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lights in the sky. The first thing Townsend said to these men was: "I am not crazy nor am | drunk; neither am | ignorant." Sheriff Bain and Lubitz agreed with the statement, although they did not know why Townsend had said it at first. All who know James Townsend later testified that he is a level-headed, hard-working young man, not known to drink. Furthermore, he has strong religious convictions and had spent the summer as a counselor at a Bible camp. Both men at the sheriff's office listened to his story and acted immediately. Although Townsend was reluctant to go, Sheriff Bain and Lubitz convinced him that he should take them to the spot where he had seen the strange craft. After driving out to the spot, all three of the men simultaneously observed a peculiar orange light moving in the northern sky. Lubitz thought it was "more yellow white than orange, flickering off and on and leaving a sort of yellow tail." A close inspection of the spot where the rocket ship had been standing showed that three strips of an oil-like substance had been left on the pavement. They were three feet long and four inches wide, running parallel to the highway. Lubitz said that he had never seen anything like those marks, left on any kind of surface. After puzzling over it for some time, the men returned to Long Prairie. Sheriff Bain was unable to determine any reason for the marks that had been left on the pavement other than the fantastic tale that Townsend had told him. It did not take long before the story was sizzling over the country via the wire services. Instant reactions to Townsend's story varied from praise of his courage, to ridicule of his "fantastic imagination." Many of the residents of Minnesota had been left with an open mind after a late summer and fall of heavily concentrated UFO activity. On August 2nd, UFO sightings had been reported all over the Midwest, and nearly every one of the police on duty in Minneapolis in the early hours of the morning had seen strange Although the story was given favorable and fair treatment by some of the news media, others either openly ridiculed the tale or gave explicit indications of their private prejudices on the matter. Townsend