FLATWOODS —
Larry and Cathy Martin weren’t expecting to see an unidentified flying object as they delivered copies of The Independent early Wednesday morning, although both say they had plenty of time to watch the oblong object with red-and-green lights hovering in the sky before it suddenly gained altitude and flew off to the west.
A spokesman for the Greenup County 911 Center said a call was received shortly before 2:30 a.m. Wednesday reporting a UFO “moving and darting around” in the western sky with a “pulsating red light.”
The Martins, who have been delivering The Independent for six or seven years, said they noticed police officers looking into the early-morning sky and became curious about what they might be looking at.
“We were passing papers and saw the police in the parking lot at the animal clinic (Guardian Animal Medical Center in Flatwoods) with binoculars. I asked what they were doing and they said they got a UFO call,” Larry Martin said, explaining the officers then handed him their binoculars so he could see for himself.
“I saw a red-and-green light, not moving at all. It was kind of long ... oblong,” he said, later describing the object as being shaped like a cigar. “I watched it for probably 10 minutes.”
His wife, Cathy, provided further details.
“The object was hovering for about 10 minutes. It was oblong with red-and-green lights. It was too high to be a helicopter and not high enough to be an airplane,” she said. “It then rose up real fast and took off to the west and it was gone completely out of sight. We didn’t know what it was. The police said they didn’t know what it was either.”
While she doesn’t deny the object might have been a weather balloon or some other more common object, Mrs. Martin said she is certain she would have recognized the object if it had been an airplane or a helicopter, adding her husband is a Vietnam veteran who would have easily identified the object if it had been a chopper.
“He said there was no way it was a helicopter,” she said with certainty.
John Parker at the Ashland Regional Airport in Worthington said that facility was “closed and locked up tighter than a drum” at that time in the morning, and added he was personally unaware of any aircraft in local airspace that might have been confused for an unidentified flying object.
An air-traffic controller in the tower at Tri-State Airport said, “Not that I’m aware of,” when asked if he had any knowledge of anything that might have appeared to be a UFO in the local skies early Wednesday morning.
TIM PRESTON can be reached at tpreston@dailyindependent.
com or (606) 326-2651.
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