On 6 Jan 00 Art Belll interviewed live two eye witnesses of a UFO sighting over s.w. Illinois. Having heard this interview, I responded last week to a thread here regarding the sightings and related what I was able to recall.

Fortunately, the first hour of the Art Bell show on Friday 21 Jan 00 was a replay of this same interview. The notes that I was able to take Fri. night pull the loose ends together and make the report more coherent. Should also help explain some of the questions that came up about the sightings. Art Bell's web site is just www.Artbell.com - there is an audio archive there, also I think that tapes of his shows may be ordered from him. Disclaimer: I don't know Art Bell, only listen to his radio show, which is broadcast fro his home in Pahrump, Nevada. The 6 Jan 00 phone interview involved Art, Peter Davenport of the national UFO Reporting Center, Officer Ed Barton of Highland, IL and Officer Craig Stevens of Millstadt, IL

General location of the sightings was about twenty miles east, southeast of the Gateway Arch which is on the west bank of the Mississippi River at St. Louis, MO. St. Clair, IL is on the east side of the river. All together these sightings involved four Illinois Police Departments,i.e., Highland, shiloh, dupo, Millstadt and the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department. Officers Barton and Stevens have come forward to tell their stories, the others who saw the same object have not done so yet.

The following is from my notes: Officer Ed Barton spoke first. About 4 am Wed. the 5th of january he saw bright lights in the sky southeast of him, probably over Lebanon, IL. He was on the north end of town and turned on to Rt. 4 where he saw two white lights close together in the sky. the lights merged as he watched. He turned on the overhead lights on the police car.

Upon reaching Lebanon, he turned onto Rt. 50, then onto Old Rt. 50 toward Summerfield. He said the lights got within 100 feet of him and he could then see the triangle shape with lights on the tip and rear points of the object. The lights were extremely bright white with one blinking red one. As he watched, the craft passed over him and blotted out the stars above it. There was NO SOUND.

Art said that a similar object that he and his wife had seen a few years ago appeared to "float" as this one did. Officer Barton said that what he saw on 6 Jan moved extremely slowly and "floated". It was directly overhead and made no noise at all. He has been around planes all his life, father was military. He radioed in to his home office. by then the object was over shiloh. There were scattered clouds, the object was below the clouds, 1000-2000 feet up. Thought it was 65 to 70 feet long, 35 feet wide. The back of it was all lit up like the Millennium Falcon on Star Wars. From the rear it was all lit up. It was VERY BRIGHT.

Question: Were others seeing it too?

Officer Barton said that in the middle of his transmission to his home office he had them notify Shiloh to look up and they saw it. He said that they had made fun of another officer who had seen something similar. Then he said that he has never seen anything like it before. (Remember that Scott Air Force Base is just up the road a little and St. Louis's Lambert Field is just on the west of St, Louis.)

St. Clair County Sheriff's office contacted Scott AFB - nothing on their radar or on Lambert Field radar. Officer Barton said that when he first saw the object, the white lights were pointing outward like aircraft landing lights, but when it was overhead the lights were pointing down and fixed. When he radioed in he was asked by St. Clair County if he was joking...

Art commented that it was either secret aircraft, antigravity or from "out there". Zero noise, floating, not flying. Peter Davenport mentioned that there may have been a scramble by National Guard aircraft from St. Louis. The object was about two miles north of Scott AFB when last seen.

Officer Craif Stevens spoke next. He has been an officer for three years, before that a part-time marshal for two years. He had never spoken to Ed Barton before 6 Jan 00. He was monitoring radio traffic that night. Heard Lebanon get dispatched out. Heard them ask if he was drunk! The r.p., not Barton. Heard Shiloh spot the object. Drove to east end of town, couldn't see it. Went to north end of town where there were no lights. Twenty miles from St. Louis skyline. Looked to the west - saw it. It was hovering, then moving toward Dupo and St. Louis. Overheard someone asking about camera. He ran to the car trunk, got a Polaroid out. Got one photo. Camera goofed up. He got it going again and got a good photo of the rear end of the object with all those lights. Also said it looked like the rear of the Millennium Falcon all lit up. He could see that the rear was concaved in, not convex like the Falcon. He kept mentioning how HUGE it was. The brightness of the lights. He never saw anything in the air that big and he has seen the Goodyear blimp before. This was bigger. Very LOW, HUGE. It might have made a slight "buzzing" sound.

Officer Stevens said he went to his department and made a sketch of what he saw and wrote it up unofficially so as to remember. Art asked who else saw this object. Off. Barton said he knew that at least one officer at Shiloh saw it and that one officer at Dupo looked at it through his field glasses. Officer Stevens said that he called Dupo, advised them and they saw it. He has already been called by Federal agencies, including the National Institute of Discovery Sciences. Many other calls.

St. Clair County Sheriff has the tape of these transmissions and the photos taken by Officer Stevens. Both officers said they wished it wasn't them who saw it. Art said that there have been eight major sightings since 6 Oct 99 by comercial pilots, military and police.

These sightings are interesting to me because I live near the area where they happened. The following is from my notes of 21 Jan 00:

-- JT80CoG (wm61@siu.edu), January 24, 2000

Answers

Here is a report about it and a link to the picture. http://www.sightings.com/ufo6/arrowhead.htm

-- Mary Jo (MaryJo_5@Yahoo.com), January 24, 2000.

kewl

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 24, 2000.

If you are a bible believing Christian you would love Chuck Misslers book "Alien encounters". A great read of all the documented events, mainly the last half of this century, and a good theological expose of what is going on. If you are not a christian, you'll love part one and have a hard time with the rest probably, but it's one good book ( especially for todays teenagers who are all enthralled with aliens)

-- lynhettler (lynhettler@hotmail.com), January 24, 2000.

Mary Jo., Thank you for posting the web site. I wasn't aware of all those reports on the sighting!

My shift at work ends at midnight. I keep an eye out for things in the sky while driving home and later while walking my dogs. Will report on any large objects blocking out the stars if any show up.

-- JT80CoG (wm61@siu.edu), January 24, 2000.

It flies slow beacuse it's a *large*, un-manned ultralight. The back end looks like the Milleneum Falcon because you're seeing the propellers turning. It's quiet because it's electric powered. It won't black-out the stars because it's made of clear plastic. It'll just distort how the stars look as it's overhead (great camoflage

It's been flying around for at least eight years now since some friends and I saw one in the Southern California desert. I Can figure out what it is but not the "Why?". A really covert night surveilence platform?

-- SeenOneSeveralTimes (flying@night.net), January 25, 2000.