John A. Keel WHY UFOS

the ship rose and sailed away out of sight. But the anchor is inthe church as a testimony to this singular occurrence.For many years a church in Bristol, England, is said tohave had a very unique grille on its doors; a grille madefrom another anchor that allegedly came from the sky.Around A.D. 1200, during the observance of a feast day, theanchor came plummeting out of the sky trailing a rope. Itgot caught in a mound of stones, according to the story,and as a mob of churchgoers gathered around to watch, a"sailor" came down the rope, hand over hand, to free it.This crowd succeeded in grabbing him and pushed himback and forth until, according to the Gervase of Tilbury'saccount in Otia Imperialia, another rare manuscript, "Hesuffocated by the mist of our moist atmosphere andexpired." His unseen comrades overhead wisely cut therope and took off. The anchor remained behind, as in theother stories, and was installed on the church doors.Researcher Lucius Farish remarked, "Reviewing thesimilarities of these reports, one is almost tempted tospeculate that someone merely updated the ancientaccounts. Yet, a citizen of Merkel, Texas, possessing acopy of the Speculum Regali [or the Otia Imperialia] in1897 would be fully as fantastic as the reports themselves!"A farmer fifteen miles north of Sioux City, Iowa,Robert Hibbard, claimed a distressing experience with ananchor-dragging UFO early in April, 1897. A dispatchwhich appeared in the April fifth edition of the Saginaw,Michigan, Evening News stated that "Hibbard's reputationfor truth has never been bad, and the general opinionis that either he 'had 'em' or dreamed his remarkableexperience." The article continues:On the night in question, he says he was tramping about hisfarm in the moonlight... when suddenly a dark body, lightedon each side, with a row of what looked like incandescentlamps, loomed up some distance to the south of him at a heightof perhaps a mile from the ground. He watched it intently untilit was directly over his head.At this point the skipper evidently decided to turn around.In accomplishing this maneuver the machine sank considerably.Hibbard did not notice a drag rope with a grapnel attachedwhich dangled from the rear of the car until suddenly, as themachine rose again from the ground, it hooked itself firmly inhis trousers and shot away again to the south. Had it risen toany considerable height, the result, Hibbard thinks, would