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projecting several beams of concentrated light in all directions. The peculiar thing about these beams was, that they seemed to go out from the object and extend to different lengths, not fading into the darkness but terminating suddenly like poles or rods of light. Some of these beams were said to have darted into the forests on the edge of the beach as if they were “looking for something.” In April 1966, Robert Howard was visiting some friends on a farm outside Sinclairville, New York, when a UFO showed up at 8:30 P.M. on a Sunday evening. Howard and several others stepped outside to watch what they described as ‘‘a saucer-shaped object about 12 feet in diameter, with flashing red lights set in its edge.” It settled in a nearby swamp. Howard headed across the fields toward the object while more people gathered. The thing appeared to be beaming a very narrow stream of brilliant white light into a nearby woods. As Howard neared it, he says it bobbed to the right and took off over the treetops. For days after the incident his right eye was puffy, bloodshot and watery. Cherry Creek, New York, only a few miles from Sinclairville, was the site of an alleged landing on Thursday, August 19, 1965. Presque Isle in Erie, Pennsylvania, is just south of this area. The UFO wave in Australia and New Zealand has been most intense, and another interesting ‘‘light beam’ story was investigated there by researcher Dr. Paul Zeck, a psychiatrist, in 1967. The witness, a promi- nent businessman named A. R. Spargo (‘‘an employer of a large labor force’’), was driving alone near Boyup Brook in Western Australia when the incident reportedly occurred. It was about 9 P.M. on the night of Monday, October 30, 1967. Suddenly his car stopped, and his lights and radio went dead. A brilliant beam of light seemed to be focused upon him. It came from ‘‘a mushroom-shaped craft, 30 feet or more in diameter, hovering above the treetops at an estimated 100 feet above the ground.” The object itself was glowing with an iridescent bluish light. The beam seemed to be coming from the underside at an angle of 40 degrees. “T seemed to be surrounded by the beam,” Spargo said. “‘It was two to three feet in diameter, and brilliant on the outside. Yet I could see up it, and there was no glare or anything inside the tube... I had the most extraordinary feeling that I was being observed through the tube. I couldn’t see anyone—I could just make out the shape of the glowing craft. 1 felt compelled to look up the tube. But I didn’t feel any fear, andI don’t remember thinking of anything in particular. “After about five minutes it was switched off—just like someone switching off an ordinary electric light. The color of the craft seemed to Flexible Phantoms of the Sky / 95