The UFO report: The Gulf Breeze (Florida) UFO Encounters

DONALD WARE

Donald Ware became interested in UFOs when he witnessed the highly publicized lights over Washing­ ton, DC in July 1952. He served for twenty-six years in the U.S. Air Force as a pilot, teacher, staff sci­entist, test manager, and programs manager, and flew F- 105 Thunderchief jets for seven years, including 125 missions during the Vietnam war. His Air Force decorations include the Distinguished Flying Cross and Meritorious Service Medal. He obtained a B.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1970.

After retiring from the Air Force in 1983, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he joined the Mutual UFO Network that year as a field investigator and state section director, and was appointed state direc­tor the following year. In addition to UFOs, he has an active interest in ornithology.

In July 1988 I was Donald’s guest at his home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, where he introduced me to a number of his team of investigators, including Charles Flannigan and recently retired USAF Col­onel Robert Reid. We visited many of the sites where UFOs had appeared, and I was introduced to several key witnesses, including Ed and Frances Walters, who impressed me with their sincerity, courage, and strength of character.

For copyright reasons we are unfortunately unable to reproduce any of Ed’s remarkable series of pho­tographs, which were published in his book The Gulf Breeze Sightings (William Morrow & Co. , New York) in 1989. These photographs have generated a great deal of controversy, as do all photos which show a structured craft, rather than a fuzzy blob. Yet Dr. Bruce Maccabee, a U.S. Navy optical physicist who has devoted much of his time to studying them, is convinced of their authenticity.

The Gulf Breeze UFO encounters have involved many people and produced over sixty photographs of objects that appeared to be under intelligent control. Between No­vember 11 , 1987 and May I , 1988, one couple had twenty­ two encounters, including eighteen separate photographic sessions, and through most of this period they maintained a close co-operative association with several highly trained investigators. The resulting photographs and related ex­periences were reported by the national media.

The primary investigation was run by the Florida divi­sion of the Mutual UFO Network, Inc. (MUFON), of which I am State Director. I appointed Charles D. Flan­nigan as State Section Director for Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, where most of the encounters took place.

Flannigan is the chief investigator for Northwest Florida MUFON Case #15 involving most of the photographs. He has been involved in UFO research since his daylight en­counter with two convex disks in 1952.

When it became evident that this case would receive national attention, three internationally known UFO in­vestigators, were brought into the investigation. These were Walter H. Andrus, Jr. , MUFON director; Dr. Bruce S. Maccabee, MUFON consultant in photo analysis; and Budd Hopkins, experienced researcher of UFO abduction cases. Other investigators who contributed significantly to the on-scene investigations were Gary A. Watson, presi­dent of the Pensacola Board of Realtors; Robert E. Reid, a recently retired Air Force Colonel; and Vicki P. Lyons, part-time school teacher and co-chairman of the local ab­ductee support group.

The town of Gulf Breeze (see Figures 10: 1A, 1B) is rather unique in that it is like an island community, sur-rounded on three sides by water and on the fourth by a wooded park, the Live Oaks Reservation. As a bedroom community of Pensacola, the population of fewer than 3 ,000 is rather prosperous and well educated. A large population of retired military people residing in the area probably contributes to the apparently broadminded per­spective of the people. A 1987 Gallup poll showed a direct relationship between education and acceptance of extra­ terrestrial intelligence. Consequently, if the purpose of the photographic sessions was for large numbers of people to see the pictures, this was more likely to happen in Gulf Breeze than most other places.

Between 1983 and 1987 many people of Gulf Breeze and the neighboring communities had been exposed to the UFO subject through my forty-three lectures, seven news­ papers articles, six television appearances and four radio programs. These emphasized three points: that UFOs have been here for a very long time; some UFOs are controlled by a more advanced intelligence; and, a select few in our government know a lot more about UFOs than they will admit. Because of this publicity, I was notified the day the first picture appeared in the weekly Gulf Breeze Sentinel.

The First Encounters

In 1987, Florida MUFON received several UFO reports from Florida locations outside the Gulf Breeze vicinity, but these did not involve photos. On January 1 , a lady reported red lights hovering low over Highway 6 in north­ central Florida. On January 8, a couple reported a large vertical cylinder above their house in Lakeland. On June 15, 16, and 17 many witnesses reported UFOs near Ocala, and following one three-hour series of sightings by many witnesses including two police officers, fourteen dogs in the neighborhood were reported missing. On July 23, several people saw six spherical objects make 90° turns over West Pensacola during daylight hours. On August 5, a huge silent, circular object with colored lights stopped 100 feet above a witness near Gainesville. On October 19, a lady reported a UFO hovering beside a bridge near Arcadia in daylight and close enough to see beings through a window. And, on November 25, a lady in Destin re­ ported the apparent. temporary abduction of her five-year­ old son.

November 11, 1987

It was November 11 , 1987 when the Gulf Breeze encoun­ters first attracted attention, and they would continue through most of 1988·. About 02 :30, Mrs. Zamitt, wife of a retired Navy Captain, was awakened by her dog and led outside where she observed a silent, hovering object shine a “pathway” of bluish light onto her dock. Several blocks to the north, at 08: 15 on November 11 , Jeff Thompson observed a circular object with two rows of dark spots and a small dome on top hover silently 350 to 400 feet away.

As two Air Force jets flew directly toward the object at low level, it quickly moved up about 200 feet, and just before the jets arrived, the object departed straight up “very fast” as a flash of light appeared to engulf the whole object. The jets immediately turned north over East Bay.

Thompson described the object as being approximately thirty feet in diameter, about fifteen feet high with a dull silver top, light tan middle portion, and a dark beige bot­ tom. The next reported sighting was at 17 :00 that day by Charles Somerby and his wife, Doris, as they walked their dog about five miles to the east. They described a circular grayish object with bright white lights on the bottom and a dome light on top. Sunset that day was at 16:55 . They said the object seemed to drift like a balloon toward the west (which was against the wind) .

Then, at about 17 :05 , ten miles to the west, a 41 -year­ old father of two teenagers, Ed Walters, saw a light ap­proaching through a window of his home office. Curious, he stepped out of his front door and realized it was a very unusual object. Ed is a builder who often uses a Polaroid camera in his work. He grabbed his camera, went to the front porch and took a picture. He stepped down one step and took three more pictures as the object approached.

Then he went into the house for a new pack of film and took a fifth picture from the porch. The object changed course toward him, and as he walked into the street for a close shot, he was frozen in a blue beam.

During the approximately ten seconds while in the beam, Ed described the following physical sensations:

1. Eyebrows and eyes would not move;
2. He could not expand his chest;
3. He felt like he was going to die;
4. He could breathe, barely, but there was a nasty smell like ammonia; and
5. He started to pant when breathing became diffi­cult.

The beam lifted him three feet off the ground and as he tried to scream a voice in his head said, “Stop that! You will not be harmed. Be still. Stop that! We will not hurt you. “He also received a mental image like someone was flipping through a book showing him dog pictures! Then he was dropped to the street, and the UFO departed as a distant airplane flew past. A few minutes later, Ed’s wife, Frances, reported a smell like ammonia and cinnamon coming from Ed. Photo 1 shows an object partially behind a pine limb thirty-seven feet away, decreasing the possibility of a double exposure .

Four later sightings that day were reported. An anon­ymous couple wrote to the Gulf Breeze Sentinel that they saw a silent object bob up and down at about 17:30. They were afraid it might “zap them up” if they got out of their car. Linda Lube said that at 17:50 she saw some­ thing that looked like ” it was from another place. ” Di­ane Hansen reported that her seven-year-old daughter saw an object at 19: 30 with “_different colored light fall­ing down from it”. A Pensacola executive reported an object that arched downward with a bright white light that lit the entire wooded area around his home at about 21 : 30 .

The events of November 11 , 1987 are just some exam­ples of the kind of activity that continued around Gulf Breeze for many months. Ed and his wife decided to give the five original photos to the editor of the weekly Gulf Breeze Sentinel, Duane Cook, while pretending to be only an intermediary rather than the photographer. Ed was known by the editor for his large charitable contributions in support of high school activities and the youth of the community, so Cook decided to publish the pictures. Cook was quite surprised to learn that his mother, Doris So­merby, had seen the same object a few minutes before the pictures were taken.

Personal friends of mine who live in Gulf Breeze noti­fied me on November 19 when the pictures were published, and the investigation started. As soon as Ed was suspected of being the photographer, these friends, who co-incidentally were long-time friends of Ed and his fam­ ily, provided an excellent character reference for Ed. The investigative team had three major concerns throughout the investigation. These were: protection of anonymity for those who desired it; getting all the facts while helping to minimize the stress level in Ed’s family; and encouraging responsible reporting of the events so that other witnesses would be encouraged to come forward.