Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on November 9th, 2010
Shared from our sister site, UFOMystic.
In the field of UFO and paranormal research, certain years stand out among others. Thus we have 1947 best remembered for Kenneth Arnold’s historic sighting over Mt. Rainier, 1952 for the “UFO siege” of Washington, D.C., 1961 for the Betty and Barney Hill abduction, and so forth.
But of all these years, perhaps none is so important as 1973 – a year of no special significance to the younger reader, or to those recently entering the field, but all too memorable to those who actively researched anomalies, or those who just followed their exploits in the press of the time. Dubbed “The Year of the Humanoids”, 1973 represented the high-water mark of CE-3s occurring in the outer space of the roads, fields and byways of our world as opposed to the “inner space” of homes and bedrooms, where the contemporary abduction phenomenon now occurs.
In an age that seeks to distill the high-strangeness and anomalous properties of UFO cases, an alchemy bent on finding nothing but nuts-and-bolts in the crucible, it is refreshing to find a book like Stan Gordon’s Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook, which looks back at the year 1973 and the events that occurred in the Keystone State. A moment in time so baffling and filled with activity that law enforcement turned to researchers of arcane for assistance.
Luckily, Stan Gordon happened to be in the right place and the right time, ably assisted by the team of researchers collectively known as the Westmoreland County UFO Study Group. During the fever pitch of activity, which began with unexplained aerial lights and encompassed some of the most active (and hair-raising) sightings of the paranormal humanoid known as Bigfoot, phone calls were coming in at all hours of the day. Silent Invasion chronicles this mind-bending moment in the research of the unknown, previously available only in old periodicals and newsletters.
The reader is treated to the first CE-1 incidents over Southern Pennsylvania, the CE-2’s researched by members of WCUFOSG, and one of the most chilling CE-3 events in the annals of UFO research: the October 25, 1973 incident in Uniontown, PA – the crossroads of ufology, Bigfoot research and perhaps even demonology, witnessed by members of the research team.
A word of advice to those venturing into the subject for the first time – read this with a light on!-Scott Corrales
INEXPLICATA
Source: Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO Bigfoot Casebook on UFODigest
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
I was a high school student living in Westmoreland County in 1973. What a very cool time that was. Newspapers from Pittsburgh to Johnstown had front page stories about sightings, encounters, and all manner of evidence. The Latrobe and Derry areas were highly active. A local radio talk show hosted by a man named Joe Geohring on a 15,000 watt station in Latrobe was can’t miss listening for about a month. He was Art Bell before there was an Art Bell.
We spent many nights in search of our own personal bigfoot. To say that bigfoot was a sensation in that area would be an understatement. Bigfoot fever swept western Pennsylvania that resonates with me still.
The really weird aspect was the cross pollination of UFO’s and Bigfoot. I still haven’t quite come to accept that premise, but that’s what drove the wagon back then. Speaking for myself, Mister Gordon and an army of amateur researchers who loved every minute of that summer and fall, that was the high water mark for Bigfoot in western Pa..