Old Saybrook Blockheads
By Cole Herrold
One of perhaps the greatest joys that
comes with studying older cases of alien contact is the wide array of alleged
extraterrestrial species that witnesses claimed to have contact with. In the
modern-day, while various ETs are still reported, they are seriously lessened
compared to the overwhelming amount of Grays, Nordics, Reptilians, and Mantids
that make up most of the modern abduction and sighting encounters. The golden
age of weird encounters with truly alien entities was arguably the 50s, during
which there were stone-cold classic cases such as the Hopkinsville Goblins, the
Flatwoods Monster, The Casa Blanca Entities, as well as lesser-known cases such
as the Georgia Stalks and the infamous Venezuelan Hairy Dwarves and the most
interesting thing about them is that they all come in various shapes and sizes
each more interesting than the last. One such case that occurred during the
late 50s is equally as strange as the extraterrestrials encountered were far from
typical as these beings looked like living art installations that Delia Deetz
from “Beetlejuice” would create or like something that a child would make in
art and crafts at preschool. This particular case is fairly familiar for those
deep in the UFO-alien rabbit hole, but for those just starting out, it is a
unique and peculiar case that should be discussed.
The encounter occurred on December 15-16, 1967,
in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. It was sometime around 2:00 or 3:00 in the
morning, and Mrs. Mary Starr, a former teacher and a master's degree Yale
graduate, was awoken from a deep sleep when a bright light shone into her room.
She was home alone that night and had gone to bed early around 10:00 that night
and was not expecting to be disturbed till morning; however, this was not to be
the case as the light that came in from the window was so bright it was
absolutely blinding. Mary, now awake and irritated, went to the window to see
if she could determine just what was going on, and as she stared into the illuminated
woods and fields around her house, she could see that there was some bizarre
structure coming to a stop near her back garden. Squinting into the iridescent
irritation, she could see a silver object that at first she thought was some
sort of "crippled airplane," but as she opened her eyes wider as they
adjusted to the light's intensity, she could see that this was not the case. As
she stared at the object, she could see that it was a large cigar-shaped craft
that was approximately 20-30ft long and was no more than 10 feet from the north
side of her home. The object was a dark gray or black color and wingless, and
as she looked at its form, she could see that it had square portholes that,
along with the body of the craft, glowed immensely. The object hovered above
her clotheslines which were just under 5ft, and hovered motionless between the
house and toolshed. As she stared startled at the object, she noticed that
inside the portholes, she could see figures moving around.
Mary could see that there were two figures
in the windows moving back and forth from each other, walking in opposite
directions. Mary was surprised at this and watched the figures closely while
also taking note of the overall design of the ship. It was in this that she got
a very good look at the beings and inside of the craft and took note of how
"shallow" the object was. It was from this she noted that these
beings could not have been more than 3 ½ to 4ft tall, but as she stared at the
figures, she noted that they were even more peculiar than the craft itself. The
entities, as they moved, raised their right arm the entire time, yet she could
not see a hand and seemed to have a body that was wrapped in a kind of yellow jacket
that “flared out” at the bottom so that she could not make out any legs or
feet. However, while she could not make out the feet or legs, she felt that
perhaps they simply were out of her sight-line and that below the portholes,
they might have been visible. The being's most peculiar and noticeable feature,
however, was that of what was assumed to be their head. Where their heads
should have been was an orangish-red colored square or rectangular-shaped
object which held a bright red "bulb" in the center. Mary felt that
perhaps this was not an actual representation of their head but perhaps a kind
of headgear and that their real form was beneath this bizarre fashion choice.
As she looked further into the object, she could not make out anything that
would suggest comfort or even the basic sense of technology, such as chairs or
instruments. Mary, as she continued to watch, then saw a third being enter the
room, and just as the entity began to move towards its shipmates, the portals
went black. The object then began to glow even brighter than it had before,
mainly from the top, and she watched as an antenna-like structure about 6
inches long that began to rise up and spin and sparkle like a failed roman
candle. After about 5 minutes of this pinwheel light show, the object
disappeared back into the ship, and the object began to move. The object moved
smoothly for a short time, still flying some 5ft off the ground, and then began
to make a sharp right-hand turn. As it did this, the craft looked less like a
cigar and more like an oval about 6ft thick and changed color to a dark
bluish-gray. Lights, previously unseen by Mary, then started to shine along
with the craft that outlined the entire rim. The UFO then proceeded to dip and
follow the same pattern as the terrain of the land, almost as though it needed
the ground to help in maintaining its ability to hover. The craft moved north
of Mary's house for some time until it suddenly tilted sharply and began to
rocket up into the sky at a completely ludicrous speed and maintained being
absolutely silent even as it did this.
The area where she lived was mostly vacant
this time of the year, so she was the only person to see the craft and its
occupants. However, Old Saybrook, for weeks prior, had several sightings of
strange craft in the area, and this would continue till at least the following
year as reports both in local newspapers and through UFO investigating
committees and institutions would be accounted. When word broke out about Mrs.
Starr's encounter Richard Hall, former Assistant Director of NICAP and NICAP's
Research Consultant, and Isabel Davis, another member of NICAP, came to the
location and investigated the sighting. The investigators interviewed Mary and
searched the area of the sighting, and upon taking into account, her background
as a Yale graduate and teacher as well as the fact that she seemingly would
have no reason to create or fabricate a story such as this Richard Hall nor
Isabel Davis could find no reason to dismiss her account and in fact, would
later compare her encounter to another case that occurred some 5 years earlier
which also occurred in Connecticut namely the Squyres and the Knight cases
which both also involve eyewitnesses seeing entities through portholes.
This encounter is particularly bizarre
because there are a lot of weird little bits to this case that make you scratch
your head because this case is completely one of a kind. When breaking this
case down, I think it would be best to start with the entities, as it's
probably the most interesting element of the case. These beings are extremely
bizarre and seem to be, at least from the eyewitness sketch and the
description, either some sort of suit, which is what Mary Starr felt, some sort
of organism that is built extremely weird, or some sort of artificial life form
or synthetic life form. The suit hypothesis to me seems to be lacking, for
while Mary would state that perhaps there was some sort of legs and feet out of
her sight, the overall design of the being does not seem to be beneficial as a
kind of suit. The being has no discernible hands, which even with cases of
entities in suits such as the Michelin man type of aliens, they have at least a
thumb and not some sort of straitjacket style of arms. Also, the fact that
these entities kept one arm in the air does not seem to at least to me to
indicate some suit-like structure as there is the chance that this is not a
choice behavior but some set structure. In some of the sketches of this case,
there are also often depictions that there is only one arm-like structure, and if
this is the case, a suit seems improbable unless this race of being is one-armed.
One of the most popular interpretations of
these beings is that they are simply blob-like organisms with a kind of
mechanical or crystal-like head. When one goes this route, it's difficult to
imagine just how an intelligent organism could function in a form such as this,
but at the same time, this could just be some perfectly evolved entity on their
homeworld and that their form is suited for what they need to live. It also, if
this is to be the case, is one of the few extraterrestrial encounters that does
not fall under the classic humanoid umbrella. These entities are vaguely
humanoid as they have a possible head, at least one arm-like structure, and no
discernible legs or feet at least that could be seen, but when one sees a being
like this, their first thought is not to compare it with a person. One of the
big arguments for the existence of aliens is that most of the entities reported
do tend to fall in the humanoid category, and skeptics will point to this as
unlikely as the human form is, as far as we know, solely an earth oriented
feature and that if we are being visited by other forms of intelligent life,
they should appear in tons of forms. This case is one of those that shows that
we have been visited by something evolutionarily different from us if it is a
biological organism which is, at least to me, incredibly fascinating.
When Ufologists look at this case when
they view these entities, they tend to put them in the Robotic class of
extraterrestrials. Usually, what is implied by this is that these entities are
either machines or organic machines created by some higher intelligence and
that their purpose is to conduct missions on earth. This is perhaps the most
realistic option for most extraterrestrial encounters as we do something
similar on other planets. We have not personally visited Mars, but we have sent
drones, rovers, and probes to the planet that if a less advanced society saw
it, might think it was a living organism and would attempt to compare it to
their known fauna. Perhaps with many accounts of extraterrestrials, that is
what they really are while this is prevalent with this case, it has also been
expanded as a hypothesis with some of the most famous cases, such as the
Pascagoula Abductors, the Flatwoods Monster, and even the Grays.
The object the beings were reported in is
a relatively common-shaped craft, and the same goes for the color. Cigar-shaped
vehicles are one of perhaps the most common reported craft of all time, so
there's nothing exactly noteworthy aside from the fact that this is the first
time we see this kind of craft associated with these entities. Yet craft like
this is, interestingly enough is, also associated with much weirder cases, and
particularly one specific case comes to mind, namely the Riverside, California
Casa Blanca case. This case featured multiple crafts, some of which were round,
some dome-like, and one which was almost identical to the one seen in this
case. That craft was shaped similarly to the Old Saybrook UFO; the craft seen
at Casa Blanca was a tad thicker and also bore a kind of antenna that the
witnesses, in that case, said emitted a kind of ray. While this craft, at least
from what was described, did not have windows or portholes, there are
interesting similarities which could mean that this is a similar model of ship,
and therefore these vessels are accessible to a wide variety of species or
planets.
While mentioning the craft, the motion of
it is bizarre. When the craft was seen moving away, it moved as the land moved,
so if there was a hill, it would rise up, and if there was a dip, it would
lower as though the topography of the area had some control of how the ship
moved. This is bizarre because I currently am unaware of any other cases where
the craft behaved this way. Typically, UFOs are known for their abilities to do
incredible things such as zig-zag or fly erratically or hover in mid-air to
supersonic speed. This UFO seems almost as though it's on a kind of unseen
track like a rollercoaster before it goes and acts like what we expect from a traditional
UFO. I have to wonder whether this has something to do with the craft's ability
to hover; perhaps these objects unleash a force, be it magnetism or something
like that or that we're totally unaware of that before it can perform any
extravagant aerodynamics makes it reliant on whatever surface it's near such as
the ground. However, since such technology is currently unknown to us except
for maybe Bob Lazar or other members of Area 51 or Wright Patterson Air Force
Base, one can only speculate as to just what this could be or why this is
necessary for this kind of craft to function.
This is one of those incredibly brief
encounters where not much happens, yet the thing that makes this case so
interesting is just how bizarre the entities are and the bizarre nature of
their craft. It's these tidbits that make the case, at least to me, stand out
enough to be one that deserves to be in the annals of important alien
encounters. If not for the fact that this is the first and seemingly only time
this kind of being was reported, then at least for the fact that their
connection to a particular kind of craft and its or a similar model's
connection to other famous cases. The implications of this are at least to me
interesting as there are tons of stories of abductees claiming that there are
what we could compare to the Galactic Republic in Star Wars, a kind of
unified treaty or union that encompasses a lot of the alleged extraterrestrials
that earth has been visited by over the years. For the nerd in me, this, if true,
fascinates me as it's a literal Who's Who and what's their alignment in the
galaxy with these beings. I would love to see the equivalent of the Senate, but
with all the different species that have visited earth and just how and why
there's such an array of craft and beings. Or perhaps I'm thinking about all of
this way too deeply and that all of these entities have little to no
communication with each other and that these cultures just happened to build
similarly shaped crafts. Time perhaps may let us know as we ever so slowly are
coming closer and closer to disclosure, and maybe then once that day comes, the
mystery of the Old Saybrook Blockheads and all the other entities reported
might finally come to a close.
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species:
Extraterrestrial or Robot
Location: Old Saybrook, Connecticut
Sighted: December 15-16, 1957
Works Cited:
SECTION VII-Are There UFO Occupants? By
NICAP http://www.nicap.org/newlook/section_VII.htm
Field Guide to Extraterrestrials By
Patrick Huyghe
Humanoid Encounters 1955-1959 By Albert S.
Rosales
Passport to Magonia By Jacques Vallee
The UFO Evidence: A Thirty-Year Report By
Richard Hall
“1957. Old Saybrook, Connecticut. UFO with
passengers on board” UFO-AC Research Group. Source: https://ufoac.com/connecticut-ufo-with-passengers-on-board-1957-old-saybrook.html
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