Date:
March 12, 1965
Location: Everglades, Florida, United States
James
Flynn was camping when he saw an object with a large cone-shaped
structure hovering near the ground; it was some 75 feet
wide and 25 feet high. As he approached the object a beam
of light struck him in the forehead, knocking him unconscious
and temporarily leaving him partially blinded. There were
physical traces on trees and vegetation, and animal reactions
from Flynn's dogs.
Source:
UFO Casebook
[go
to original source]
1965
Florida Everglades Encounter (Flynn)
On
March 12, 1965, James Flynn of East Fort Myers, Florida,
an experienced woodsman, headed deep into the Everglades
with his four hunting dogs. He had planned to spend several
days there. On the night of the 14th, his hunting dogs
took after a deer. Later, hearing a sound like a gunshot,
Flynn started up his swamp buggy and headed off in search
of his dogs. One of his dogs had returned, which he had
placed in its cage, and it accompanied him on his search
for the others.
Around
1 a.m., on Monday, March 15th, Flynn spotted something
unusual that he judged to be slightly over a mile away.
Whatever it was, it was hovering, shaped like a broad,
upside-down cone, an estimated 200 feet in the air above
some cypress trees. After a while, it began flying off
toward the Northeast. After some 2 to 3 minutes, it returned
to the same place, and hovered again, this time for an
estimated 5 minutes. Then it took off toward the Southwest
at a high rate of speed. Soon, however, it returned to
the same location again. At this point, Flynn was only
about a quarter of a mile away, and the object seemed
to come down among some trees into a small knoll. Flynn
figured, up to this point, that he was observing a helicopter
of some sort, but then he began to study it through a
pair of binoculars and he realized that he wasn't looking
at a helicopter at all. Then he began to suspect that
it was some secret craft from Cape Canaveral.
Flynn
described the object as some 25 feet high, and twice that
in its diameter. Up near the top were four tiers of two-foot-square
square window-looking sections that emitted a yellowish
glow. The thing was metallic, and seemed to be made of
four-by-four plates that appeared to be held together
with rivets. Around the base there was an orange-red illumination
that seemed to cast a glow on the ground some 75 feet
around its rim.
Sometime
later, he regains consciousness. Finding himself initially
blind, he lays there for a long while until he recovers
a small amount of vision in his left eye. By this time,
the sun is shining and it's Tuesday morning. Flynn gathers
up his dogs and makes his way to the home of Henry Osceola,
a Seminole Indian who lived there in the Everglades swamp.
It
isn't until noon Wednesday that Flynn returns home. He
and his wife go immediately to pay a visit to ophthalmologist,
Paul R. Brown. Dr. Brown finds Flynns vision 20/800
in his right eye, 20/60 in his left eye. He notes a slight
bruise over his right brow. The left eye appeared normal,
but in the right eye, he could not see the retina.
Flynn
complained of hearing reduction and numbness in his arms
and hands following the encounter. Under careful observation
and treatment by Dr. Harvie J. Stipe, a physician who
had known Flynn for 25 years, Flynn was treated, and soon
those symptoms disappeared. On March 26, Flynn, Dr. Stipe,
and two others, returned to the encounter site in the
Everglades, and there found a burned circle some 72 feet
across. The circle looked like it had been swept clean
of leaves, twigs, limbs -- normal forest debris. Eight
cypress trees were scorched from their tops down to about
halfway from the ground.
In
October 1966, in a phone interview with Arizona physicist
James E. McDonald, Flynn stated that the UFO was probably,
he figured, some secret aircraft of ours, and that if
he could ever prove it, then somebody would pay for the
good eye he used to have.
In
July 1996, Flynn made a rare public appearance at Port
Charlotte, Florida, where he stated: "I'm waiting
for the day someone turns up the truth about this thing.
I hope I live that long."
Reference:
The UFO Encyclopedia, The Phenomenon from the Beginning,
Volume 1:A-K, by Jerome Clark. Omnigraphics, Inc., Penobscot
Building, Detroit, MI 48226. 1998. ISBN: 0-7808- 0097-4.
(Brent
Raynes)
Source:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case23.htm