Craig R. Myers - War of the Words: The True but Strange Story of the Gulf Breeze Ufo

War of the Words

The True but Strange Story of the

Gulf Breeze UFO

Craig R. Myers

Copyright 2006 by Craig R. Myers.

Cover art courtesy of Pensacola News Journal.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

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Manmade monster

Close Encounters of the Polaroid Kind

Somebody Up There Likes Me

War of the Words

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Earth versus the Flying Saucers

The Projected Man

The Thing That Couldnt Die

All the Presidents Spacemen

That Hideous Strength

When Worlds Collide

The Brain Snatchers

I was a Teenage Debunker

Attack of the Puppet People

The Astro-Zombies

Doomsday Six

The Manchurian Candidate

The Unearthly

The Day the Earth Stood Still

1991A Space Oddity

Epilogue: Ancient Eyewitness

To Mom and Dad: Sorry this took so long. Thanks for giving me roots and wings, for helping me become heavenly minded so I can do some earthly good.

To Julie: Thanks for marrying me despite all the UFO stuff! I love you and thats no mystery. It had to be you!

To journalists: Truth is objective.

To the Light of the World: Help us not to love the darkness instead. (John 3:16-21)

Thanks to the Pensacola News Journal for letting me chase the story of a career, and to Lani and Earl for all your help in solving the mystery of the missing photos for this book. Special thanks to Tribune Media Services for permission to use the Dave Barry article. He was the first to realize something funny was going on there in Gulf Breeze.

The story has, I believe, been told more than once in the newspapers, but, like all such narratives, its effect is much less striking when set forth en bloc in a single half column of print than when the facts slowly evolve before your own eyes and the mystery clears gradually away as each new discovery furnishes a step which leads to the complete truth.

Dr. Watson, The Adventure of the Engineers Thumb

... So what you do is go out to the scene of a crime, or a fire, or an election or some other disaster, I said, trying to make eye contact with the huddled group of boys, but finding it much like attempting to connect with aquarium fish.

... And you find someone willing to talk to you, and you pull out your pen... I said, whipping a Bic round stic medium from my jacket pocket.

And your notebook... I continued, pulling the narrow reporters pad from the other sportscoat pocket. Holding it in one hand I flipped it open with a flick of my wrist, doing my best imitation of Capt. Kirk using his communicator.

Beam me up Scotty, there are no intelligent life forms here, I said, knowing full well Capt. Kirk never used that line, but thus handing down that famous misquote to the Next Generation.

This gimmick and punch line bought me about 10 seconds of their attention and I tried to take full advantage of the break, knowing how fleeting it would be.

Next, you ask the basic reporter questions. Does anyone know what those questions are? No? Okay, Ill give you a hint: they all start with the letter W except for one, which ends with a W. Who knows the answer? WHO knows? OK repeat after me...

Who... what... where... when... the assembled fourth and fifth-graders said after me, with about as much enthusiasm and emotion as they would have mumbled a forced apology to the class nerd to whom they had just administered a wedgie or swirlie.

I had positioned my 260-pound frame on (or rather around) a chair that looked like it had been made for Barbies or those new midget G.I. Joes that replaced the muscular, kung-fu gripping, scar-faced, life-like hair-covered, automatic-punching real men action figures I collected as a child.

My task for the next few minutes was to try to interest a group of E.H. students in the noble profession of journalism. E.H. stands for Emotionally Handicapped, one of many acronyms my wife brought home from her work with the hearing impaired at West Pensacola Elementary, located, as one would expect, in the western portion of Pensacola, a city in the westernmost part of the Florida Panhandle.

It was 1991 and I was a guest speaker in one of my wifes colleagues classes. My goal was to discuss my adventures as a reporter for the Pensacola News Journal. In theory, reporting is an exciting and fulfilling careercranking out the first draft of history under pressing deadlines, providing the public with information with which they will make their most important decisions, shining the light of public attention on the moss-covered, fungus-infested, jungle-rot-ridden holes of bureaucracy and pouring salt on the slugs of corruption, graft and fiscal irresponsibility, etc., etc.

But because most of my days were filled with tax-increment financing, comprehensive growth management plans, mandatory garbage collection and ad valorem tax rates, I wasnt exactly able to roll up my sleeves and show off any scars. If I was a reporter covering the cop or court beat, I probably could have shared some gripping tales of lust and murder only slightly less interesting than what the kids had seen on network TV the night before. Unfortunately for them, my beat was covering the doings of the five-member board of county commissioners and utility authority.

So far my classroom performance was making me wonder whether I should have brought something along to help get their attention and keep it. I had just the thing at home and had given some thought to bringing it. But for some reason I left it in its container, locked behind glass and metal, guarded by a thick steel bar. Actually I knew the reason.

Okay, good. So we have the who, what, when, where and why. Now, what is that last question?

Who? one kid said.

No, we already listed that one.

When?

Just then, I said jokingly. The blank faces told me no one had understood.

Uh, I mean we listed that one too. No, this one is the one reporters question that doesnt start with a W. It ends with a W.

What? another student said.

I said, this one is the one that doesnt start with a W... I said in a louder voiceanother attempt at wit that was about a decade above their heads. It too fell flat.

Who? one of the kids said.

Well, who sounds like it doesnt start with a W, but it does, I said. That is not it.

What is it? another boy asked.

No, what isnt it, I said, starting to feel like I was doing the famous Abbot and Costello baseball routine for a bunch of Chinese students.