Portage County UFO Chase

One of the most dramatic encounters by police officers with an apparently structured, low-level UFO occurred in the early morning of April 17, 1966. Officers of the Portage County, Ohio, Sheriff's Department first saw the object rise up from near ground level, bathing them in light, near Ravenna, Ohio, about 5:00 A.M.

Ordered by the sergeant to pursue the object, they chased it for eighty-five miles across the border into Pennsylvania, as it seemed to play a cat-and-mouse game with them. Along the route, police officers from other jurisdictions saw the object and joined in the chase.

Deputy Sheriff Dale Spaur and Mounted Deputy Wilbur 'Barney’ Neff had left their scout car to investigate an apparently abandoned automobile on Route 224. Spaur described the sighting in these words:

“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. At this time it was coming up . . . to about tree top level. I'd say about one hundred feet. it started moving toward us...

The investigation by Major Quintanilla actually consisted in a two minutes and a half phone call to the sole Dale Spaur, starting with this question: "tell me about this mirage you saw." Then a second one minute and a half phone was passed again only to Dale Spaur. According to a written and signed testimony by Spaur, Quintanilla wanted him to sign a text specifying that the sighting lasted only a few minutes. When Spaur protested that it was at least a 60 miles car chase covering two states, Quintanilla put an end to the conversation. It required Congressional pressures to have Quintanilla make his way to Ravenna to meet and interview Spaur and Neff. This time, Weitzel was there because Spaur asked him to tape his interview with Quintanilla. A partial transcription of the tape reproduced in Dr. J. Allen Hynek's first book "The UFO Experience," is very telling of the ways and manner of Quintanilla when he interrogated UFO witnesses.

Police chief Gerald Buchert was on duty in Mantua when he heard over his radio that strange lights were headed east in his direction. He raced home for his camera, and with his wife at his side, took a single photograph of the object glowing in the sky. Buchert quickly developed his film and contacted the FBI, who referred him to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Major Hector Quintanilla, head of the UFO debunking Project Blue Book, asked Buchert to send the negatives to him. Later, Quintanilla issued a press release stating that his film was “severely fogged” and claimed that the UFO was a processing defect. He went on to say that the officers involved had chased the planet Venus.

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. The picture was only seen by a reporter and Mr. Weitzel, NICAP investigator, who was not convinced, but it was never available for analysis.

The sheriff’s office codenamed the UFO Floyd, Spaur’s middle name, to not tip off civilians listening to police bands. In June, while driving down I-80, Spaur saw it again. “Floyd’s here with me,” he radioed. He waited 10 to 15 minutes in the car, his head down, not wanting to see. When he finally looked up, Floyd was gone.