The Dayton Daily News, published on March 3, 1971 – more than 50 years ago – contained an article about a very disturbing UFO.
Yes, even then people often encountered UFOs. If we can now blame everything on drones or other equipment, what could have been quietly flying over the heads of residents half a century ago?
By Dale Huffman, Daily News Staff Writer. According to Leon Turner, a strangely illuminated, unidentified spacecraft is hovering over the Dayton area. He swoops down and buzzes 1-75 traffic and has been following Turner’s car regularly for the past five months.
Turner, 30, who lives at 110 Vandergrift Rd., said he has seen the spacecraft several times. Moreover, some of Turner’s friends also saw it.
Turner describes himself as healthy in body and mind and says he had his 20-20 vision checked last week. He says his incredible story about the spacecraft is “Absolutely true… and I swear by it.”
He says it all started on September 1, while Turner was working as an engineer at radio station WPFB in Middletown.
“I was working at the station.” he recalled, “when a kid called and said he saw the strange lights at the station’s transmitter.
“I called Noah Gross, a minister who has a program that airs on WPFB. He lives near the tower. Noah and his phone and kids left and they called me back. Noah was quite upset.
“He told me, ‘Buddy, there’s something floating right above the trees. There is a red and green pulsating light, and it looks like fire is falling from the sky. ”
Turner said he went looking for the craft when he got home from work. “I drove around most of the night, and when it got light, I saw it. It was exactly as they described it: red and green, with pulsating lights, and it was skipping over the tops of the trees at high speed.”
Turner said he saw the spacecraft again nine days later and observed it through high-powered binoculars for about five minutes. He said he saw it several times after that.
Bill Hart, general manager of WPFB, and his wife Jerry, women’s director of the station, both claim to have seen the red and green object one evening. Ms Hart said: ‘It’s definitely not a plane or helicopter. I know an airplane when I see one.”
Turner, who said the ongoing experience is somewhat frightening, said he doesn’t know exactly what the craft is but theorized that it is “out of this world.” He thinks it’s following him because “I got curious about whoever it was.” And even though Turner thought he changed orbits (he now drives a truck), he said he wasn’t able to shake the spacecraft.
“Now I think the thing is following my truck at night,” he said. “I think I saw it on 1-75 near Vandalia when I got home Monday night.”
On March 29, 1978, the same newspaper published a follow-up story.
“I’ve gone as far as I want to go with them,” says Leon Turner. “The next step is to find out whoever or whatever is in those UFOs. They’ll have to land, get out and offer to shake my hand.’
Some of the hundreds of Dayton-area residents who claim to have seen strange objects in the skies over the Miami Valley over the past thirty years have had closer encounters with the objects than others. Leon Turner is one of them.
Turner says UFOs followed him almost every night for six months. He claims he took pictures of these ‘spacecraft’, and he has some rather unusual photos to prove it. He also believes he made voice contact with UFO occupants via the citizen band radio in his car.
Leon Turner long worried whether others believed the bizarre stories he told. He doesn’t worry about it anymore. “I know what I saw and what I experienced,” he says. “I didn’t make any of it up or make it up. It really happened to me and that is the truth of God.”
From September 2, 1970 to December 25, 1970, Turner kept a diary in which he described his frequent encounters with suspected UFOs. Turner, now 37 and an employee of the Purolator Corp. in Dayton, was an engineer at radio station WPFB in Middletown when he compiled the diary.
According to his diary, Turner first saw a UFO on September 2, 1970. “It was about 1 a.m. and I was in Franklin,” he wrote. “The UFOs appeared as four bright red lights ‘standing’ just above the tops of some trees. I looked at them for a moment, but then they disappeared.”
The next entry in his diary is dated September 9.
“I was in Franklin again,” he noted. “There was a greenish-blue light in the sky, about 300 feet above the ground and parallel to my car. I observed it for five minutes with my 8×40 binoculars. During these five minutes I saw the light moving at speeds that would baffle the imagination.”
Later that same day he wrote: “I saw a red and green light go over the radio station. I placed the altitude at 1000 feet. It was silent. Then it stopped and stayed in the exact spot for 2 1/2 hours. At 11 p.m. it disappeared.”
On September 10, Turner reported tracking a UFO from Franklin to Xenia.
“On one side the vessel had a standard red running light, on the other side a green light. The distance between the two lights appeared to be 30 to 50 feet. At one point, when the craft was hovering about 100 feet above the ground, I observed it for about two minutes. I was close enough to the vessel to throw a stone at it. There was no sound whatsoever. I couldn’t tell if there was a dome or bell on top of the craft.”
Turner reported seeing four more UFOs near the radio station on the night of September 11. And on September 20, he wrote: ‘I was on my way home from work when I first realized that these flying objects were actually following the planes. me home every evening. I have no idea why they’re following me, unless it’s because I know they’re here and I’m watching them all the time. I can’t think of any other reason.”
On September 21, Turner wrote that he and a friend, Bill Carney, who was a journalist at WPFB at the time, had sighted three UFOs on Upper Bellbrook Rd. and four days later, on September 25, Turner wrote: “This morning a UFO followed me home from work again.”
Turner noted in his diary that UFOs did not follow him much during the month of October and then on November 7, he wrote: “As I left the side door of the (radio) station and walked to my car, I noticed a UFO circling the station. I looked at this craft for a minute, then got in the car and decided to take the 1-75 home. Just as I turned onto 1-75, there they were, just above the first group of trees on the left side of the southbound lanes.
“I saw them flying over the tops of the trees and flying parallel to me, as they have done for many, many nights. The red flashing lights (on the UFOs) came on. I could also see golden lights, as if coming from some cabin or cockpit. They zoomed along beside me to the edge of Dayton, and then I saw them go over the Dayton Power and Light Co. station. I didn’t see them again that evening.”
Turner recorded UFO sightings on November 9, November 15 and November 17. On November 18, he wrote: “I was driving on 1-75 and when I got to Rt. At exit 725 a UFO came across the highway and headed east right in front of my car and about 300 feet in the air. I grabbed my flashlight and started signaling the craft, but to no avail. Then the idea occurred to me to pick up the CB walkie-talkie, just for fun. I didn’t expect anything or anyone to hear me.
“Still, I started broadcasting. I said hello. Can you hear me up there?’ Just seconds after I released the transmitter button, a strange and eerie piercing sound came from the receiver for over twenty seconds. It was an eerie kind of sound. At first it really gave me the creeps. Believe me, the sound was very loud and powerful. After 20 seconds the sound stopped and I heard a voice. But I couldn’t understand a single word of what was said.
“The rest of the way home (a distance of about 15 miles) I tried to contact whoever or whatever had contacted me. But that was the only transmission I heard from the UFO. One thing I can say for sure is that I have never heard this sound before and if I ever hear it again, believe me, I will recognize it.
Turner sighted UFOs on November 21, but his attempts to make CB contact with the objects failed. On November 22, after observing a UFO on Woodman Dr. in Dayton and another on Smithville Rd., Turner said, “I think these UFOs are trying to trick me into following them because I’m sure they plan to pick me up someday. . But it seems like they like to play games with me. I have no idea how long they plan to follow me, watch my house, play their game. But you can bet they have a reason for it. And I believe the reason is because they actually plan to capture me in their trade. However, I have no idea when this will happen.”
On the morning of November 23, Turner was driving on Harshman Rd. when he saw a UFO that had been following him descend behind some trees. Turner said he drove home and grabbed his CB walkie-talkie.
“When I turned it on, there were two women talking on the channel. One of them is nicknamed ‘Blondie.’ They talked for a while, and then I heard the strange and creepy sound I heard earlier. I knew the astronauts were going to talk. Then a man’s voice sounded, speaking in an unknown language. Someone answered his call in the same language. Then the women came again, then I heard the man’s voice again. This time it almost seemed like I could understand him. It sounded like he was saying, “Ungunther, that’s a bad ship to be on.”
In his diary, Turner reported sightings of UFOs south of Dayton on December 2, December 13, and again on December 15. Turner ended his diary on Christmas Day 1970 with the report that a UFO followed him from Middletown to Dayton.
Today, Turner says he occasionally sees things that are “out of the ordinary,” but not as often as in 1970. Looking back, he says that many people at the time “thought I was crazy.” “Some of my best friends believed me, but that’s all.”
He says he hasn’t changed his mind about what he experienced years ago.
“I believe those flying objects were manned by beings from outer space and I believe they were trying to contact me. Maybe they actually made contact and I just wasn’t sharp enough to detect it. “I know that many of the things that happened to me were very frightening. I will never forget them. Never.”