked the car, Spaur noticed something rising out of the woods behind them.

I always look behind me so no one can come up behind me.. And when I looked in this wooded area behind us, I saw this thing.... As it came over the trees, I looked at Barney and he was still watching the car.. and he didn't say nothing and the thing kept getting brighter and the area started to get light...

The object was about fifty feet in diameter, with a bright, well-defined light beam shining down from the bottom.

When Barney Neff saw the object: He just stood there with his mouth open for a minute as bright as it was, and he looked down. And I started looking down and I looked at my hands and my clothes weren't burning or anything, when it stopped right over on top of us. The only thing, the only sound in the whole area was a hum... like a transformer being loaded or an overloaded transformer when it changes....

They broke for their patrol car. Once safely inside, Spaur radioed a quick report. A Sergeant Schoenfelt told them to follow the object. They chased the object at speeds of up to 100 mph as it headed east, constantly reporting their position on the radio to allow other officers to follow the chase.

As the object moved to the east, Officer H. Wayne Huston of East Palestine, Ohio joined in the chase. He had been listening to the radio reports, and when he saw the object pass overhead with Spaur and Neff close behind, he took off in pursuit.

The chase continued across the state line into Pennsylvania, and as Spaur's vehicle got low on gas, he pulled over to enlist the aid of a Conway, Pennsylvania officer. When Spaur stopped, so did the object. They phoned the Air Force from Conway, and minutes later over the radio they heard that jet fighters were being scrambled to intercept the object. The object had other plans, however, and it suddenly shot straight up and vanished.

Frank Panzenella, a Conway, PA police officer said: The object was the shape of half a football, was very bright and about 25 to 35 feet in diameter.... The object continued to go upward until it got as small as a ballpoint pen. Relative to the moon, the object was quite distant and to the left of the moon. We all four watched the object shoot straight up and disappear.

Police Chief Gerald Buchert of Mantua photographed the object from in front of his home. The Air Force told him not to release the photo, but The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the photo showed an object that was like two saucers put together, with a light upper saucer upside down over a dark lower saucer.

Spaur: Somebody had control over it. It wasn't just an object floating around. It can maneuver.

The Air Force concluded that the officers had seen a satellite at first, and then had chased the planet Venus for forty-odd miles.

A detailed report on the incident was assembled by NICAP, and this report was turned over to the Condon Committee, who did not mention it at all in their final report.

Because so many civilians were monitoring their radio broadcasts after the incident, the sheriff's office decided to give the UFO the code name Floyd. In June, 1966, Spaur saw Floyd again briefly. He just looked up, and it was there. He radioed in that Floyd's here with me!. Then he refused to look for several minutes. When he looked back, Floyd was gone.

The men who were involved in this incident suffered for it. They were hounded by the media and ridiculed by others. Buchert and Neff stopped talking about the incident to anyone. Panzenella received so many phone calls about the incident that he finally had his phone disconnected. Huston quit the police department and moved to Seattle, Washington, where he became a bus driver, changing his preferred name from Wayne to Harold. Spaur's life was ruined. He was hounded even worse than the others. He began to have personal problems that culminated in his arrest for the assault and battery of his wife. He turned in his badge and made a meager living as a painter. His wife divorced him.

Spaur: If I could change all that I have done in my life, I would change just one thing. And that would be the night we chased that damn thing. That saucer.

This article was previously published in 2000. It has been revised slightly by removing dead links and adding new ones as needed.

Loy Lawhon

Due to past abuses, I do not allow articles to be reprinted on other sites. You may use the first paragraph and provide a link to this page for the rest of the article.

Print References: • "The UFO Book* by Jerome Clark