Friday, February 24, 2012

1953 - The Year a UFO Landed on Bishop's Lodge Road


Dateline October 25, 1953.

Jimmy Milligan, 16 yr old Santa Fe High School junior, reported sighting an unusual flying “thing.” Milligan was driving home about 9:30 pm, returning from the Young People's Fellowship Dance at the Methodist Church, and heading north on Bishop's Lodge Road, just passing the baseball field.

Suddenly, he saw a ten foot long object floating floating directly across the path of his car. Milligan swerved off the road and got out of his car. On the dirt embankment in the weeds, Milligan saw a metal object, about 10 feet long, shaped like two flat boat hulls attached together.

Milligan said, “ Naturally, I was a little bit scared and hesitant about getting too near it. But when I reached out my hand to touch it, it raised straight up in the air for a couple of feet and took off in a steep climb toward Santa Fe.” Milligan drove home in a hurry

You should have seen him when he came in the that door,” Milligan's mother said. “He was white and shaky. He looked so odd.”

I want to tell you something, “ young Milligan told his mother. “You and Daddy'll think I'm crazy but it happened. I'll swear it did. On a stack of bibles.”

His father, B.F. Milligan, a repair foreman for the phone company, took Jimmy back to the site and, together they searched for it. “We didn't see much,” Mr. Milligan reported, “ because there was only the light of the moon to see. We didn't have a spotlight in the car.” Although Jimmy was shy about telling anyone about his story, the newspapers learned of it and persuaded Jimmy to give an interview.

He told the New Mexican reporter that he nearly struck the “thing” with his car as he was driving home. The object was metal colored, like aluminum and shaped like a great big bullet, about three feet high, ten feet long and five feet across. While he was reluctant to touch the object which was resting on an embankment, his curiosity made him reach out. As he did so, the “thing” began roaring and rose up in the air and began climbing in to the air.

There wasn't any glow or spitting fire,” Millingan reported, “I couldn't feel any heat. No smell of carbon monoxide in the air. When it was taking off, it made a sound like a washing machine, but even faster. You know how a small airplane engine sounds. It was sort of like that, only more high pitched.”

Milligan's mother, a teacher at Harvey Junior High School, said that her son has never been the over-imaginative type of boy, prone to making up tall tales. She said Milligan was a good student with a B average at Santa Fe High School, who spent his free time tinkering with his car, an old roadster.

When queried, Brigadier General G.G. Eddy, commanding officer of the White Sands Proving Grounds issued a public statement, doubting that that “thing” came from the proving grounds. He disclosed that there were many projects of a highly classified nature at the Proving grounds but that he was not at liberty to talk about them.

There are no later news accounts of any further investigation into the October 25 sighting or any explanation for the “thing” that Milligan saw. “You know,” Milligan told the reporter, “I kind of wish I had hit the thing as it came in front my my car. Then I'd have some proof, all right!”

During the course of his interview with the local newspaper, young Milligan drew sketches of the “thing” and helped a New Mexican artist sketch the object for publication. The next day, on the front page, the newspaper published the story and the artists sketches of the unidentified flying object that landed on Bishop's Lodge Road.

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