SUBJECT: CROP CIRCLES NEAR MILITARY AREA FILE: UFO1230
I would like to inform my fellow researchers with some curious and
valuable information I have gained through the years living in the
mountains of southwest Virginia. For years the Air Force has flown
countless training missions in the Appalachian
mountains without any formal declaration to the people of this area. For
years the F-4s have used these mountains as a playground and tactical
training area . The sightings of training missions range from large
transports practicing for air drops over the small town of Pound Virginia
to treetop level dog fights . There is never any public admittance that
this area (specifically Wise, Scott, Lee and Russell counties in Virginia)
is designated a training ground for the Air Force. The people don't
really mind, in fact most of us feel privaliged to have the government
involved in our area. The citizens of this area have gotten use to being
waken up to the sound of F-4s ripping over their house at 3am in the
morning. There have only been a handful of accidents over the years and
as far as I know civilians have never been affected. You are probably
saying "so what" the military trains in mountains all over the country.
Well friends I haven't told you the half of it yet.
Having so much military traffic in our skies for so long we become
accustomed to seeing strange sights in the night sky. There have been
several important sightings and occurences in this region including the
events at Wytheville Virginia which gained national attention. The
incident I will report on is the most significant to me personally. In
the summer of 1987 I was living on the family farm "Horse Gap" on rt.23
outside of Pound Virginia. When returning home from work late on even
ing I noticed several sets of lights coming at high across a small ridge
on the north end of the farm. I was not use to seeing jets at night lit
up so brightly, usually they ran with no lights for training purposes.
At an altitiude of about 750' they passed over me at just below mach 1.
You learn to judge the relative speed from years of sonic booms and low
level passes. As they passed over there was no doubt they were jets by
the roar of the engines. The only confusing part was the very bright lig
hts that didn't seem to be standard equipement of the planes usually
spotted in this area.
The same night at about 11:30pm another jet or group of jets passed
over our house. The exact direction was impossible to determine as they
were out of sight by the time I could run outside. The excitement of
this soon passed and after telling a few people who were interested in the
training flights I forgot all about it. The next references to time
elapsed is my best guess, I didn't see at the time any reason to make a
date of unusual sighting. Approximately 10 days later I discovered a
ring in an unkept field about 275 yards from our house. The date was July
19, 1987. After examing the ring and feeling confident it was the genuine
article and not made by animals or a hoax, I called two friends who had
been to several of these circles before. They confirmed it fit the bill.
The grass (4') was bent in a counter clockwise direction but not
crushed. The spiral pattern had a definite center and a diameter of
between 12-14m. Over the next few days the grass turned brown but didn't
die, it recovered and continued to grow.
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