Harrington news

Friday evening, October 30, Margie Hall of the Lincoln County EDC introduced Peter Davenport, the Director of the National UFO Reporting Center, a Harrington City Councilman and the owner of a nearby missile site. Davenport’s presentation was a benefit for the Harrington Public Development Authority, and Hall explained that the mission of the PDA is to bring economic development to Harrington.

This was Davenport’s fourth presentation in the Harrington Opera House since 2009. He questioned himself saying, “How did you get started with UFOs?” To which he responded, “I can answer that in just two words, sheer misfortune.” The auditorium seating was full with more than 160 in attendance, and extra chairs were brought in to accommodate the large crowd.

Davenport’s Center collects and records all UFO sightings, preserves them and makes them available for study by others. Davenport is on a weekly radio broadcast in an attempt to keep the public informed as to current activity, and he makes frequent presentations at a wide variety of venues, including the local high school. He has been director of the Center for more than 20 years.

With slides to augment Davenport’s presentation, case study after case study was presented. Several recent examples were given, such as the sighting in Florence, Ore. on March 9, 2015 by a grandmother and her grandson who were taking a short-cut home from shopping. They reported seeing an object hovering that had an apparent antenna on one side that came out away from the craft and then up higher than the craft. In the Boardman/Arlington area of Oregon on February 19, 2015, a disc-shaped object was viewed with down-turned corners.

A recent phenomenon has been the viewing of red, orange and yellow fireballs at Friday Harbor on January 15, 2015, Helsinki, Finland on April 29, 2012 and Seattle on July 4, 2014. This last sighting was described as three orange lights over Lake Union prior to the fire works display. In the past 40 months, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 reports of have been made of the red, orange and yellow lights. The report from Arlington, Wash. on June 6, 2015 at 10 p.m. was that there were more than a dozen of these lights in the sky.

Researchers, investigators and enthusiasts study the reports of these colored lights and compare them to sky-lanterns. The most important factor with identifying which are sky lanterns is the presence of prevailing winds. Davenport showed photos of sky-lanterns as well as “the colored lights.” A video was also shown of eight orange objects in the sky at Woodruff, S.C. on October 24, 2015. The lanterns light was brightest at the bottom and they were taller than they were wide.

Davenport made brief mention with photographic proof of the “Mutilated Car” case in Chicago, Ill. on Nov 4, 2008, election night. The metal of the car was tremendously dented, with not a scratch or piece of paint missing. It appeared as thought the life-force had been sucked out of it, as though it were a tomato. This story was written about in detail in a report by the Mutual UFO Network or MUFON in October 2012 for those interested in satisfying their curiosity. Another bizarre anomaly was a Cessna 208 accident in Memphis, Tenn. on October 23, 2002 that ended in tragedy. The pilot was last heard to say, “I had to divert, I had to divert” and the signal went dead. The engine to the plane was found one mile before the wreckage of the plane. The engine gave every appearance of having been mechanically cut out of the plane. The pilot died and was found in the craft. Davenport presented this without making any conclusions, leaving the audience to think for themselves and search out the truth.

Davenport’s last main topic of abductions created even more interest in the audience. His first example was that of an elk taken from a herd near Mount St. Helen’s on February 25, 1999 which was witnessed by men planting trees. They described how one elk was away from the herd. A beam of light came down from an object in the sky and literally lifted the elk up and into the object and removed it to another mountain where the elk was released, rendered emaciated, dead.

August 4, 2002, was the date of death of Mrs. Todd Sees who was sucked up in a beam of light. There were 250 people in the search party in Northumberland County, Pa. The body was found hanging in a tree the next day. A MUFON article of this event was written in the February 2013 issue. Davenport also recommended the 1928 story “7 Minutes in Eternity” by the American author, Dr. William Dudley Pelley of Altadena, Calif.

Davenport teases his audience with just enough details and evidence to entice keen interest, but allows the audience to be the judge. East of Miami, Florida, April 29, 1991, 30 whales had beached themselves. Usually teams attempt to coax any beached animals back out into the sea. Between 15 and 30 military helicopters swooped in, lifted the whales off of the beach and carried them to an aquarium where they were lodged 13 months, rehabilitated, then flown 150 miles off the coast and dropped into the ocean. Each whale weighed an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 pounds and all had deformed tails when found on the beach. Davenport questions, “Why would the U.S. government spend that type of resources for whales? How could the government acquire aquarium of that size on short notice? Why were the whales not released in local waters rather than spending so much money to transport them so far off shore?” Again Davenport leaves the audience to figure out their own explanations.

Davenport highlighted his criteria for case selections including that the report had to be a dramatic event with multiple individual reports. He cited the work of astronomer Barbara Middlehurst in which there were more than 8,000 references over a period of 500 years by astronomers.

UFO sightings are not a new phenomenon, but they are increasing in frequency. Davenport mentioned a December 1994 report of a mother and her six kids seeing beams of light in a wheat field, in winter with snow cover. One of the beams hovered over their car and then departed. There were no machines in the field and no tracks were found in the field. Without giving details, he asked how many in the audience had seen the sighting in Harrington recently which he himself had observed. Several raised their hands. The evening ended with a brief question and answer period.

The second meeting of representatives from most of the local organizations in Harrington was held October 22 in the art room of the opera house, dubbed the Harrington Happenings Organization meeting. Paula Pike (Chamber, PTA), Jay Kane (PDA, HOHS), Allen Barth (Chamber, PTA and Studebaker Garage), Dillon Haas (HOHS, School, Lions, EMT), Stephen Hardy (Lions), Susan Harding (Food Bank), Heather Slack (school), Kathy Hoob (Chamber), Bunny Haugan (Chamber, HOHS, PDA) and Karen Robertson (HOHS, webmaster) were present. The Chamber of Commerce, with the help of the Lions Club, is working on signs for Harrington. The PTA is working toward the acquisition of a new playground structure which will cost about $5,000. The school will help match the funds gathered by the PTA, which presently has $1,500. The PTA recently held its Halloween carnival, and the funds from it had not been included.

EDDM stands for Every Door Direct Mail. It is an inexpensive way to send mail to local addresses to advertise or inform. Becca from the post office is willing to work with anyone to increase the amount of mass mailings. The more mail we can generate in Harrington, the better it is for the retention of a Harrington post office. Rules for this are also available on the Internet.

The Food Bank is sponsoring a Thanksgiving dinner as a community meal. Jenny Mallery is in charge.

The Lions Club along with the Homemakers are continuing to collect for their Flag Project for the city cemetery. Craig Oestreich is the contact for those interested in obtaining flags as memorials. The Lions Club intends to rejuvenate the BBQ building in the city park next spring.

The Harrington PDA applied for a grant to complete high speed Internet service for the downtown area.

The Harrington Chamber of Commerce will provide goody bags for children who visit with Santa December 5 at the Harrington Opera House. With the help of school kids they will also create and distribute Christmas food baskets to Harrington senior citizens.

The PTA reported that their movie nights were well attended this year. In the discussion that followed, the possibility of working with the Harrington Opera House for future movie nights was mentioned. The PTA has also moved their meetings from immediately after school to 7 p.m. on the second Wednesday of every month, which has increased parental involvement.

An action item that resulted from the discussion was that the Chamber of Commerce would create and maintain an overall list of meeting dates, times, and locations of meetings of Harrington organizations. Kathy Hoob began the process by collecting emails from representatives of the organizations in attendance.