Galesburg-Moline Quad-Cities UFO Incident

In early March 1967, a wave of aerial sightings stretched across multiple counties in western Illinois as residents from Galesburg to Moline reported unusual objects hanging in the sky. The incidents drew extensive local newspaper coverage and prompted an investigation by the U.S. Air Force, with the case eventually entering the records of Project Blue Book under identifier 341-PBB-757.

Witnesses across the region described a range of objects over several consecutive days. Carl Petrick, then a 9-year-old student at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Moline, says he saw it between 2 and 3 p.m. on one of the March days, around the time he went back inside for class. To his naked eye it was a small silvery spot in the western sky at an altitude similar to airplanes emitting contrails. When a police officer approached him and let him look through a viewing instrument, Petrick described what he saw as a silver, cigar-shaped object with three long windows along its side. The windows appeared powder blue, like the shade of a St. Louis Cardinals jersey. The object was motionless and estimated to be between 20 and 40 feet in length.

Petrick watched for about 10 minutes before going inside for class. When he returned outside half an hour later, the object was still there. Later that day, he and his father observed it again through a small telescope at home; it had not moved and its appearance was unchanged. Over the following days, Petrick says, he saw the object in the same spot each time, until one day it simply vanished.

Bill Fisher, a Moline police officer, provided what would become the most prominent account of the episode. His son was a student at Sacred Heart, and Fisher told the Air Force he had come by the school on March 9 with a message for the boy, getting there around 1:30 p.m. That is when he glanced upward and spotted something above the treetops. He said the object was “U-shaped,” like a pickle, and said he watched it for “a precious minute and a half” before he began shooting footage with his 8mm camera, which he kept in storage on his motorcycle because UFO rumors were already swirling in town. After he arrived on the campus, Fisher said, the object began moving “northwesterly” away from him, “appeared to have stopped” and hovered, then continued until it faded from view. “I did have a definite sighting of a metallic, shiny surface on the side,” he said, adding that the broad side “appeared to be of the same construction like some of our large aircrafts that I’ve seen here.” Fisher heard no sound emitted from the object. Petrick remembers it differently: in his account the thing was not moving.

Other witnesses corroborated that something unusual was in the sky. Jimmie Scott, a 12-year-old from Buffalo, Iowa, woke around 2 a.m. on March 9 and saw a bright white saucer-shaped object; his sketch of it was published in the Times-Democrat. Gary Bennett, an Augustana College student, reported an “unfamiliar airborne vehicle” around 9:30 p.m. that same night. In Silvis, James Maifield and his wife saw a persistent white light, as did a police dispatcher who called it “weird.” Arnold Buchmeyer, Helen DeRocker and Leo Schmitz, all of Moline, each told the Times-Democrat they saw something strange in the sky, and Schmitz said it was “very white” and “moving northwesterly.”

Two sheriff’s deputies filed formal reports. A Knox County deputy described, early March 6, an object shaped like an upside-down bowl, red and glowing at its base, that at one point sent out a bright beam of white light. A Henry County deputy, late March 8, reported an object framed by three colored lights, red, white and green, punctuated by intense bursts of red light.

The Air Force assigned Capt. Edward Orenic and Capt. Anton Kato to investigate. Their 94-page report included witness interviews, weather data, and checks with regional military, airport and National Weather Service officials for routine aircraft or weather balloon activity. They took particular interest in Fisher’s account and film.

The captains concluded the sightings most likely involved mundane explanations. In Fisher’s case, the report states, the object was most likely an air vehicle, a plane or helicopter, though elsewhere Orenic and Kato say it could have been a balloon: “The 8mm film failed to reveal any information that would dispute this evaluation.” The Henry County deputy’s sighting was also likely an aircraft, the captains said. For the Knox County sighting they pointed to a home-made hot air balloon built from a garment bag, like the one Rock Island pranksters made the weekend of March 12 and the one recovered near Monmouth. The report also says two red kites turned up in the Galesburg area during that period, recovered with batteries and a light bulb. A Northwestern University astronomer speculated that one of the sightings was just the planet Venus.

The investigators noted that nearly all witnesses appeared “extremely reliable” but suggested a strong desire to see something unexplained, amplified by extensive news coverage and a wave of balloon pranks launched over several days, may have contributed to the widespread nature of the sightings. The case was documented in Project Blue Book files; Fisher later rejected the balloon explanation, insisting he saw what he saw.

Petrick, now 66, is a retired longtime zookeeper at Niabi Zoo and lives in East Moline. Standing near the campus of what is now Seton Catholic, he says he still looks west for the object. The captains’ 94-page report and Fisher’s 8mm footage are both available online through the U.S. National Archives.