September 23, 1998
UFO's not uncommon to local man
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Out deer hunting a few years ago near Kingsley, Gary Boling saw a strange object flying in the sky. A bluish silver object that did not reflect light, that is. An object able to make 90-degree turns, stop in mid-air and fly in ways not known to modern aviation.
Boling believes he saw a UFO - an unidentified flying object.
"I've just been in the right place at the right time," said Boling, a city resident who has seen a half dozen unidentified flying objects in his lifetime, both in Michigan and other states. "These objects are flying and they are definitely not identifiable; maybe they're not from outer space, but they are unidentified."
Boling is not uncomfortable or scared by the idea of beings from another planet flying in our atmosphere. It seems not only possible but also logical to him. He is fascinated by seeing these objects and would like to see more of them.
"I would like to think there is other life out there," Boling said. "If we are alone, it is an awful waste of space."
Wanting to hear more about UFOs from a world-renowned expert on UFO abductions, Boling attended a lecture last Tuesday night by Budd Hopkins at Milliken Auditorium at Northwestern Michigan College. Sponsored by the college's Student Government Association, Hopkins told a standing room only audience about his 20-plus years of research and the increasing rate of abduction reports.
"All evidence together comprises an extraordinary phenomenon, which demands extraordinary investigation," said Hopkins, who has written three books and lectured around the world about UFO abductions. "If UFOs are real physical craft and we have been visited, then this is the biggest human event in history."
His own interest began in 1964 when he, his wife and a friend saw a small, elliptical object flying in the sky in broad daylight. A self-proclaimed skeptic, Hopkins did nothing for 11 years until two spontaneous accounts by people in New York City who did not know each other described the same sight: a space ship of some kind in Central Park with small figures nearby spooning shovels of dirt into containers. He wrote up the story for the Village Voice and it was later picked up by Cosmopolitan magazine. After that, the letters started pouring in from all over the country from people telling him about their sightings and experiences with UFOs. A new career was born.
Since 1976, Hopkins has personally worked with 650 people who have reported abduction experiences. Their stories and drawings, given independently, often are startlingly similar, he said. He also mentioned documented cases of people with extraneous metal objects embedded deeply in their head, perhaps placed there by their alien abductors.
But skeptics abounded even among UFO investigators, where nobody accepted the idea that UFOs had occupants for more than 20 years. Even Hopkins thought when he began looking into it that the UFOs were just observing humans but leaving them alone. Not anymore.
"I've talked with a NASA research scientist, eight psychiatrists, police officers, officers in the military who've been abducted, but they won't let their names be used," said Hopkins. "Ridicule is the most damaging thing in our field; the more you have at stake the less likely you are to come forward."
None of these ideas were new to John Shepherd of Kewadin, who was excited to hear Hopkins speak. The founder of Project STRAT, a UFO tracking station and lab not currently operating due to funding problems, Shepherd has never been abducted but has seen UFOs four times in his life. He has spent 30 years compiling sighting and abduction stories of UFOs and said that northern Michigan and Iron Mountain in the Upper Peninsula are popular areas for UFO sightings.
"I've got some stuff on file that not many people would believe," Shepherd said. "It stretches my belief system sometimes, it's pretty dramatic and scary."