One Bizarre Night In 1993: The Flash UFO Wave Of Indiana

On the evening of 13^th July 1993, the state of Indiana exploded with reports of strange objects in the night sky in what is arguably one of the most active single evenings in one location on record. In the space of around 90 minutes, over two dozen sightings were reported, with many others likely remaining unreported. All were clearly reporting the same object – an oval or cigar shape with flashing red lights.

What’s more, timelines put together by some UFO researchers and investigators would appear to suggest the object – whatever it was – was moving in a very purposeful and seemingly predetermined direction. While the sightings were largely dismissed as “helicopters” or “balloons” by those in official quarters and by local media, they remain one of the most intriguing UFO events on record.

Just what was taking place over the skies of the Hoosier State? Were extraterrestrials calmly making their way to their final destination in the American Midwest? Or was there a more down-to-earth explanation, possibly one that revolved around secret military technology? Or were the many dozens of witnesses all genuinely mistaken in what they thought they saw that evening? Did some kind of delayed mass hysteria take place among the local population?

Just what took place that evening remains a mystery. A mystery that very well might have secrets yet to reveal.

A Busy Night Of Sightings Begins

The evening took control of the state of Indiana on 13^th July 1993 like any other night. That was until around 9 pm when residents began witnessing and reporting, strange lights and objects in the night skies. ^[1] One of the first reports came from just outside of Albion (and around 16 miles south of Ligonier, where several sightings would be reported) at 9 pm when a mother and her son witnessed a glowing, oval object that traveled with two red lights ahead of it.

Only moments later, in Ligonier, a 35-year-old woman was driving home from an auction with her two children and her mother with her. ^[2] Suddenly they noticed several bright red-orange lights in the sky. Although the witness couldn’t be certain, it appeared the lights were hovering over the nearby rail lines. They came closer to the tracks and brought the car to a stop as a freight train came passing through. They noticed the lights directly over the top of it at an approximate altitude of 25 feet.

The train headed off into the distance and the witness drove the car over the tracks before bringing the vehicle to a temporary halt once more. They exited the car and turned to face the tracks, noticing immediately that the lights were still there, hovering directly overhead, not making a sound. Then, after several minutes, they silently and calmly moved off to the west.

The witnesses returned to the car, and they continued on their way, arriving home around 20 minutes later. However, upon arriving they witnessed what appeared to be the same lights again, moving past their house. As they did so, the witness noted that the four dogs that were in their kennels at the time began to bark furiously – something they hardly ever did.

The witness estimated that the lights, which were in a horizontal line, appeared to “rotate as a unit”, although they couldn’t make out any details of a solid object connecting them. Incidentally, around the same time, a local woman driving with her child also saw what would appear to be the same lights. However, she would also report hearing a “high-pitched whine” at the same time.

More And More Reports From North-East Indiana

Five minutes later, around five miles to the south of Ligonier, a housewife was driving home when she noticed the lights that appeared to be near her house. At first, she thought the lights were from a firetruck. By the time she pulled up outside her house at 9:10 pm, she could clearly see a stationary object hovering around 20 feet from the ground. Two red lights flashed on the side.

She noticed that two other motorists had brought their vehicles to a halt nearby and were also looking up at the bizarre sight. There appeared to be no sound from the mysterious craft, but the ground beneath it was awash in the red glow of the lights.

At this point, the witness ran into her home in order to tell her husband and son of strange events unfolding outside. They followed her out of the house, eventually seeing the glowing object for themselves. They eventually moved off into the distance.

At around 9:15 pm just outside of Columbia City, a local resident and his neighbor witnessed strange “points of light” in the sky. They estimated that the lights were around half a mile away from them and approximately 100 feet off the ground. They reported hearing no unusual noise or sounds while the lights were in view, which they were for around two minutes.

Definite Descriptions Of A Strange Object

At approximately the same time in Syracuse, a 65-year-old former pilot was at his farmhouse when a sudden humming sound caught his attention. ^[3] In order to try and locate the source of the sound, he ventured outside into his backyard. There, approximately 600 feet in front of him and around 50 to 70 feet above the ground, was a cigar-shaped object.

Its exterior was of a dark gray color, and it had a bright red light at either end. He estimated that the object was just short of 300 feet long and around 25 feet wide. He also recalled a strange humming that appeared to come from around the object as opposed to from it. As he watched the object rose slightly to just above the treetops and “drifted” away, eventually disappearing behind the trees and out of sight. It remained in view for around seven minutes.

Also of interest, much like the case in Ligonier, dogs on the farm howled and barked as the object passed overhead. The witness would recall they only ever acted in such a way when a train passed by, or they heard a police siren. Furthermore, several days after the sighting the witness developed strange hives and felt decisively unwell. Whether this was a coincidence or whether it was connected to the relatively close proximity of the object is unknown.

Only five minutes later, near Cromwell, the witness’s mother also reported seeing the strange lights as she let one of her dogs into the yard. As she did so all of her dogs (she owned four) began to bark wildly. The woman was eventually joined by her daughter and they watched lights as they disappeared into the distance. They noted that at one point, they appeared to rotate as if changing direction before vanishing at lightning speed.

By 9:30 pm the Noble County Sheriff’s Department was made aware of several UFO sightings – most of which were described as a “dark object” with “red lights” which appeared to be moving at a low altitude. From there, though, the sightings and reports would just keep on coming.

“It Had Lights, It Was Quiet, It Was Low, And It Was Slow!”

Another sighting from just outside of Ligonier occurred at 9:30 pm when two teenagers (one of whom was the daughter of the previous sighting) driving along Sparta Lake Road heard a strange humming sound and noticed several strange red lights. Fascinated, they pulled the car to the side of the road so they could get a better look. They watched for several moments as the lights made their way over the fields and farm buildings that lined the roadside, eventually disappearing from view getting closer together as they did so which suggested acceleration.

By the time they arrived at her house, the young girl ran inside to tell her mother what she had seen. The mother – who had also seen the lights too several minutes earlier, remember – would recall how her daughter “looked like she had seen a ghost”.

At around the same time, a man and his teenage son were watching a baseball game on the television in Whitley County when they saw “six to eight red lights” through the window. When he looked closer, the witness felt sure the lights were part of one object, telling a local newspaper later that “it had lights, it was quiet, it was low, and it was slow”. He also noted that it was “so weird because (the object) was so quiet”. It hovered for several moments just above the trees before heading off into the distance.

In Cromwell, also at 9:30 pm, a woman and her son were driving home to their trailer when they witnessed an “oval pattern of pulsating red lights in a straight line”. By the time they pulled up at their trailer and had gotten out of the car, the lights were directly above them at an altitude of around 10 feet. While the red lights “brightened then dimmed” the witness’s son claimed he could see fainter blue lights in between them.

The witnesses then described the lights arranging them into two rows and then moving into the distance in a way that suggested they were “part of the same object”. Also of interest, the two witnesses claimed to have heard a high-pitched whine while the object remained in sight.

The Wolf Lake Sighting

Perhaps one of the most intriguing – and detailed – incidents of the night of 13^th July 1993 occurred at around 9:30 pm around five miles west of Wolf Lake when four members of the same family witnessed the bizarre lights when returning home. ^[4] According to the report, as they were traveling along the highway they witnessed three red lights that were moving parallel to them in the same direction.

They watched as the lights moved across the sky, noting how they remained completely silent. From the way they moved, the witnesses believed the lights (perhaps unlike many of the other witnesses) that they were separate objects. They continued to watch them until they disappeared into the distance in a very definite direction.

In his report for MUFON, Bruce Engstrom noted that the above report “fit with several other reports of red lights moving northwest in Noble County, Indiana”, further noting that they appeared to be “following Route 33from Fort Wayne to the northwest”.

The family arrived home around 15 minutes later. As they were heading inside, two more lights appeared in the sky. However, they felt certain that these lights were the lights of two helicopters, perhaps not least as the typical sound of a helicopter in the distance could be heard. Whether their presence was connected to the strange lights that had been in the skies only minutes earlier or not is not known.

“A Great Big Object, Maybe Like A 747!”

At 9:35 pm in Cromwell came another sighting of the strange, red lights. Three teenagers were driving along the road when one of them noticed several red lights that appeared just above the trees that hugged the roadside. They were to their left-hand side and a little over 300 feet away. They continued along the road with the lights eventually disappearing from sight.

However, after having driven less than a mile two more red lights appeared in the sky in front of them. Once more, they came at the witnesses from their left, this time passing directly over their vehicle and heading off into the distance on their right-hand side. They later estimated the lights to be between 30 and 40 feet above them and they further recalled they made no sounds or noise.

Around the same time in Kimmel, a local woman was driving home when two flashing red lights over the trees caught her attention. After pulling her car into her driveway – the lights still flashing alternately – she pressed the button on her electric garage door opener. However, try as she might, the garage door would only go a part of the way up. She got out of the car, leaving the door halfway open, and ran inside to inform her husband of the strange lights overhead. They both watched them for several minutes before they “floated” away. Incidentally, when the lights left the garage door began working as it should.

Five minutes later, at 9:40 pm in Ligonier, two police officers who were on patrol witnessed an object with red lights on it flying at a low altitude near West Noble High School. To begin with, they believed they were witnessing a small aircraft in distress. However, when they realized there was not a sound to be heard coming from the object, they realized they were looking at something a little more out of the ordinary. One of the officers would state to the local newspaper that they witnessed a “great big object, maybe like a 747”. The two officers followed the object for several minutes before it disappeared behind the trees. Incidentally, the two officers refused to speak to UFO investigators about the sighting, with some investigators suggesting this very well could have been due to orders issued to them not to do so (although this is not clear).

The Sightings Come To A Stop!

Following the sighting near West Noble High School, things appeared to quieten down a little. However, less than an hour later, at 10:30 pm just outside of Topeka, a local resident was alerted to something strange taking place by the suddenly agitated barking of his dogs. Grabbing his rifle, the witness went to see what was unfolding. He would report seeing an object that was shaped like “half a football”, approximately 100 to 150 feet long and around 20 to 30 feet wide.

The object was around 300 to 500 feet away from him and appeared to be hovering over the Elkhart River. The witness watched the object for around 20 minutes, even firing his rifle into the air in an attempt to get a response from it at one point (no response came). Then, the object suddenly began to move silently away from him, eventually disappearing from sight.

In Columbia City, a local engineer was driving along the road when he saw what he first thought were the lights of three helicopters. However, the more he watched them the more he realized that something was a little strange with how they were moving. When he realized he couldn’t hear any sound whatsoever coming from the lights he dismissed the idea that they were helicopters overhead. He would go on to describe the lights as “spooky” and “freaky” and stated he was at a loss as to what they might have been.

Around the same time in Cherubusco a local resident was watching a baseball game on television when he heard a sudden noise outside. By the time he had stepped outside, he saw what he believed to be four helicopters moving over his house, however, the noise they made was quieter and unlike what he would expect for helicopters. What’s more, he could see no markings on what he believed was their underside. They would remain in view for around two minutes in total before they had disappeared into the distance.

And like that, around 90 minutes after they began to be seen, the sudden wave of UFO sightings over the northeast part of Indiana came to a stop. Just what all those people witnessed is very much open to debate.

Immediate Coverage In The Newspapers

Although it wasn’t remembered well outside of UFO circles as much as we might expect given the flurry of incidents that evening, there was a certain amount of newspaper coverage at the time. Indeed, it was when many residents read the newspapers the following morning they began to realize that many people than just themselves witnessed the strange lights, and quite possibly encouraged many to make a report of their own.

Perhaps one such couple were Robin and Earl Todd who claimed they witnessed the strange lights, as did their two daughters, but it was only they “read the paper…it kind of clicked”. After reading the accounts of some of the other apparent witnesses Robin Todd would further state that “from the way they described it, it sounds the same” as the object they witnessed. Robin would further offer the newspaper that none of them “wants to say it’s a UFO, but it was something that didn’t act natural”. Incidentally, she also conceded that they were not sure whether to speak of the incident or not “because people think you’re weird”. We have to consider that many other witnesses likely saw something that evening and opted to keep it to themselves.

It is perhaps worth noting that it was offered that many of the sightings could very well have been helicopters. Harlen Miller, for example, a one-time US army veteran and (at the time) a captain with the Noble County Sheriff’s Department, claimed that he clearly saw “four choppers” that went over his home near Wolf Lake in a “diamond formation” on the night in question. He would claim that it would have been difficult to see them in the night sky but “they were loud” and “extremely low”.

While this might account for some of the sightings that evening, many detail a definite object that could hardly be mistaken for a helicopter. What’s more, many of the witnesses clearly stated that the lights (or object) didn’t make a sound. The Todd family, for example, who we mentioned above, were positively puzzled as to the lack of sound, not least as they lived close to the airport and were more than used to the many noises and sounds of arriving and departing aircraft.

Another army veteran, a retired Air Force master sergeant, Clarence McDaniel, stated to the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette that the objects could very well have been Apache helicopters which he described as “really quiet and very swift”. Another expert, Sergeant Charlane Busse of the Indiana National Guard described the Apache helicopters as “awesomely silent”. Could a helicopter really be that quiet so people would not realize what it was? It is perhaps possible. However, it is still unlikely as there are no (known) Apache helicopters based in Indiana (although that is not to say it couldn’t have entered Indiana air space from elsewhere).

While some suggested the Doppler effect might even be an explanation for this (when the source of the sound waves moves and so causes people to hear sounds different to how they might expect) it would not account for a complete and total lack of sound.

Perhaps some of the sightings – including Miller’s – very well could have been helicopters. We might ask, then, if this was the case, were they there by chance, or were they there because of the strange object being reported over northeast Indiana?

Other Sightings Before And After

There are several other encounters from Indiana that occurred in the days and weeks before and after the explosion of sightings on July 13^th that are worthy of making note of here. For example, at around 9 pm on the evening of 7^th July in Paragon, a local resident was watching television at the family home when their brother burst through the door claiming that a strange object was in the sky outside. ^[5] The witness and the rest of the family got up from the seats and made their way outside. Much to their disbelief, a huge “bright green ball was moving across the sky”. As it moved there was an occasional glow of red light.

The witness and their mother stood and watched in amazement as the object continued onwards and disappeared behind the tops of the trees. They remained where they were not daring to move when suddenly a bright green object that appeared to be “in the shape of a V” shot into the air and faded into the distance within seconds. Once more, they remained where they were for a minute or so in case anything else out of the ordinary occurred and then went back inside the house.

By the time they were in the house, the witness’s mother was calling their father to tell him what had just happened. However, instead of being connected, a voice on the line informed her that the “call had not gone through” before it went dead. After several moments the line would return to normal but the same thing happened each time she attempted to make the call. Whether the interference with the phone line was connected to the UFO’s presence or not is not known. Several hours later, the phoneline returned to normal.

On the same evening, at around 11 pm in Marion when a local resident was walking through their neighborhood with their aunt. ^[6] As they were walking they turned the corner and headed along an apartment complex opposite which was a radio station and a large field. It was as they were looking toward this field when the witness’s aunt suddenly drew their attention to a strange light over the top of the field. At first, the witness believed the light was nothing more than a helicopter until they realized it was moving in complete silence.

Both of them stood completely still and studied the anomaly closely. They could clearly see a “dark object with very bright lights at both ends” moving across the field. What’s more, every now and then a light would flash on the top of the craft. It moved over the top of the radio station, heading closer to them as it did so. So close, that they could “almost see under it”. Then, without warning, it “exploded into a red flash” and disappeared “quicker than anything” the witness had ever seen. The pair remained where they were looking at the sky where the object had been only moments earlier for several seconds.

A week later, at around 10 pm on the 12^th July several friends were resting momentarily on a piece of grass after having spent the evening playing basketball. ^[7] One of them was laying directly on their back looking up at the night sky when they noticed a “bright, circular-oval shape” that was “hovering back and forth” overhead.

The witness quickly called to his friends to look upward which they duly did, each also noticing the strange object. However, to their amazement, with each of them already focused on the sky another object appeared almost the same as the first one. They “circled each other” as they moved across the sky before coming to a sudden stop. Then they “shot skyward at a very high speed”.

The Mongo Photo Case

It is perhaps also worth our time examining another UFO case from Indiana that occurred a little over a year later on 31^st August 1994 in Mongo around 40 miles from Fort Wayne and only five miles from the border with Michigan. ^[8] On the night in question, at around 8:30 pm, the witnesses – “JK”, a fire supervisor for the Forest Management Division, “DB”, a firefighter, “FB” a retiree, as well as a Michigan state trooper and a retired postal work (both of whom wished to remain anonymous) – all from the neighboring state of Michigan, were sat around their campfire at the Trading Post Campgrounds.

JK would later tell UFO investigators that they suddenly noticed a strange object that looked, at first, similar to the moon. However, when he realized that the moon wasn’t visible that night he knew whatever the glowing object was that was visible through the trees, it was something out of the norm.

As they continued to watch it the object suddenly moved out from behind the trees until it was unobscured. It hovered for several moments in front of the shocked campers near the road. JK would state “it was a flying saucer” and that the “white glow (of it) turned transparent”. He would further recall that it looked like a “white strobe light on top of the dome” while underneath a “bright red flash of light”, also like a strobe, flashed several times. The next thing the men realized, the object had vanished into the distance, “very quickly, within seconds”. Before it disappeared, though, several pictures had been captured. You can see one of those below.

The following day two other corroborating witnesses offered to JK what they had seen the previous evening. Two hunters who had been on their way to the campsite were around half a mile outside of Mungo when they witnessed a bizarre glowing, white object moving off to the east with great speed. What’s more, later investigations would unearth other potential corroborating witnesses in newspaper reports.

The first was a family named as “the Martins” who claimed to have seen the object and they were certain it was nothing terrestrial such as a blimp. The second sighting occurred in nearby Hamilton at around 8:45 pm when a husband and wife along with their two daughters witnessed a glowing object that moved silently at an approximate altitude of 100 feet (which was the same altitude that JK claimed it to have been).

The sightings remain unexplained, and it is not known if there is a connection to the wave of sightings that July evening the previous year.

The Equally Little Known 2004 Indiana UFO Wave

Just over a decade after the 13^th July 1993 UFO wave, another wave of sightings hit the Hoosier State in April 2004. ^[9] According to an article in the South Bend Tribune, multiple residents around Rochester reported a “disc-shaped” object at around 10 pm on 8^th April.

One of the witnesses, Bev Carpenter, and her teenage granddaughter, Shannay Carpenter, were pulling into her driveway when Shannay suddenly exclaimed, “Grandma, what’s that?” When she turned her attention to where her granddaughter was pointing she could clearly see the bizarrely shaped object above them.

She would recall that there appeared to be “lights sort of aiming downward” with some heading to the sides and that there was “no color, (and) no sound”, and that it simply hovered “right above the tops of the trees”. The lights appeared to be in two rows of three each equally separated. After around 20 seconds, they went off temporarily before coming on once more.

Carpenter would recall that object then began moving slowly, heading eastward. It was soon blocked from their sight by the houses. Both Bev and her granddaughter ran to the front of the drive but by the time they arrived the object was nowhere to be seen. They weren’t sure if it had disappeared quickly into the distance or if the “lights were out”. In total, from first noticing the craft to it disappearing from their sight, the entire episode lasted likely no longer than a minute.

Bev would report the sighting to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department, who received several very similar calls around the same time from other residents around the region.

Perhaps an even strange detail is worth noting about Bev’s reporting of the incident to Peter Davenport at the National UFO Reporting Center. She would report the details by telephone to Davenport and agreed to email an official report. However, she would claim that when she tried to do this, her e-mail failed with a simple message/instruction stating, “Difficulties – try at a later time”. She further stated that as this was happening, her lights dimmed several times. At the time the report went out in the South Bend Tribune, Davenport claimed he had received “about a dozen calls” regarding the sighting in Rochester (although many of these details remain largely unknown).

The following morning Bev contacted the local radio station, WROI, and agreed to speak live on air. According to the news director at the time, while Bev spoke about her encounter, the station received 10 calls from other members of the public who had seen a very similar, if not the same object on the night in question.

One such report came from Gene Winters, who claimed he and his wife a very similar craft hovering over a pond near their home at approximately the same time as Bev’s sighting. He further recalled the object had “two rows of lights, like two planes flying together”. It appeared to Gene that the object was around 50 feet from the ground, and he further noted that the lights appeared to not illuminate the areas around them. At this point, he decided to walk to the other patio door. However, by the time he arrived there, the object had vanished. He would recall it was “just like the lights were turned off”.

Incidentally, Carpenter also received several calls from members of the public who claimed they too saw the strange glowing object that evening. How many other sightings there might have been that were not reported in one way or another can only be guessed. Like the sightings just over a decade previously though, there appeared to be a strange, solid object taking a very definite path over Rochester that evening in April 2004.

The McBroom Footage

Several months after the multiple sightings in Rochester, another intriguing photograph was captured of an unidentified object over Fort Wayne on the evening of 11^th October 2004. A local resident named Brandon McBroom noticed the strange object overhead while driving and quickly pulled over and reached for the family’s video camera. ^[10]

Several experts in aviation, natural phenomena, and UFOs examined the footage, with the overall view being not only was it authentic but it appeared to show a genuinely unexplained aerial object. The Assistant State Director for MUFON, Roger Sugden, offered about the footage that the object was clearly “not a meteor” as it was “too slow”.

However, others were less convinced, with one expert offering that the high speed with which it appeared to be falling was perhaps suggestive of a meteor, while another claimed they were “more inclined to think it’s space junk”.

You can see a still frame from that video footage below.

Many Matching Details But No Definite Answers

There are several things to note about the mini-UFO wave in Indiana on that July night in 1993. The first and most obvious one is that the descriptions of the object or lights (it seemingly depended on each witness’s view as to whether they could see a solid object or just lights) were almost identical. That something strange was in the skies overhead that night is surely without question. And likewise, although some people reported hearing a strange whistling or whining, most claimed the lights remained completely silent.

Even the way it moved matched almost exactly, with most saying it would drift or float calmly, to begin with, before then moving off at great speed. What’s more, for those that witnessed the lights disappear, they claimed they did so in such a way that did indeed suggest they were part of one solid object.

There is also, as we will examine a little further in a moment, the apparently purposeful direction that the lights were taking that evening – as if on a predetermined route (which would surely quash any notions that balloons of some sort were responsible for the sightings that evening).

We might also highlight the animal reactions to at least two of the reports. This is something that is often reported in other close proximity UFO sightings and perhaps suggests to us that whatever was in the skies over the Hoosier State that evening, it was something decisively strange and unusual. So unusual that it evoked such a response. Much like the reports themselves, how many other instances of farm animals and family pets acting in such a way on the night in question that are not on record might there be, many of which may not have even been witnessed to be reported?

Like almost all UFO cases – especially ones with multiple reports – the number of questions far outweigh any potential answers.

A Discreet But Fascinating Night Of UFO Activity

Whatever happened that night and what the many residents of Indiana witnessed remains a mystery today over a quarter of a century later. That it received little attention by comparison to other UFO incidents is perhaps a shame. There are perhaps many reasons for this ranging from the location being one that is far from media spotlights of other big cities or states such as California or New York, combined with a slightly lesser interest, in general, regarding UFOs than there would be only several years later.

We might perhaps note similarities to the much more well-known Phoenix Lights incident that occurred just short of four years later over Arizona in March 1997. That was an incident that also had multiple witnesses from right across the state and even resulted in various photographs and pieces of video footage being captured. To say it is one of the most credible and intriguing incidents of the Modern UFO era would be an understatement.

We might recall that Bruce Engstrom noted that the lights (or object) appeared to be taking a very definite route over the state. Much the same can be said of the Phoenix Lights incident which saw the seemingly triangular craft move purposely northwest across the state of Arizona (with several sightings from neighboring states).

Whatever was in the skies over northeastern Indiana that evening in the summer of 1993 and for what purpose remain unknown. And while it is not beyond possibility that further sightings and details might become known over time, it is most likely that only a sizeable release of information (if indeed any such information exists) will shed any new light onto the events.

The video below looks at some of the most intriguing UFO sightings.