UAPgradeUAPgrade Italiano

Case · C-112

Portage County 1966: two deputy sheriffs chase a light into Pennsylvania

From Ravenna (Portage County, Ohio) to Conway (Pennsylvania) · United States · Apr 17, 1966

In flight Police Photos

Disputed explanation

What happened
At dawn on April 17, 1966, Portage County deputy sheriffs Dale Spaur and Wilbur Neff reported a very bright object at low altitude and chased it by car for about 80 miles, from Ravenna to Conway, Pennsylvania, where other officers said they had seen it. The Air Force's explanation (a satellite and then Venus) was rejected by the witnesses, and the case drew national attention. The Blue Book file, of about 90 pages, includes the officers' written statements and the documentation on the satellite checks.
Proposed explanation
Project Blue Book attributed Deputy Sheriff Spaur's sighting to the passage of a satellite followed by the observation of the planet Venus, noted that radar had not recorded any objects in flight, and judged the two images on the Mantua police chief's negative to be probable development defects. William Powers, assistant to J. Allen Hynek, wrote to the witnesses that he did not share the assessment and that Hynek had not been consulted; Powers had initially suggested the Venus hypothesis to Blue Book for the last part of the chase, but withdrew it after collecting further information.
Official investigation
U.S. Air Force (Project Blue Book, Maj. Hector Quintanilla)
Words of the document
It is believed that Deputy Sheriff Spaur was chasing the planet Venus.

Official documents

  1. Project Blue Book – Ravenna, Mantua, Ohio, 17 aprile 1966 (fascicolo del caso) · U.S. Air Force – Project Blue Book (The Black Vault copy) · 1966

Sources

  1. Cleveland Scene, “Strangers in the Night” (press)
  2. Patrick Gross, “1966 Portage County UFO chase by policemen” (analysis, pro-disclosure)

On this site

People 1

Open in the interactive archive The whole section: Map of UAP and USO cases

UAPgrade's entries are compiled with artificial intelligence (three verifiers with opposing roles) and checked against the sources listed above: how we work. Have a document that changes this entry? Bring it to the Investigations Unit.