The 701 club: Case 11419: Grand Haven/Holland, Michigan February 27, 1967
Don Berlinner’s describes the case as follows:
Feb. 27, 1967; Grand Haven, Michigan. 8:19 p.m. Witnesses: Sheriff Grysen, wife and others. Large white light, with smaller red and green lights seen to the sides. Made almost instantaneous 90° turn to left, shot out over road and stopped, moving too fast to follow. Sighting lasted 1 hour, 11 minutes. 1
Sparks’ entry is basically a repeat of Berlinners and adds nothing in the way of new information.2
The Blue Book file
Besides the Blue Book file, there were some local media reports in the Newspaper archive. However, they were not very informative. Blue book’s record card states that this was partially explained as Venus and an unidentified. There were multiple witnesses seeing the object. The bulk of information comes from a typed report made by William T. Powers (an engineer from Hynek’s observatory). There is a timetable in the case file, which can give us an idea on the sequence of events. The names are mostly redacted but not completely and, in two instances, there was no redaction. There are other mention of the witnesses in the case file and it is not difficult to determine which witnesses were which. I put in the likely names in parentheses.
20:19 - XXXX (Wassink) was called by dispatcher. XXXX(Heerspink) hears call and sees object to SW.
20:20 - XXXX (Sheriff Grysen)overhears call; sees object to west. XXXX(Wassink) starts north, XXXX (Heerspink) watches object to SW.
20:22 - XXXX(Wassink) sees object to NW. XXXX (Sheriff Grysen) goes outside to look at object in west, returns indoors and calls office.
20:25 - XXXX (Wassink) turns down Riley street; Heerspink drives up cedar street. XXXX (Sheriff Grysen) gets coat, not watching.
20:27 - XXXX (Sheriff Grysen) goes outside again: first object gone, second suddenly appears. XXXX (Heerspink) sees object suddenly move to position over road. Wassink still driving toward object in west.
20:35 - XXXX (Wassink) loses object behind dunes: XXXX (Heerspink) arrives at final position, sees object in west. XXXX (Sheriff Grysen) still watching object in NW.
20:36 - XXXX (Heerspink) loses object - faded or moved down behind trees.
20:37 - XXXX (Sheriff Grysen) sees object disappear suddenly with instantaneous motion to the south.
20:40 - XXXX (Wassink) arrives at lakeshore: nothing visible
21:00 - XXXX (Heerspink) sees objects to south.
21:30 - XXXX (Posma) and XXXX (Blair) report UFO in middle of county: XXXX (Heerspink) sees in binoculars.3
Analysis
The main source of this sighting appears to be the planet Venus. At the time of Powers’ investigation, one of the witnesses stated they had seen Venus as well as the UFO. However, he may also have been “primed” to state this because a local astronomer had already suggested they had seen Venus before the investigator arrived. Additionally, this witness stated Venus was higher in the sky and slightly south of his object. He may have been confusing some other celestial object as being Venus. Despite this statement by this witness, it seems likely that Venus was the source of much of the reports here. Venus set in the west around 20:43 and the disappearance of the object a few minutes before this should not be dismissed as just coincidence. It makes Venus a likely candidate for many of the reports before 20:40. However, there are aspects of these observations that need to be addressed.
In the Power’s investigation report we read the following about the reported rapid motions described:
The most striking motions were those reported by XXXX (Grysen) (90 degrees to the left in a “snap of the fingers”) and XXXX (Heerspink) (shot out over the road and stopped instantaneously). XXXX (Grysen) could not describe the motion - it was “too fast to follow”. He said at one point that it “just disappeared, but I could not tell which way it went” - meaning that all motion information came at the instant of disappearance. He did not see it in motion. It left no streak of light. Under the circumstances, it is entirely reasonable to suppose that there was an involuntary impression of motion but no actual motion. The light simply went out.4
The first report of rapid motion was from Heerspink. According to Powers, Heerspink saw the object to his Southwest while driving along a straight road. Heerspink lost sight of the object and when he reached an address near 107th Avenue, the object suddenly moved in front of him. This recreation happened on 3 March and one has to question how accurate the position was. Powers states that it was not possible to see Venus at this location because of trees. According to Powers’ time line, this happened at 20:27 but he puts the position of Heerspink around this location at 20:26.5 At this point, Heerspink was driving WNW (azimuth 300 degrees). About a third of a mile past this position, the road turns to almost due west (azimuth 266 degrees). Heerspink may have been more focused on locating the object, because he had lost it, than paying attention to his exact position. In fact, the location given may have been where he lost the object because Powers noted one could not have seen Venus because of trees at that location. If this happened, Heerspink, focused on trying to see the object again to his left, would not have paid much attention to the road changing direction and Venus would have appeared to have jump out in front of his vehicle as he made the turn. This effect has happened in the past when people pursue stationary lights in their vehicles. Confirming that Heerspink might have been following Venus is that the note in Powers’ time line that states Heerspink arrived at his final position at 20:35 and the object was now in the West. One minute later, it faded away or moved down behind the trees. This is the exactly what Venus would have done.
The other observation of direction has to do with Sheriff Grysen. He reported seeing this object through his window to the west. This was very likely Venus. He then got his coat and went outside to a new position. While exiting the house, he noted that the object in the west was no longer visible through the window. Once outside, he now saw a new object that appears in the NW. It is interesting to note that Grysen lost sight of what appears to be Venus about fifteen minutes before the others and saw this second object after changing his location from inside to outside. He appears to have had an unobstructed view of the lake and Venus still should have been visible. It is also important to note that he lost sight of his object to the Northwest around the same time as the others lost sight of, what appears to have been, Venus. It seems possible that his going outside disoriented him to the point that he thought what he was looking at was a new object but, instead, was still Venus. He was just off in his direction of observation by 45 degrees in azimuth. As noted by Powers, Grysens’ description of direction change by the object seemed more related to the light suddenly disappearing from view than actual motion.
If the object to the NW was not Venus, it is very possible that what was seen was an aircraft landing light. Holland/Grand Haven are on the east coast of Lake Michigan. To the West is Milwaukee (General Mitchell airport) and to the Southwest is Chicago (O’Hare and Midway airports). The distance is about 90-110 miles A plane taking off from one of these airports would have their landing lights on and turn them off after getting up to altitude and exiting the vicinity of the airport.
Another possibility of a light over the lake involves a Naval exercise. Naval Air Station Glenview was located in northern Chicago and they flew P-2 and P-3 patrol aircraft. These aircraft operated with a large spotlight to use during search missions. It is possible that the aircraft could have been operating out over the lake on a training mission. If the light was on for a few minutes and then turned off, it would appear to rapidly disappear. Blue Book apparently did not bother to check up on this possibility.
This brings us to the last set of sightings at 2100 and 2130. The amount of information surrounding these observations is very limited. At best, I would classify these as Insufficient information. All we know is that Heerspink saw some object(s) to the South or Southeast and two other deputies saw an object between them. We do not even know if they saw the same object or both saw separate objects that lay in opposite directions. To the South were the bright stars Rigel, Sirius, and Procyon. Even higher in the sky was the planet Jupiter. To the East-northeast, the bright star Arcturus was rising. All have been known to produce UFO reports. Were they involved in these three sightings? We don’t know because there is just not enough information.
In the conclusion of his report, Mr . Powers wrote:
The appearance of those objects which are not identifiable with Venus is similar to that expected from aircraft landing lights. However, since no specific flights could be identified, this conclusion does not prove that the cause was in fact airplane landing lights. The existence of the similarity, however, makes it impossible to conclude that a definitely unconventional object was present. The objects remain unidentified, meaning neither known to be unconventional or known to be conventional.6
This is why the case is classified as unidentified. Powers left it open because he could not positively identify the aircraft involved. We don’t know how thorough his search was and his approximate location of the aircraft was based on azimuth estimates of two witnesses, who may or may not have been accurate. The point is that if he states it had all the characteristics of a plane landing light then it could “possibly” have been one.
Conclusion
This case is challenging to produce a complete explanation because there may have been different objects observed. All of these objects can be classified as “nocturnal lights”. The witnesses did feel that these objects had some apparent angular size but all indicated the object(s) was(were) smaller than the moon. This indicates that they were probably just bright point sources of light that gave the illusion of significant size. It seems likely that Venus was involved in some/most of the sightings. In the sighting to the Northwest, it is my opinion that it could either have been Venus or it involved a possible aircraft with a bright landing light/spotlight. Lastly, the final sightings at 2100-2130 should be classified as Insufficient data because, other than direction, there is not enough information to draw a conclusion. One cannot even draw the conclusion that they were looking at the same object. It is my opinion that the case can be classified as “probably Venus/possible aircraft/insufficient information” and should be removed from the list of the unidentifieds.
Quelle: SUNlite 1/2022