John A. Keel WHY UFOS

would be preceded or followed by one or more "meteors"in the window areas.On Tuesday, January 2, 1969, hovering globes of lightwere seen in three Missouri cities—Joplin, Webb City, andCarterville. These were the usual nonstars performingcircular and falling-leaf maneuvers. Three days later, onJanuary 5, a wave of sightings of multicolored luminousobjects occurred around Jacksonville, Florida, beginningabout 9 P.M. They were seen by hundreds of people inseveral small towns, all of whom found themselves sittingin the dark when a scries of power failures struck at 9:30P.M.At 8:30 P.M. on Tuesday, January 9, a single bright lightwas observed following the Mississippi River along theborder between Missouri and Iowa. The object reportedlypaced an automobile from an estimated altitude of 400feet. It sped ahead, stopped, hovered, and changed to anamber color before darting off.A deputy sheriff in Green County, Missouri, reportedseeing a bright, starlike object at 9:30 P.M. on Sunday,January 12. Other witnesses said the object hovered,moved in circles, and then hovered again.The beginning of the January, 1967, wave also occurredin this region along the Mississippi, although the majorsightings of that period were concentrated farther southaround Cairo, Illinois, where the Mississippi links up withthe Ohio River.During the first two weeks in January, 1969, additionalreports started to trickle in from Ohio. Unusual low-flyingobjects were sighted around Middletown, Ohio, andfireballs were seen by hundreds in the Cleveland area asthey seemed to plunge into Lake Erie.Back in Florida, residents of Jacksonville Beach werepuzzled by "mystery clouds" which emitted sounds "likesomeone walking on pebbles." Police Chief James Alfordheard it and ordered Captain Harold Bryan to follow the"cloud." He pursued it to the edge of the Atlantic, where itslowly dissolved into nothingness.Strange nonstars were also bobbing around the skies ofnorthern New Jersey again. On Wednesday, January 15, aprofessional man there was awakened by an oddmechanical beeping sound outside his bedroom window.No vehicles, police cars, or UFOs were around. Butsimultaneously his wife, who was attending a civic meetingsome miles away, thought she saw an unusual aerial light in