Chicago May Be The Final Ufo Frontier

Sightings Here Are Few And Far Between

July 07, 1996|By Peter Kendall and Sabrina L. Miller, Tribune Staff Writers.

As state section director of the Mutual UFO Network, Walter Fydryck is responsible for collecting UFO sightings in Chicago and along Lake Michigan.

It's not as big a job as it sounds.

Except for that one abduction at Central and Addison, things have been pretty quiet, UFO-wise, around Chicago.

And despite a spate of summer films that turn on the idea that there is extraterrestrial intelligence--including some so evolved they can make John Travolta smart--things aren't likely to improve.

Perhaps so many people are lined up to watch "Independence Day" that they aren't looking up.

Though it might sound tautological to outsiders, there are fringy elements within the UFO field. But all seem to agree that sci-fi blockbuster films have little or no impact on the number of sightings reported.

Greg Long, an Oregon UFO researcher who is not convinced UFOs are real, said that studies have shown there is no increase in sightings.

"But these movies are very useful, because they continue to ask the big question: Are we alone?" Long said.

In Chicago, we apparently are.

"There are certain hotspots in the United States, and this isn't one of them," said Fydryck, a graphic and computer artist who lives in Rogers Park.

It is, perhaps, in part because Chicago is a transportation hub for earthlings. Landing patterns for O'Hare International and Midway Airports bring so many objects flying overhead that any report would be disregarded as an airplane.

"With a landing pattern over the lake, nobody is going to take sightings seriously," Fydryck said.

In five years, he has collected only a few sightings that he believed had much merit.

Among the best was from a woman who lives near the corner of Central Avenue and Addison Street who contends to have been abducted about two years ago.

Over the following months, Fydryck took two independent reports of strange objects near the same intersection.

"When I get calls of other people seeing craft in the area, it begins to make some sense," he said.

The report has never been fully researched, though. "We don't have the abductee specialists in the Midwest that we do on the two coasts," Fydryck said.

A recent study by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University School of Journalism found that about half of Americans believe in UFOs.

When asked if flying saucers are real and the government is hiding it from us, 49 percent of those polled said it was somewhat or very likely true.

(Incidentally, those who read daily newspapers are less likely to believe in UFOs, while those who read supermarket tabloids are more likely.)

Certainly many who were waiting to see "Independence Day" at the McClurg Court Theatres on Friday afternoon considered themselves hardcore sci-fi junkies who believe that we humans are not alone.

The film has generated an invasion of summer moviegoers in Chicago, who are filling McClurg Court--where the movie is showing on three screens--to capacity.

"It would be pompous of us to think there's no other intelligent life form out there," said Sandra Reyes, 23, of Chicago.

"It's such a huge universe, it's kinda scary to think we're the only ones here," said Jim Pacini, 29, of Chicago.

However ominous the creatures depicted in the movie, Anthony Miller, 27, a fanatical devotee of the popular "X-Files" television show, believes in a kinder, gentler alien life form.

"I would rather believe in aliens that have something to teach us, rather than ones who want to shoot us," he said.

In his new book, "The Biological Universe" (Cambridge University Press), Dr. Steven J. Dick of the U.S. Naval Observatory chronicles how UFO sightings come in waves.

The first wave occurred in 1896 and '97, and some people ascribed the appearance of mysterious airships to some secret government experiments.

The St. Louis Dispatch offered the theory that "these may be visitors from Mars, fearful, at the last, of invading the planet they have been seeking."

Things quieted down after that, though, and mysterious airships didn't reappear until 1947.

It was in that year, through the windshield of a plane piloted by deputy U.S. marshal and businessman Kenneth Arnold, that the modern flying saucer was first spotted.

Arnold reported seeing nine disk-shaped objects whizzing at an estimated 1,000 miles an hour near Mt. Rainier in Washington State.

Almost immediately, the United States Air Force began a series of scientific examinations of UFO sightings.

There is no final documentation left from the first examination, Project Sign, completed in 1948. This is the subject of much speculation in the UFO field.

The second examination, Project Grudge, concluded in 1949: "All information so far presented on the possible existence of space ships from another planet or of aircraft propelled by an advanced type of atomic power plant have been largely conjecture."

The largest and, to some, the most controversial study was Project Blue Book, which wrapped up in 1968 by saying that flying saucers didn't exist.

That conclusion helped conceive the UFO movement's twin sister, the government conspiracy movement.

Fydryck believes the government is hiding something from the people. But he believes it might be for our own good.

"There must be some kinds of dealings with the government, because the German (Berlin) Wall came down, the Russian government changed. I've got a hunch the only reason we haven't had a nuclear war is thanks to the aliens.

"Let's say there is some kind of dialogue with the aliens and the government," Fydryck said. "They could have struck some kind of deal. They may have everything under control."