What makes Jan. 6 a major date in Kansas UFO history?
Sixty-nine years ago, there were three separate and seemingly unrelated UFO-related events that took place — one near the small town of Howard in southeast Kansas, another near Olathe in northeast Kansas and a third involving a Kansas City, Kansas, newspaper.
The first occurred during the morning of Jan. 6, 1950. Three Air Force officers who were flying north over Kansas near Howard on their way to Nebraska saw and reported a strange oval-shaped craft, sort of like a silver football with a red nose, flying silently underneath them at more than double their speed.
The second took place later that evening starting near the military contractor Bendix’s plant in Kansas City. Two employees of the plant saw a strange light with a red light emanating from it. They chased it by car to what was then a U.S. Navy air station south of Olathe.
And a third was the Wyandotte Echo newspaper’s report of a UFO story that seems to have triggered the government’s first documentation of the classic case known as the Aztec Crash — a New Mexico UFO recovery case that is still highly debated by UFO researchers today. Project Blue Book reports indicate the newspaper story led investigators on a cross-country chase to find the source of the story. Even the FBI was involved.
You can read more details of all three still unsolved cases in my book “UFO Cold Cases: Kansas,” which covers many of the 701 incidents marked “unknown” from “Project Blue Book.” Get your copy in ebook or paperback form at Amazon.com.