SUBJECT: FEWER UFO SIGHTINGS IN 1989                         FILE: UFO1160


POST-GAZETTE, Pittsburgh, PA - Jan.20,1990


by Wash Gjebre
Post-Gazette Staff Writer

     More than 100 UFO sightings were reported in Pennsylvania last year, in
addition to dozens of unexplained incidents, including ice falling from the sky
in May and sightings of Bigfoot, says a Greensburg-based group that investigates
such reports.Stan Gordon, founder and director of the Pennsylvania Association
for the Study of the Unexplained, said 168 reports of UFO sightings were
recorded in 1989, 87 fewer than the previous year.

     The associates also investigated 51 reports of other unexplained incidents
last year, a decrease from the 125 reported in 1988.  Gordon, who runs the
volunteer clearinghouse from his Greensburg home, said he did not know why the
number of reports decreased.

     He said many of the reports of UFO sightings were explained as meteors,
planets, aircraft lights, unusual atmospheric conditions or searchlight
displays.  But 27 sightings in Westmoreland, Butler, Indiana, Bedford, Crawford
and other counties could not be explained, he said.

     Among the reports of UFO sightings in 1989, he said, were these:

     * Two women said they saw a silent, luminous object with flashing red
     lights hovering over Squirrel Hill at 2:57 a.m. May 17. The women filed a
     police report on the incident.

     * In three sightings, strange objects were persued by military jets. On
     Aug. 31, UFOs were spotted in several counties within a short time. On Oct.
     28, "an unusual hovering light that picked up speed as numerous military
     jets in single formation chased it" was reported in Butler County, Gordon
     said.

     * A number of triangular-shaped aerial objects were seen in the afternoon
      of Dec. 23 near a power station in Warren County. "Once again, as we have
      seen in other years, these objects seem to be attracted to energy sources
      of various types, and several sightings occured near power plants in the
      state," Gordon said.

     On May 21, the association was notified that a piece of ice had fallen from
a clear sky near Ligonier. A lab found that the material contained lead,
cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, and zinc, Gordon said. He said the high metal
content "seemed to indicate the possibility that the ice may have originated
from a high altitude aircraft, yet weather data for that area at that time
indicated a low chance for icing conditions."

     The association continues to receive reports of sightings of a creature
called Bigfoot, especially in the Chestnut Ridge area of Westmoreland County,
Gordon said. A fisherman in Donegal reported that at 12:15 a.m. April 20, he saw
"a 7-foot-tall , broad shouldered, hair-covered, upright creature" that made
loud shrilling sounds before moving into the woods.

     Gordon said reports of unexplained phenomena could be made on the non-
profit association's 24-hour hotline, (412)838-7768.

=END=

              
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