SUBJECT: HOW FYFFE SIGHTINGS HAVE AFFECTED PEOPLE FILE: UFO1278 NEWS CLIPPING SERVICE DATE OF ARTICLE: March 16, 1989 SOURCE OF ARTICLE: Weekly Post LOCATION: Rainsville, Alabama BYLINE: Susan Stockman ======================================================== THIS FILE WAS PROVIDED BY THE UFO NEWSCLIPPING SERVICE AND PREPARED BY PARANET ALPHA -- PARANET INFORMATION SERVICE ======================================================== HOW THE UFO SIGHTINGS HAVE AFFECTED SOME PEOPLE A FIRST HAND GLIMPSE OF THE UFO By Susan Stockman RAINSVILLE-Up until this past week, I had only a reporters' interest in the UFO sightings which have taken place in and around Fyffe. I reported the stories and events, took pictures and talked with people who had actually spotted the object. I made phone calls to various military bases, talked to the world's leading skeptic on the UFO phenomenon and interviewed a person who believed he had actually had an encounter with an alien spaceship, not this time around, but previously. All this was done strictly as part of my job as a reporter for the Weekly Post. I had no personal interest. I believed the people who had sighted objects were actually seeing something, I just didn't know what. My business interest suddenly changed to a more personal nature Wednesday night, March 8, when I saw the object that has received so much attention. As a bad as they were, I made some pictures. As I got a small taste of what others had been getting a large dose of, my curiosity of the object grew. That next night Teri Baker, co-owner and general manager of the Weekly Post, and I decided to go back to Fyffe in hopes of getting better pictures. That was, if the object decided to reappear. We were fortunate enough, and I use the word fortunate literally, to see the object again. Teri made a series of pictures of the movement of the object, and, just for reference, made a picture of an airplane using the same photographic techniques. That set of pictures appear in today's edition of the Weekly Post. We still do not know what the object is but we do know that it doesn't move like any airplane we, or anyone else we have talked to, knows about. Teri's pictures were made with a Canon 35mm camera, shot with the shutter wide open and a two-minute exposure time to allow enough lights in for the horizon to be visible. The pictures show the object moving slightly in that two minute time span. They also show the airplane to have moved about 10 times as far. One thing I need to mention is the fact that there was only a silver of a moon out that night. The pictures show what seems to be a full moon, but that is only the result of the time-lapse photography. When word of the photographs spread, the media descended on us like people trailing into Fyffe on a Friday night. We were literally besieged by television stations, radio stations and newspapers from all across the country. We didn't tell a soul that we had made the pictures. We still don't know how they found out. They were calling Teri at 7:30 the next morning, wanting interviews or copies of the pictures. After a full week of doing interviews with those news crews, both local and national, and talking to what seemed like a half million interested individuals, both in person and on the phone, I wondered what was the reaction of the other people who had sighted the object. I talked to as many of them as I could round up Monday and Tuesday. Most said the same thing. That they were constantly dealing with reporters looking for a story, just like I was in the beginning. Although many residents have reported sightings, the ones who have received the most attention are Donna Saylor, Kathy Green, Jill Worley, her sister Rhonda Gipson, Fyffe Police Chief Junior Garmany and assistant chief Fred Works. I tried to call each of them to see what effect this event has had on their day-to-day lives. Saylor said, "There are a lot of interruptions in my day by the press. I have had calls from as far away as England. I really don't mind talking to the people, but when the people from 'Inside Edition' aired the program like they did, I was really put out, I gave those people four hours of my time and it was wasted. After the show aired, I decided not to do any more interviews." Saylor said the only thing she regretted was using the description "it was curved like a banana." She said if she had it to do over again, she would have used another description of the object. Kathy Green said the only change in her day-to-day routine was that people were always asking her what it is like and how she felt when she saw the UFO. "I really don't find it a bother to talk to these people. It's exciting. Life really hasn't changed much around here except that I am now more aware of what's up in the sky," Green said. Fyffe assistant police chief Fred Works indicated that the "only way it has affected my life is my job. I have to talk to a lot more people now than I did before." Fyffe Police Chief Junior Garmany said, "Basically, it goes with this line of work. We are always dealing with the media. But, this has been slightly out of the normal. We're just sitting back and waiting for things to get back to normal." I could not reach Jill Worley or her sister Rhonda Gipson. As for Teri and myself, it is getting a little easier to go about our day-to-day activities. Friday, we could not even work for having to answer the telephone or talk to news crews. It has been a learning experience for me. Being a reporter, I am accustomed to asking the questions and doing the interviewing. It has been difficult to be the one interviewed. All the people I talked to who reported the sightings agree on one thing. that given the same set of circumstances, we would have spoken out about what we saw. The people have the right to know what is going on in the sky above. Now, if we just knew. ================================================================= ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************