At around 8:20pm on the evening of August 19th 1965, 16-year-old Harold Butcher had been in a barn milking cows when he spotted a silver saucer-shaped object in the sky outside.
Describing it as a “football-shaped object hovering just above tree-level”, Butcher watched as the craft “descended slowly emitting a red vapor downward from around the edges.”
“He later described it as having a pair of vertical seams running up and down the side,” said retired transportation safety researcher Robert Galganski who has extensively analyzed the case.
“He estimated the size to be about 50 feet long and maybe 20 feet thick.”
Butcher’s mysterious encounter concluded suddenly when the peculiar object rose back up in to the sky and promptly disappeared in to the clouds within a matter of seconds.
His sighting would go on to make headline news, but just a short time later a second sighting above the same farm would serve to thrust the Cherry Creek case even further in to the limelight.
“I think I remember seeing something orange like coming out of the backside of it, or underneath it or something,” said Harold’s brother Robert. ” I don’t know for sure because it’s been so many years.”
There was even a third sighting, this time by Harold, Robert and two others. It wasn’t as clear as the previous sightings due to extensive cloud cover but all four recalled witnessing a strange glow and the faint outline of an unidentified object in the sky.
The sightings were taken so seriously at the time that they ended up being investigated by the US Air Force as part of Project Bluebook. The investigating officer and three technicians concluded that the reports were not a hoax and that something unusual had indeed transpired.
Exactly what the boys saw over the farm all those years ago however continues to remain a mystery.
