October 13, 1989: Mystery on Gloff Road

[Anonymous Ida Alumnist]

Does anyone remember an anomalous event that occurred on Friday the Thirteenth, October 13, 1989 around 7:17 AM on Gloff Road near the Rollins' farmhouse? I always remember that our bus (I think was 20 or 18) was one of the rowdiest in the entire school. Every day you could hear it a quarter mile away coming down the street to pick you up.

That changed the morning of October 13. As we turned north (to the left) off of Dunbar Road, I remember an object that had nine lights, like a tic-tac-toe board (3 on top, 3 in the center row, and 3 on the bottom), appearing in the air over the road, what seemed to be 3 miles away or so. I thought it was a combine or something. I looked at my watch, and the time was 7:17 AM. In what appeared to be seconds later, an object easily 5 times the size of the bus was only approximately 100 feet or so in front of the bus, and blocked our view out the front windows.

The next thing I remember is the object going over the bus. Several kids pulled the windows down, and looked at the object by squeezing their heads out the half-open windows.

I then remember speeding down Gloff Road, (the bus turned around somehow), but I don't remember the drive back to school. I do remember feeling groggy as I walked into the middle school, and I remember Sheldon Wiens saying that all students arriving on the late bus were excused for being tardy. We had arrived at school about 90 minutes late.

Does anyone else remember this?

[Todd B]

Hey Anonymous!

Say..... great story! Are you sure though that you hadn't imbibed in a bit of recreational drug activity prior to being picked up that morning? Such activity definitely was NOT unheard of periodically in the Ida area. ;D (See other thread: idahigh.proboards107.com/index.cgi?board=stories&action=display&thread=55 )

But seriously though..... if this story isn't total B.S., then I would like to have someone else from that bus post some supporting info.

And again... to be sure.... this post isn't just an excercise in "creative writing" is it?

Thanks for posting.

-T.B.

[Anonymous Ida Alumnist]

T.B., I only wish it had been an exercise in creative writing. But years later, I was to receive the answers I was looking for. There is something strange going on in the skies of southeast Michigan, and there has been since the 50's.

[Todd B]

AIA:

You stated - "But years later, I was to receive the answers I was looking for...".

Can you elaborate on that statement at all? What kind of answers did you receive?

I'm not doubting your story, but being a 46 year old life-long resident of SE Michigan, with many a night spent outside down in Ida on my Dad's farm, I can honestly say I have never seen ANYTHING odd at all in the sky, night OR day.

I'd love to hear more though!

-T.B.

[TK]

I do recall a large bright light, shinning towards the Bowers house one night. Could this be related?

[Maynard P]

Aug 12, 2009 1:53:00 GMT -5 @TK said:

I do recall a large bright light, shinning towards the Bowers house one night. Could this be related?

It most certainly could! I think the object could have been lured to Ida by the entire Bowers family doing a rare native ritual of floor-dancing-while-trying-to-dress-so-they-can-chase-another-car-down-the-road-with-no-headlights-on-at-80-mph !

In fact, the way I heard this legendary tale told, the object didn't come just ONCE that night, but TWICE! It actually returned for a second sweep of Bowers home.

*shudder*

Yes... Ida is certainly know for its strange nocturnal happenings!

NAAAAAARRRRRPPP!

Maynard

[kurtdermensch]

It's very interesting that someone would post this message. If someone were to research the UFO out breaks of SE Michigan in 1966, My sister Roxanne experienced that while we owned the farm at 2062 Gloff rd at that time. It was an almost identical experience to what was described here only at night and she was called out of the house. It was of course the "Hennig farm" and it was actually a farm at that time while my father was teaching at Ida and my father in fact sold it to Rollins but my sister had a very similar encounter to this before the events of 1966 or it even made the news and were commonly known. I and my family have known about this for many years.
I'm in Alaska right now and she lives in Flint and I have no way to contact her but if anyone knows how to contact Roxanne Hennig, I'm SURE she would comment on this!

Kurt (Konrad) Hennig
1248 Gambell Street
Anchorage Ak 99501
907 229-2216

[Still Anonymous]

@todd - I am masking my identity because I knew hecklers like you would make fun of the story. The reality is, however, that this really happened. While I won't state who I am, I will tell you that I am a very successful Ida graduate from the Class of 1992. The event was also published in the Monroe Evening News the same day.

@kurt - Thank you for your post, I am curious to hear more of the stories from '66 from your recollections. My father was on duty at night--and chased UFOs for several hours during that period. He has only ever mentioned his experience one time.

[Anonymous Ida Alumnist]

@kurt - I re-read your message. It is extremely ironic that the event happened at the exact same location in 1966, right outside the Rollins' house. I wonder if there is something special about that piece of land?

[Also anonymous here]

Jan 5, 2009 12:03:57 GMT -5 @Todd B said:

Hey Anonymous!

Say..... great story! Are you sure though that you hadn't imbibed in a bit of recreational drug activity prior to being picked up that morning? Such activity definitely was NOT unheard of periodically in the Ida area. ;D (See other thread: idahigh.proboards107.com/index.cgi?board=stories&action=display&thread=55 )

But seriously though..... if this story isn't total B.S., then I would like to have someone else from that bus post some supporting info.

And again... to be sure.... this post isn't just an excercise in "creative writing" is it?

Thanks for posting.

-T.B.

Although I remember the details a little bit differently, I also do vividly remember the lights outside of the school bus on that exact morning and location. However I use the word "near" relatively. If I had to guess the size of the object at the time, it seemed to be at least a couple miles away, and the size of it was actually very staggering, several hundred feet or more in width. I was one of the first people on the bus who saw the object, or at least the first to get people's attention to look out the window at it. Several seconds after we watched it hovering and slowly moving in the air, it took off at a very fast pace.

Before I graduated high school some years ago now, I remembered the incident when I was browsing in the Ida High School library. At that time, I found the original front-page article from the Monroe Evening News which was filed on archive there at the school. If I recall, people from several counties witnessed the same thing that day. That was a bit surprising to me, because outside of us who were on the bus that day, I never heard it repeated by anyone else (and apparently our family didn't receive the daily delivery of the newspaper at that time either). Honestly, it was such an odd and brief event when it happened, I think many of us were so dumbfounded and shocked as to what it was (or could be), we really didn't talk about it much after that.

I would assume that the original article can still be found there at the high school library. If not, I am sure the Monroe Evening News keeps archives of all of their past newspapers. Look around the second week of October, 1989. Should be pretty easy to find for those who are interested.

- Anonymous in NY

[kurtdermensch]

Hi...again,

Well the first thing you need to do is identify yourself if you intend to have any credibility at all. No offense but you brought it up in the first place and if you have any measure of backbone then you need to stand behind the things you say. And yes you will receive a measure of ridicule from some so plan on it....who gives a rat's fat patootie? There might very well be a perfectly terrestrial explaination behind it all for all anyone knows and in fact there most likely is. No one said we were dealing with something otherworldly did they? I didn't nor will I as I don't personally suspect it.
On the other hand, I've lived long enough and seen and experienced enough in life that I have an open mind. I will never disallow any possibility because I have seen too many things that I never believed I would or could..did and said and watched too many things I never dreamed I ever would.

Secondly, I would like to apologize to my sister Roxanne whom I rather involuntarily "outed" with respect to this matter and in retrospect, I should have allowed her to do that herself when she was prepared to do that. I was impulsive and insensitive in doing that. I haven't talked to my sister in years but I really should have consulted her first. She was only about 9 years old and I would have been 3 but again, there quite likely is a terrestrial explaination. She merely described a childs manifestation of things whether real or perceived.
Do bear in mind that many events aside from Michigan's activity such as Kecksburg PA, Soccorro NM and others took place in 1966 but it was also the peak of the space race, Vietnam, the cold war, proxy wars, advancing and changing technology which included high altitude and space tech and international espionage. Much that we do and don't know about and never will. As for 1989? I was in Europe and specifically northern France (Brittany) not far from Belgium when the exact same reports as you described were made there in Belgium at that time. I remember very well but personally experienced nothing.
My information has unfortunately changed and I am back in Phoenix so the previous contact info is no longer valid and I can only be reached by email now at: [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

I am the original poster. The exact location in 1989 was indeed 2062 Gloff Road, exactly.

No need to be rude about the identity.