Date: February 10, 1977
Location: Flora, Mississippi, United States

Madison County Sheriff's Deputy Kenneth Creel and Constable James Luke were on a routine patrol drive when they witnessed a 30 to 40 foot UFO which approached them at close range. "The thing came right over the car," said Creel. "...The thing just hovered over us, about 20 or 30 feet up, for more than a minute."

Illustration of the encounter (credit: Madison Co. Herald).

Source: Madison Co. Herald (Canton, MS), Feb. 17, 1977

"UFO Spotting Focuses On Deputy Creel"

When Madison County Sheriff's Deputy Kenneth Creel left on a routine patrol drive last Thursday evening, he didn't expect to find his attention completely focused on an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO).

Since he reported the incident to the Mississippi Highway Patrol that evening last week, however, Creel has now found even more national attention focused on himself.

"I know I'm not crazy .. I've always said I didn't believe in this stuff," said Creel. "I don't know what I saw, but I know I saw something . . It's just hard to describe what happened."

Deputy Creel first saw the object while driving down the Smith School Road four miles west of Flora, near the county line. He was with Constable James Luke at the time.

"It looked like an evening star or something," said Creel, "but it kept getting brighter and bigger."

Then, when the shape of the object began to form, Creel said he contacted the Mississippi Highway Patrol with his car radio equipment.

"I kind of thought it was an airplane flying low, or like it could have been."

But when the strange object came within "about 200 yards" of his car — "out across the field" — then, Creel said, "I stopped and cut my engine and my lights to listen."

What he heard was a whirring noise — "like a blender . . Like it was straining, when you first put ice in it" — and then the UFO started coming closer.

"The thing came right over the car," said Creel. "It came right to us, like it was being piloted."

How "the thing" got there is another question, because Creel says he could not tell if anything or anyone was inside.

"The thing just hovered over us, about 20 or 30 feet up, for more than a minute," said Creel, who at this time was looking straight up, from his patrol car window.

"I didn't get out, I wouldn't."

According to Deputy Creel, there was little way to tell much about the craft. "There was light coming out from little windows," he said. And the light apparently changed colors several times, from soft blue to red to green and other colors.

The UFO was reportedly about 30 to 40 feet in diameter, and perfectly round. "It didn't spin or anything. It just hovered around there."

After about a minute, Creel began backing up his patrol car "about 100 yards, to a place where I could turn around."

By this time, however, Highway Patrolman Louis Younger drove up in his patrol car within a short distance of the UFO, and reported seeing the same object—with the same description Creel had given.

"Then the thing just picked up and took off, north west, toward Satartia."

An unidentified object of the same general description was reported the same evening by other Flora residents, and Deputy Charles Bowering and Highway Patrolman Joe Chandler and others said they saw lights from an unidentified craft "from a distance."

Since the sighting last week, Creel has tried to play down the incident.

There have been no more reports, but dozens of inquiries have come to Creel and the Sheriff's Department for further investigation.

Some are "real cranks," according to one department official.

Others, apparently, are more serious investigators.

But as far as Creel is concerned, he would rather not have the attention. "If I had known how much trouble it was going to cause, I wouldn't have reported the thing in the first place," he said from the Sheriff's Office last Friday.

And moments later the telephone rang. It was another radio station wanting to talk to Deputy Kenneth Creel.

 

Source: http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case425.htm