Case File

The UFO Chase You Saw in ‘Close Encounters’

In 1966, Ohio police pursued a UFO at high speeds, inspiring Steven Spielberg to include a chase scene in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ 55 years later, Trail of the Saucers brings the case back to life.

In STEVEN SPIELBERG’S 1977 FILM “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” three black-and-white police cars pursue strange lights in the night sky. They race down rural highways and roar through a sleepy toll booth at the state line. One patrol car runs off the road and crashes. The others skid to a stop as the unearthly lights accelerate up and away.

Spielberg’s title came from the classification system for UFO sightings in Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s 1972 book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. Dr. Hynek served as a consultant on the film and had a cameo appearance.

The chase scene was inspired by a real incident reported in Dr. Hynek’s book (a Close Encounter of the First Kind in his system). The actual pursuit traveled 80 miles from Ohio into Pennsylvania at speeds of 100 m.p.h. It is one of the most thoroughly investigated and documented UFO cases ever.

A Light Before Dawn

The story begins just east of Akron, Ohio, on Sunday, April 17, 1966. It’s 5 a.m., the end of a cold, clear night.

Portage County Deputy Sheriff Dale F. Spaur is on patrol. Spaur, 35, has been with the Sheriff’s Office under two years. Married and the father of two, he works nights as a deputy and does construction work during the day.

His partner is Mounted (i.e., auxiliary) Deputy Wilbur L. “Barney” Neff, 26. Neff is a mechanic by trade who volunteers his time on weekends to assist the sheriff’s office.

They are driving westbound on U.S. Route 224 in Car P-13. Since midnight they’ve investigated a traffic crash, taken coffee to the lineman replacing the pole that was sheared off and assisted a stranded motorist.

Earlier, they heard radio chatter about a strange light in the sky near Akron. But they dismissed it as a crank call.

Now they notice a car parked facing the opposite direction on the south side of the road. It’s between the crossroads of Randolph at state Route 44 and Atwater at state Route 183. Spaur U-turns and pulls behind the car to check it out.

It’s a white 1959 Ford. Spaur gets out and approaches the driver’s side. Neff gets out and waits to the rear, watching the passenger side for signs of trouble.

They glimpse a moving light in the sky some distance behind them but ignore it to focus on the car.

Spaur finds the car unoccupied. Maybe it was left there by a burglar. More likely, it broke down and the driver went for help. Or perhaps the driver just stopped and went into the woods to “take a leak.”

Peering through the windows with his flashlight, Spaur notes nothing suspicious. He shines his flashlight into the woods, looking for the missing driver. Again, he spots nothing.

Then Spaur looks up to see a bright object coming over the silhouetted treetops. It quietly moves from west to east along the south side of the highway at very low altitude.

Spaur calls out to Neff, whose attention is still directed at the car. Neff looks over his right shoulder and sees it, too.

The object pauses. Then it crosses the highway directly overhead, only a few hundred feet off the ground.

Spaur and Neff squint to see through the dazzling, blue-white light (like an arc welder). It illuminates the ground around them as bright as noon.

The object looks wider than the roadway, 35 or 45 feet — maybe even 50 — and between 15–25 feet tall. They hear a low, steady humming noise, like an electrical transformer under load or high-tension power lines.

An Air Force veteran of the Korean War who stands well over six feet tall, Spaur nonetheless is scared out of his wits. He doesn’t know what is happening.

Neff served in the Navy Seabees, building missile tracking stations around Cape Canaveral. He saw many a rocket launch. But he’s never seen anything like this.

Instinctively seeking cover, Spaur runs back to the shelter of the patrol car. Neff is right behind him. But once inside, they both just sit there, not sure what to do.

Recalling the earlier broadcast of a mysterious light in the sky, Spaur grabs the microphone and radios his office in Ravenna. They have sighted the object, he says. It is directly above them at this time.

The radio operator, Deputy Robert Wilson, notes Spaur’s report at 5:07 a.m.

The craft continues north across the highway, maintaining the same altitude. Then it moves 300 feet east and stops again, hovering just above the treetops.

Wilson suggests Spaur shoot at it. But cooler heads prevail.

Sergeant Hank Shoenfelt intervenes to ask if Spaur has a camera. Spaur says he does not.

Shoenfelt directs Spaur to keep the object in sight and try to identify it. In the meantime, the sergeant will try to get someone with a camera out there.

Chasing a UFO

Then the mysterious object moves out to the east. It picks up speed but stays with the highway.

Deputies Spaur and Neff roar off in pursuit. Spaur has driven race cars. He’s never been outrun by a violator. But this is different.

Spaur has to lean over the steering wheel at times to keep the object in sight. On the passenger side, Neff has his face nearly pressed against the windshield.

The object is egg-shaped with the upper part depressed toward the back and some kind of antenna or other projection to the rear. Below it is a cone-shaped beam of light pointed toward the ground.

Spaur now estimates the object’s altitude at 300 feet. He determines its speed at one point to be 83 m.p.h. by using his speedometer as if he were pacing a speeder for a traffic ticket.

The object’s speed, altitude and relative position to the patrol car vary along the way. Sometimes it’s on the north side of the roadway, sometimes the south, sometimes almost directly overhead.

But it never makes any abrupt maneuvers or zooms away. It never seems to be trying to elude them.

Spaur is forced into a sharp right turn where U.S. 224 jogs south for a stretch at the intersection with state Route 183 in Atwater. But the object remains in sight through his rear window until he can turn east again. And when Spaur slows to maneuver around the traffic circle in tiny Deerfield, it seems to wait.

At the Deerfield roundabout, U.S. 224 runs east-west while state Route 225 runs north-south. State Route 14 comes in from the northwest but then runs east with U.S. 224 (same roadway, two different highway designations).

From Deerfield, the object continues east along U.S. 224 and state Route 14 toward Canfield. The chase crosses Berlin Reservoir at the Portage-Mahoning county line. That takes Spaur and Neff out of their jurisdiction.

The road is straight and level. They race through farm country and the crossroads of Berlin Center at state Route 534 and Ellsworth at state Route 45.

Next is Canfield village, at the center of Mahoning County, 10 miles southwest of Youngstown. U.S. 224 continues east through its quaint square. State Route 14 loops southeast to bypass it, connecting with state Route 46 south of town.

The object is now to the south. Spaur follows the bypass and turns south on state Routes 14 and 46, which run together for a few miles. Soon they are at the Columbiana County line, where Route 14 turns east again.

Near the Pennsylvania state line is the small city of East Palestine, Ohio. Patrolman Wayne Huston, 32, has been listening from the start.

In 1966 almost all Ohio sheriffs’ offices and many city and village police departments are on the same low-band VHF radio frequency, 39.58 MHz.

An Army veteran, Huston has been on the police force for six years. At one time, he was in contention for chief. These days, married and with two children, he patrols the city at night and sells used cars off-duty.

Now he ventures outside his city, hoping to get in on the action. He parks near the crossroads of Unity at state Routes 14 and 170 and waits beside his patrol car, designated OV-1.

Huston first sees the object approaching from the west when it is about five miles away. At 80–85 miles an hour, it flies by him in about four minutes.

He estimates its altitude at 800 or 900 feet. There’s no sound.

It resembles a “melted ice cream cone.” The solid part at the top is rounded, but one portion is somehow flatter. He doesn’t see an antenna or anything else projecting from it. The cone part looks like the beam of a flashlight shining into fog. But the air is clear.

Three airports along the route — Akron-Canton, Youngstown and Pittsburgh — report temperatures just above freezing at 5 and 6 a.m., with no precipitation and low humidity. Visibility is 9 to 12 miles.

Spaur speeds by in pursuit. Huston races to catch up.

In minutes they cross the state line into Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Ohio Route 14 is now Pennsylvania Route 51. Deputy Spaur, well outside his jurisdiction, is totally lost.

Patrolman Huston is more familiar with the area. He gives Spaur directions by radio, talking car-to-car. They don’t know one another, not even one another’s names. It’s just “OV-1” talking with “P-13.”

By then, Spaur is out of range for his base station in Ravenna. Huston’s radio operator in East Palestine is having difficulty understanding what’s going on. The sheriff’s office in Lisbon tries to relay transmissions.

State police and other Pennsylvania officers are unable to assist. They’re on different radio frequencies than the Ohio lawmen. Information radioed by Spaur and Huston must be relayed by phone calls between base stations, causing gaps and delays.

In Pennsylvania, the pursuit encounters more hills and curves. Spaur and Huston lose sight of the object behind a ridgeline after passing Brady’s Run Park near Beaver Falls.

Now, early morning church traffic in Bridgewater slows them down. They also have to navigate a series of bridges and railroad underpasses where the Beaver River flows into the Ohio River.

In Rochester, they are about to give up and go home. It is dawn. Sunrise is at 5:39. Then they see the object rising over a hilltop, as if it has been waiting for them.

Huston momentarily glimpses something projecting from the right side of the object. But he has to keep his eyes on the road. The chase is on again.

Where Pennsylvania state Route 51 crosses the Ohio River to Monaca, the pursuit continues south on state Route 65. It runs along the river through Freedom and into Conway.

Conway Patrolman Frank Panzanella, 33, is standing beside his patrol car at the Atlantic service station along Route 65 at 10th Street. An Army veteran of the Korean War, he is familiar with military aircraft.

Looking up, Panzanella keeps rubbing his eyes to see more clearly. He’s looking at an object shaped like “half of a football,” about 25–35 feet across. He estimates its altitude at 1,000 feet.

Panzanella first noticed it 30 minutes ago, after stopping for coffee at the Conway Hotel. Greater Pittsburgh Airport (now Pittsburgh International) is only 15 miles away, so he first thought it might be an airplane in trouble. He drove around town to find a better view.

Being on a different police radio frequency, Panzanella is unaware of the pursuit until the Portage County and East Palestine patrol cars roar into town. They skid to a stop next to him.

Spaur, Neff and Huston jump out of their cars and ask him if he saw it.

“Saw what?” Panzanella says, making them go first. They point to the object. Panzanella admits he’s been watching it.

The four of them now watch together from the gas station’s corner lot. The object moves toward the northeast and stops again. It’s about 1,000 feet high. Then it rapidly ascends, going “straight up real fast to 3,500 feet.”

Panzanella hasn’t yet said anything on the radio. At last, he breaks his silence. He tells the police base station in Rochester what he is observing and asks that the Pittsburgh airport be notified.

The radio operator asks him if he is feeling all right. Panzanella replies, “If I’m sick, so are these other three patrolmen.”

Federal Aviation Agency logs at Pittsburgh show police contacting them at 5:58 a.m. While the airport is on the line, the four officers see a Boeing 707 passenger jet passing to the left and about 1,000 feet below the object. It is United Airlines flight 454 on its way to Buffalo.

The object itself continues upward until it is barely visible. Suddenly, it shoots straight up and out of sight.

By 6:15, it is daylight. The pursuit is over. Spaur, Neff and Huston head back to Ohio.

Echo and Venus

On Friday, April 22, Maj. Hector Quintanilla Jr., commander of Project Blue Book at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, releases the government’s official explanation —

The object Spaur, Neff and Huston chased across two states, and Panzanella watched with them, was, in fact, the planet Venus.

To explain the object’s movement across the sky, Major Quintanilla insists the officers first saw an Echo communications satellite crossing from the northwest. Then they unknowingly refocused on Venus rising in the southeast.

Portage County Sheriff Ross Dustman publicly sides with his deputies.

I’ve seen Venus many times. I like to look at the sky and am familiar with it. But I never saw Venus 50 feet above a road and moving side to side like this was.

Quintanilla’s explanation hits the news on Saturday. On Sunday, the headline in the nearby Youngstown Vindicator smirks: “ ‘Venus, Shmenus,’ Snorts Sheriff.”

Remarkably, Dr. Hynek’s associate William Powers, an astronomer Quintanilla briefly consulted in the matter, writes Spaur and Neff a personal letter of apology. He rejects Quintanilla’s identification of the object, adding:

At no time … did I suppose that the earlier part of the sighting involved anything other than an airborne object.

Dr. Hynek concurs, he assures them. Subsequently, on page 107 of his book, Dr. Hynek himself evaluates the case as “a strong ‘Unidentified.’” He doesn’t know what it was. But he knows it wasn’t a satellite or Venus.

• No satellites were over Portage County at the time in question.
• The officers reported seeing both Venus and the object.

And, of course, Sheriff Dustman’s common sense gets right to the point. Neither a satellite nor Venus would be maneuvering a few hundred feet in the air and brightly illuminating the ground below.

Nonetheless, that remains the final official word on the matter. Forever filed away under “satellite and astronomical observations.”

Trail of the Saucers is edited by writer/producer Bryce Zabel and published by Stellar Productions. Zabel co-hosts the popular new podcast Need to Know with Coulthart and Zabel that can be found on all major platforms.