Collision Course

Don't Mention the War!

Absent-minded motorists should take heed from the experience of Austrian, Josef Wanderka. While riding his moped through countryside one afternoon in 1957, he let his thoughts wander and accidentally drove straight up the ramp of a flying saucer parked across the road.

The interior of the craft was completely bare. There was no sign of navigational controls or even seats. It was occupied by six tall beings with child-like faces who claimed to be from "the top of Cassiopeia".

The Cassiopeians brushed aside Wanderka's apologies and clustered around his moped. They seemed fascinated by its engine, and asked him to explain how it worked.

Unfortunately, the Austrian got sidetracked into delivering a lengthy denunciation of the Nazis, which seemed to rather bore the aliens. They suggested he should form a movement to promote world peace, then asked him to leave.

The Vanishing Saucer and the MIBs

Toledo resident Robert Richardson reported a slightly similar incident in July 1967. While driving home late one night, he rounded a corner and found the road blocked by a disc-shaped object. Despite braking frantically, he skidded straight into the disc, which slowly dematerialised.

The next day, Richardson returned to the scene to search for evidence. He found only a small lump of metal, which he assumed had broken off the disc during the collision. He gave it to the UFO research group APRO for analysis.

Picture of a black Cadillac

A black Cadillac: the MIB's vehicle of choice.

Three days later, two smartly dressed men in black suits called on him late in the evening. They quizzed him amicably about the incident then drove away in an antique black Cadillac. Richardson noted the car's licence number, which he later discovered had not been issued.

A week later, two more Men in Black showed up on his doorstep. This time they were driving a modern Dodge and seemed far less friendly.

At first, they tried to persuade him that he had imagined the whole incident. Then they demanded that he hand over the lump of metal. "If you want your wife to stay as pretty as she is, then you'd better get the metal back," warned one of them melodramatically.

Richardson hastily retrieved the fragment from APRO, who had established only that it was a compound of magnesium and iron. But the Men in Black never came back to collect it.

Sources

Lynn Picknett: The Mammoth Book of UFOs, p266.
Chancellor Press: World's Greatest Alien Abduction Mysteries, p133
Jenny Randles: Alien Contact: The First 50 Years, pp28-29.