The strange case of alien abductions in Kentucky

Without a doubt, one of the strangest stories in Kentucky involves UFOs, aliens, and a kidnapping. Along with her closest friends, Louise Smith and Elaine Thomas, Mona Stafford had gone out to dinner. They were in good spirits when they left the restaurant at 11:15 p.m. m., but the night quickly got out of hand.

When Mona noticed a bright red object in the night sky, she lost control of her vehicle. The car started moving faster and soon they were doing about 85mph. It was not an airplane, but a huge thing that stretched on both sides of the road and was “bigger than two houses.” Then, after briefly following him, she swerved to the side and swerved dangerously close to the driver’s side.

For a moment, a car was suspended by a huge metallic disk-shaped device with a dome at the top, a ring of red lights in the middle, and a flashing yellow light at the bottom. Although the car’s engine was stopped and the ignition lights on the instrument panel were on, they were still moving at a high speed. The light outside reached an almost blinding level of intensity, and as soon as it started, it was gone.

With full control over the car at this point, Mona was able to continue driving and they eventually made it to Smith’s house without incident. They quickly noticed that the kitchen clock read 1:20, indicating that the 35-mile drive had taken just over two hours instead of the usual 45 minutes. Neither of them could explain any of this, and when they went to the local police and marine office to report it, neither of them was interested in hearing the explanation.

A local television station received the information from the Navy, and it was soon widely publicized in the media. Jerry Black, a UFO investigator for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), was alerted to this and scheduled an interview with the three women. All three women reported having intense dreams they could not remember, as well as unquenchable thirst and sudden, unexplained weight loss.

After their own investigations into the matter, Drs. J. Allen Hynek of the Center for the Study of UFOs (CUFOS) and Walter Andrus of MUFON were informed of the incident. To learn more about this lost time, Dr. Leo Sprinkle of the University of Wyoming agreed to hypnotize the women and make them regress.

Only one of the three would go into hypnosis at this point, so Sprinkle performed a preliminary regression under hypnosis. This initial session was unsuccessful as Stafford became very upset and began to cry as they tried to see a red light in the sky again. After that, the case was quiet for a while because they didn’t want to put too much pressure on the women and wanted them to take some time to relax.

During the sessions, the women were able to provide more information about lost time than ever before. James Young, a detective with the Lexington Police Department, also administered lie detector tests to each of them.

Three women who were taken aboard a ship and had to undergo physical examinations spoke to Newsround about their experiences. All spoke of being confined, placed in uncomfortable positions, and subjected to often unpleasant or painful treatments. They were aware that they had been repeatedly prodded and prodded, as well as having hot liquid applied to them.

The women couldn’t remember much about the alien entities other than describing them as “shadow shapes” about five feet tall, and what little they could remember often didn’t make much sense. The qualities of the alien beings themselves seemed confusing and often indescribable. The beings were often depicted hovering near them or gliding through the air, and were also said to have floating “eyes.” About these descriptions of the beings, one of the researchers said:

They also remembered the terrifying “one eye” or “two eyes” that loomed over them as well. Mona remembered a single glowing purple eye that radiated rays like lightning. Elaine also joined the other two in describing the strange events. She remembered “two eyes” of a round head in the deep darkness. One eye, she said, was a “beautiful blue”, surrounded by a filmy blue eyelid, like a tortoise shell, and the other eye appeared dark. Louise saw several different forms of beings during her ordeal, but she was so scared that she closed her eyes and didn’t look at them. However, a few months later, she described her view of humanoids as similar to her two friends of hers; and she added that her hands looked like jagged wingtips.

As the investigation progressed, the women’s suffering would be found to be supported by evidence. UFO researcher and author BJ Booth commented on this: “Other witnesses not related to or in contact with the women also reported UFO sightings in the vicinity around the same time as the abduction, further validating their claims.”

This case also had other UFO watchers that night, independent of Stafford, Smith, and Thomas. These sightings occurred in Casey and Lincoln counties, Kentucky. About two hundred meters from the abduction, a couple observed from the window of their house a “big and bright object” that passed over the Stanford area. This happened around 11:30 p.m. The couple wanted to remain anonymous. Other observers have also reported, describing a ring of “reddish-orange” lights around a disc-shaped flying object. Two teens, on a fun ride, claimed they chased a low-flying UFO after it hovered over Angel’s Stanford manufacturing plant. They tracked the strange object to Danville, and there they reported the object to the police.

Another very significant report came from the owner of the property where the three women were kidnapped. The farmer claimed that “on the way” to his house, he witnessed an unusual low-flying object that shot a beam of white light to the ground. Could this have been the exact moment of the kidnapping itself? The added strength of a well-conducted investigation makes this one of the most cited events in UFO annals around the world. This report would include not only the abduction, but also other validation sightings, physical evidence, animal reaction, and electromagnetic effects. Not only was this case fully reported and investigated, but it was followed up; determine the long-term effects on the health and lives of these three highly regarded women.

We are left with questions. How did these women end up? Is there something to this, or is it just a hoax or maybe a collective delusion? What should we do with contemporary confirmation reports? Whatever the situation, this incident adds to the long list of others like it, proving once again how bizarre the UFO phenomenon can be.