UFO: Kecksburg '65

A fireball streaks across the sky and over Lake Erie. Hundreds of witnesses in multiple Great Lakes states and Canada report the sighting. Traveling southeastward, the object crashes in the woods near the small town of Kecksburg, about thirty miles from Pittsburgh. Local citizens, reporters, and emergency responders, thinking a plane has crashed, instead encounter a large and almost immediate US military presence in the area of the crash. A few witnesses get close enough to see broken trees, smoke, and flashing blue lights. Local news director, John Murphy, photographs the downed object and tape-records eyewitness statements. The area is cordoned off. Later that night, a military truck leaves the woods, carrying an acorn- or cone-shaped object about the size of a Volkswagen on its flatbed. Several people notice strange symbolic writing around the edge of the object. The military insists nothing crashed in the woods; later they say a meteor landed. In 2005 NASA will claim the object was a Russian satellite. John Murphy puts together a radio documentary about the incident. Before the show can air, he's visited by two men. He turns over some of his tapes and he edits his documentary to reveal no new information to the public. Afterward, he refuses to discuss the incident. He's killed by a hit-and-run driver while vacationing in California.