Miami's Mini UFO Wave
The sightings at the Crestview Elementary School was one of many UFO ssightings in the Miami area during the opening months of 1967.45 year old, James Flynn, for example, was hunting in the Florida Everglades one evening when he noticed a glowing object hovering over the surface of the swamp.
He would describe the object as conical, twice as wide as it was high and made from a metallic material, would watch the craft for around 40 minutes, eventually getting to within several feet of it.
However, a beam of light would hit him in the face which caused him to lose consciousness.
When he came to, it was daylight and he had no vision in his right eye. He would ultimately spend almost a week in Fort Myers Hospital.
A similar incident occurred when 2 unnamed men witness a bright balloon as they were walking through woodland.
As it came closer, the brightness became so intense that they could no longer look at it.
Then it vanished, as if it had exploded, but there was no trace of wreckage.
In the days that followed the Crestview incident, Sharon Burgess, Mr. & Mrs. McMullen, and 2 anonymous students witnessed a mysterious object heading over Lakeland.
They had been alerted to something out of the-ordinary due to interference with their television sets.
The craft then hovered over Woodland for several moments.
It was a disk shape and displayed a transparent dome on the top, inside this dome 2 occupants were clearly visible to the witnesses.
Each occupant adorned a tight fitting suit and wore strange headgear.
The object would then vanish in a bright flash.
Interestingly, all the witnesses would report a strong smell of ammonia following the incident.
Whether or not there is a connection is uncertain, but a sighting by 2 U.S. military defense radars around March 31, 1967 is certainly worth examining.
According to reports, radar operators at Homestead, & Key West Air Force Bases would track a total of 8 unidentified targets over coastal areas of southern Florida.
These incidents would last for over 4 hours.
They also took two separate flight paths, one would head towards Key West, while the other would fly over Miami.
Fighter jets were scrambled in an attempt to intercept these 2 mysterious groups.
According to the documents, each pilot would report seeing the UFO.
However, it isn't clear if this sighting was a radar sighting or a physical one.
A sighting from the ground also came from one of the personnel at the bases, he would state he saw something so fast he at first believed it was a meteorite.
Furthermore, local radio stations were receiving calls from the public regarding the strange, fast moving lights, who would, in turn, announce the sightings to the public.
According to the report, the UFOs and their movements appeared to be flying a search pattern.
The objects would eventually all head South towards the Cuban coast.
Although it wasn't confirmed, a report suggested that a Cuban MIG21 jet was lost in an interception mission the same evening.
Just to add a further twist to this particular incident, some reports even suggest an American spy plane was operating in Cuban airspace around the same time.