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Despite big political stories involving Hunter Biden, former President Trump, and others -- and all the distractions of a steamy summer, a lot of people were mesmerized this week by experts testifying before Congress on Capitol Hill, asserting that the things flying in the sky -- not put their by humans -- are very much real and evidence of the presence of alien life.
Most astonishingly, some testified that the US government has recovered parts and pieces of such craft and even "non-human" biological material! Whatever one thinks of all those revelations or claims, the hearings revived memories of some of the "UFO stories" rooted in Franklin and vicinity.
For instance, a story from early March, 1982 reported in the Milford Daily News, described a Bellingham man, and his tracking of an object over Franklin.
There was a strange and eerie sighting in the skies over northern Franklin early this morning, an “encounter” which a local man will not soon forget.
“I was on my way home from work when I saw it,” exclaimed Donald Daddario of 47 Ray Avenue, Bellingham.
From out of nowhere, a powder blue light appeared in the dawning sky above the Jackson [now Ginley] Funeral Home on Main Street, Daddario said, just a stone’s throw from the center of town.
“I watched it, moving erratically,” he said, “then I began to follow it.”
As he traced the light to the intersection of Pleasant and Main streets, Daddario said he stopped and got out of his car to observe the phenomenon as it hovered in the sky.
“It had stopped,” Daddario recalled. “It was just stopped, like it was following me; and I watched it.
After a moment, he said the lights began moving.
“I followed it down Lincoln Street, and watched as it zig-zagged through the sky.”
Daddario said as he began to pursue it along Daniels Street, it flared bright red and changed color. As he glared in astonishment at the light, Daddario said it began fading out. “It just grayed out, then was gone.”
Captivated by the unusual sighting, Daddario phoned Franklin police and told them of his experience.
“They thought I’d been drinking,” Daddario laughed, “but I hadn’t even had a beer.”
The story was also written up at greater length in the Woonsocket Call newspaper.
Interestingly, a local who grew up on Main Street near the intersection with Pleasant recalled something similar, probably that same year. Grandfather, father, and uncle saw some kind of light in the sky and piled into a pickup with a telescope on board and followed it as it meandered, eventually going many miles north on I-495.
The same address was connected to another incident that had actually happened a few years earlier. One night, everyone was mysteriously drawn outside in the dead of night. And, above, was a brightly glowing object. The preteen children were transfixed and just stared, but “Grandpa took one look at it and ordered them to run inside and draw the shades. He was not the kind to be afraid of much but was clearly alarmed and anxious to protect his family.”
Eventually the show ended with no harm done, just hard to forget memories and recurring dreams about UFOs, the local added.
[Editor's Note: The "local" prefers to remain anonymous since UFO believers are often disbelieved and even ridiculed.]
Image: Wikimedia Commons, photo of atmospheric disturbance over Sri Lanka in 2004 provided via Royal Air Force.
