There is one physical detail of the Kecksburg object that is not widely known that was reported by some witnesses who had a close view of the object. They reported seeing a protuberance extending out from the front of the object. That was possibly a hatch.

December 9, 2025, will mark sixty years since I heard the breaking news reports of what would later become known as the Kecksburg UFO Incident. I was sixteen years old at that time, and I was already curious about alleged UFO sightings that were being reported from around the country. I have never personally had the opportunity to see a UFO.

The news story breaks in the Pittsburgh area.

It was on the evening of December 9, 1965, that I turned on my AM radio to listen to the Contact radio talk show on KDKA radio in Pittsburgh. To my surprise, the program was focusing on breaking news concerning a fiery object that had been observed in the sky over Canada, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, including the Pittsburgh area. Local newspapers, radio, and TV offices as well as police stations were jammed with many phone calls concerning the luminous object that had passed over the area.

Later that evening, additional news was broadcast that the object that had been seen over the Pittsburgh area had crashed into a wooded area close to Kecksburg in Westmoreland County. More startling was the information that the military was arriving in that area to search for an unidentified flying object. Hundreds of people traveled to that rural community to try to get a look at the object that had reportedly landed.

Reporters confirm the military presence.

During that Thursday evening reporters from numerous radio and TV stations, and newspapers, also rushed to the Kecksburg area to confirm the reports. I later had the opportunity to interview many of those reporters. Various reporters confirmed that they observed military equipment and personnel around Kecksburg and near the area where the object had reportedly fallen. Bob Gatty, a reporter for the local Greensburg Tribune-Review, was on the scene that night, and later wrote about his experiences.

Army, Air Force, and NASA personnel reported at the scene. Navy reportedly was also involved.

Numerous people who were in the area that evening confirmed seeing Army and Air Force personnel around the Kecksburg area and near the location where the object had fallen.

I also interviewed other locals, some who said they also saw or interacted with NASA personnel in that area.

Photo from Stan Gordon files-The Kecksburg V.F.D. truck station was reported to have been used as a temporary military command post during the evening of December 9, 1965.

There is information that the Navy had an interest in the incident soon after it had been announced that an object had fallen. The Navy was reportedly also involved with the examination of the recovered object after it arrived at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

Photo from Stan Gordon files-I was told by former Kecksburg firefighters (now deceased) that some of their crew had driven members of the military brass on a fire truck like what is shown in the photo, down to the woods where the object had fallen. When they got closer to the site, the military stopped the vehicle. The military men left the truck and walked the rest of the way, and made the firefighters return to their station.

Some people who got close to the woods and the impact area were stopped that evening by armed soldiers. Witnesses have gone on record and stated that soldiers aimed their rifles at them and ordered them to leave the area.

During the years following that incident, I interviewed hundreds of people who had information concerning what had taken place.

This is the sketch of the object drawn by a witness who observed it pass low overhead moments before impact.

The object changes direction along its trajectory.

I learned from many witnesses that as the object passed over the Pittsburgh area, it was moving from northwest to southeast from Allegheny County into Westmoreland County and over the city of Greensburg. It moved toward Route 30 east near what was then the Gee Bee department store and made a turn to the south. The object was observed from such areas as Margurite, Norvelt, Mammoth, and over the outskirts of Kecksburg, as it continued to move toward the mountains near Laurelville about 3.5 miles away.

 The object makes a slow descent.

The object reportedly hesitated over the mountain, then began to travel back toward the outskirts of Kecksburg, then turned again and dropped down into the woods. Local residents who saw the object fall said that it was moving quite slowly and went down as though it was making a controlled landing. There were no parachutes reported at the site during or after the landing.

The local residents discover an unusual object semi-buried in the ground.

We did not know at the time that some of the locals who saw the object fall into the nearby woods went down into that area thinking that an aircraft had fallen. What they located was unlike anything they had ever seen before. What they saw was a metallic acorn shaped object partially buried in the ground. The device was large enough for a man to stand up inside of. The object was a bronze-gold color, and appeared to be one solid piece of metal, which had no apparent weld marks, rivets, or seams.

At the back of the acorn shaped device was what witness Jim Romansky called the bumper area. That is where what looked like unusual symbols were seen on the surface. Romansky, who was a machinist for much of his life and worked with metals, said the object looked as though it had been formed from liquid metal that had been poured into an acorn shaped mold.

Two military flatbed tractor trailer trucks at the scene that evening.

Over the years there were certain details that I did not publicly reveal until I had enough independent confirmation from witnesses. One such detail was that there was not one, but two military flatbed tractor trailer trucks on the scene near the impact site that evening near Kecksburg. I interviewed one of the drivers many years after the incident had taken place. The first truck, carrying a flat load of cargo covered with a tarp, left the area earlier that evening. It traveled to the Air Force base in Pittsburgh. The driver had no idea what was under the tarp.

The military recovers the object.

The object was removed from the area around 1 AM, on the second military flatbed tractor trailer truck covered with a tarp. Independent sources, including former military, confirmed that that truck and object arrived at Lockbourne Air Force base near Columbus, Ohio during the early morning hours of December 10th. That truck was backed into a hangar, and an armed security team surrounded the hangar. The truck and its cargo only stayed at that base for a brief time. It later continued its journey to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I learned that the object was delivered and stored in a building in the Area B section of the base. It was not the infamous Hangar 18.

Military Jets reportedly pursued the object.

Sketch from Stan Gordon Files

Over many years, various independent witnesses provided details to me that one or two military jets were observed over various locations of Ohio and Pennsylvania following along the path that the object had taken soon after it had passed.

A Military Jet Reportedly Fired a Missile at The Kecksburg Object Over Michigan.

In 2024, I received some interesting information from a man from Michigan via email. I conducted a long interview with him the next day. That person had never heard about the Kecksburg case until several years ago. He told me that he realized that he was an inadvertent witness to the incident. The witness made me aware that he was elderly and not feeling well and he wanted to pass on this information to me while he was still around. He was able to provide me with certain details that his experience did take place on that date in 1965. Briefly, he was on a date at a drive-in restaurant near Pontiac, Michigan. It was just getting dark outside, as they received their food and pulled away to an area where other cars were parked.

A brief time later what looked like a big dark ball surrounded by red and yellow flames passed quickly overhead traveling from northwest to southeast. What happened next frightened the witness even more. The witness observed an F-101 Voodoo military fighter jet trailing the object. The military jet fired a missile at the object as it moved directly along the same path. Moments later, the sky was illuminated again. The witness stated that what he saw “scared him quite a bit.” The man also mentioned that six other people had also witnessed what had taken place. You can read that report here: https://www.stangordon.info/wp/2024/12/09/the-kecksburg-pennsylvania-ufo-incident-59-years-later-a-new-detail-revealed/

The incident was included in the Project Blue Book files but not listed under Kecksburg.

The only official document concerning the Kecksburg incident was in the Air Force Project Blue Book files. That document was uncovered in the mid-1980s by researcher Ray Boeche. Included in that report it was stated, “A further call was made to the Oakdale Radar site in Pennsylvania. A three-man team has been dispatched to Acme to investigate and pick up an object that started a fire.” I learned that some witnesses who were involved with the incident had been interviewed by an Air Force officer at the time. They lived close to the impact site, however, they had an Acme mailing address. That is likely why the incident location was listed as Acme rather than Kecksburg. While the report showed a lot of interest from various agencies concerning this incident, the report also indicates that a search of the area found nothing.

The Steel City- Nike/Hercules Missile Air Defense System Reportedly went on Alert.

At the time of the incident, the Pittsburgh (Steel City) was guarded by the U.S. Army’s Nike/Hercules Air Defense System. Those installations surrounded the Pittsburgh area with radar and missile launch sites. Many years ago, information was received that as the object passed over the Pittsburgh area, sirens were going off at a launch site near Pittsburgh. The sound of sirens at the base reportedly indicated that missiles were being raised for a possible launch. No missiles were fired.

That site reportedly remained on high alert throughout the night. The defense systems operations center known as “Missile Master” was located at the Oakdale Army support facility. That is the facility where members of the 662nd Radar Squadron were stationed. Some members of that unit were involved with the Kecksburg incident.

Investigators Returned to the Impact Site the Next Day.

The day following the incident newspapers reported that a search of the wooded area until the early morning hours found nothing. State police blamed the sighting on the imagination of young children. The official explanation was that witnesses had seen a meteor passing through the sky. The search had officially ended.

That was not the case. Over the years I learned from various local residents that the day after the occurrence, (Friday) a smaller group of investigators were seen going back into the woods where the object had fallen. That group included men in white decontamination outfits. John Hayes and his brother, who lived close to where the object fell, watched the military activity on Thursday night from the windows around their house. The woods were their playground, and they played in there daily.

The next morning, they walked toward the woods to look around. The first thing they noticed was that the fence that secured their animals had been cut, apparently to let the military vehicles pass through to move toward the impact site. When the boys entered the woods, they noticed that some trees had been knocked down. They also encountered a man with some type of device possibly a metal detector or Geiger counter. The man told the boys that they needed to leave the woods, that there was the possibility of radiation in that area. The boys ran home not knowing what radiation meant. Two different area newspapers also confirmed that investigators did return to the site the next day.

What was the object?

There have been numerous theories since the time the incident occurred speculating what the object might have been that fell near Kecksburg in 1965. The first explanation I heard was told to me by members of a family who were involved with the incident. An Air Force officer spoke with them that evening. He told them that a Gemini capsule had been expelled in the area. Some of the other explanations have been a meteor, a malfunctioning Soviet Venus probe, various U.S. or Soviet space projects, a projectile fired from a giant gun on a railroad car in Canada, a bomb, GE Mark2 Reentry Vehicle, and the Nazi Bell. No definitive proof has been presented to confirm any of these theories. There are others who saw the object or had knowledge of the incident and believe the object was not manmade.

I continue to keep an open mind concerning the origin of the object. I speculated for years that this could have been some very secretive, advanced, man-made space probe that had some re-entry-control capabilities.

There has been other information that has surfaced over the years. There are witnesses who saw something other than the object, and they believe that what they saw was not from this planet.

Was Something Inside of the object?

My close research associate the late George Lutz, a former Air Force pilot and officer, spent years investigating the Kecksburg case with me and interviewing witnesses. We discussed among ourselves that this object could have been some type of escape pod that was man-made or from somewhere else.

During my many years of investigating the Kecksburg case I crossed paths with numerous interesting individuals. I also had contact with some important people in the UFO field and others who had interesting UFO related knowledge to share. One such individual was the late Len Stringfield. Len was often referred to as the Father of UFO Crash Retrievals. Len and I began our communications in the early 1970s, and that continued until his passing in 1994. Len was involved in investigating some reports associated with the Kecksburg incident.

Military whistleblowers have told congress that they had knowledge that there was a secret UFO recovery program operational for many years. There was discussion that objects of non-human origin had been recovered as well as alien bodies. I believe those whistleblowers are telling the truth.

It is now the right time for me to discuss some stranger aspects of the Kecksburg incident that are not well known or has not been discussed before. I believe the witnesses that I interviewed who provided information were telling me the truth to the best of their knowledge. They had nothing to gain. Many of those people waited many years before confiding in me, and most were still reluctant to discuss what they knew. They are no longer with us.

There was a man that I knew personally, and I can vouch for his honesty. He worked in law enforcement at various levels for many years and later worked for a government agency. He told me that it was a day or two after the Kecksburg incident had taken place that he happened to cross paths with an individual outside of Greensburg, Pennsylvania City Hall. That person was an important public official. The man I knew told me he was a friend of that official. My acquaintance had heard that the official was on the scene at Kecksburg on the day the object had fallen. He began to question him.

 That man replied that he was one of the first officials on the scene that day. He told him that he saw a craft in the woods, and watched them put it onto a flatbed truck, cover it, and leave with it. He stated to my friend, “I will say this. It wasn’t anything I have ever seen before. It wasn’t from this world.” He went on to say that was all he was going to tell him. He then walked to his official car and left the area. They never talked about it again.

There was another individual who I met, that I felt confident had told me the truth about what he knew about the Kecksburg incident. It was in the 1990’s, that I met that man. I happened to be in a business meeting when we started up a conversation. This had nothing to do with my interest in UFOs. That man did not know who I was or my interest in that topic. While talking he began to tell me about his previous military career.

I then told him about my interest in the subject of UFOs and my involvement with the Kecksburg case. Suddenly he had an odd look on his face and stated, “I know about that incident. I read the file report on it.” He told me, however, that he was only able to read a small part of the report. The file was about twenty-five pages thick in a manila folder. He had seen the report many years before.

He mentioned that the report had to do with the recovery of a UFO in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Kecksburg is in Westmoreland County. The incident occurred in 1965. An interesting detail he recalled was that samples of what was believed to be living tissue had been recovered and were being sent to Washington. That man was not in good health at the time I met him, and he has also passed away.

Several witnesses over many years, and unknown to each other reluctantly shared information with me related to the Kecksburg case. What they told me suggested that someone or something may have been inside of the object. Here is a synopsis of just a few of those accounts.

It was in the late 1960s or 1970s, that I was hearing rumors that two or three non-human bodies had been recovered in the Kecksburg area in 1965. For years there was no reliable information to take those stories seriously. Many years later, however, some additional details began to come to my attention.

*I received information that some military personnel on the evening of the incident were seen carrying what appeared to be a body lying on a stretcher near the wooded area where the object had fallen.

*Bill Weaver drove to the area near where the object had fallen after hearing a news broadcast. He was parked there when a large white unmarked box truck pulled up. Exiting the truck were four men in what Bill called moon suits/hazmat outfits. They carried a large white box container with four handles down the hill to where the object had fallen. The container was too small for the object to fit in, so what was its purpose?

*After the Unsolved Mysteries show was aired in 1990, I received a lot of information from across the country concerning the Kecksburg case. A man called me and stated that he assumed it was okay for him to talk to me about what he knew about the incident since it had been on TV.

That person was a truck driver from Ohio who along with another truck driver, delivered a large supply of a special type of brick to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base just days after the object had been recovered in Pennsylvania.

A military flatbed trailer was seen at the base the day before by the other driver. On the trailer was an upright acorn shaped object covered with a tarp parked outside of a building. The next day both drivers arrived with more bricks. When they arrived, the trailer was still there, but the covered object was gone. The tarp was lying on the trailer. The man who called stated that he had sneaked into a nearby building where individuals whom he felt were Navy personnel had been going in and out of at times. That is when he saw the acorn shaped metallic object with odd symbols surrounded by scaffolding. There were ladders going up to it and men were working around it.

He did not tell me until years later when his health was poor, that inside the building where he saw the object, he also saw a work bench. On that work bench was a small body that had a cover over it. All he could see was one arm hanging down. The skin looked lizard-like, and it only had three fingers from what he could see. That witness has passed on.

It was in 2002, as news reports were surfacing about the Sci-Fi Channel’s investigation into the Kecksburg case, that several new Kecksburg witnesses came to my attention to interview. There was one name that stood out. I recognized that person from years before. I had information that the person involved was hiding down in the woods that day in 1965 as the military was arriving at the impact site. I quickly contacted him, and we planned to meet. When we met the witness told me that he was going to cancel the meeting since some close to him still did not want him to discuss what had happened. We ended up, however, having an enjoyable conversation, and he decided to share some details with me. I was able to meet with him for further interviews.

The man told me that on the day of the incident he had heard that the object had fallen into a wooded area that he was familiar with since he had hunted down in there. It was just getting dark as he arrived in the area. He walked down toward the woods when he saw odd flashes of light. He approached that area and soon came upon the semi-buried metallic object.

He hid among the trees as he watched a few civilians, then soldiers move toward the impact location. There was another individual that stood out. He saw a man dressed in a black suit and hat. He thought it was quite odd to see someone dressed like that down in the woods. That man in the black suit had a camera and was taking a lot of photos of the acorn shaped object. The man was also looking on the ground at what seemed to be a series of tracks that originated from near the object and moving off into a wooded area. That man was taking a lot of pictures of those tracks.

As the witness continued telling me what he recalled, he became more emotional. I watched the expression on his face change. His voice began to quiver. That is when he said to me, “I swear to God sir, there was something inside of that thing.” He told me he had to keep moving back into the woods as soldiers began to approach closer around the impact area. They were setting up a security perimeter around the object. The man in the dark suit was giving orders to the soldiers. The witness then watched as an Army officer jumped onto that metallic object. He had a long metal rod and for whatever reason began to strike the surface of the object.

Moments later, a hatch opened from right to left at the front of the object. The witness saw what looked like a long elastic arm extending out from the hatch opening. Moments later he heard the hatch close with a metal sound, and the officer began yelling, “hurry up we don’t have much time.” The object was then loaded onto the military flatbed tractor-trailer truck. That witness is also deceased.

There are other independent sources who have provided me with information that very short humanoid beings were seen running through various areas not far from the impact location on the day of the incident.

Indications of a quick response UFO recovery program in 1965.

I believe that there was already a quick response UFO recovery program in place in 1965, when the Kecksburg incident occurred. The fast response of military and government personnel and equipment arriving at that rural wooded area suggests that possibility. They were properly equipped to conduct the operation with trained personnel and several types of military vehicles, and even a small crane to load the object onto the flatbed tractor-trailer truck.

There was a witness that I got to know quite well over the years. He had retired from the military a few years prior the Kecksburg incident. He heard on a local radio station that a UFO had fallen near Kecksburg. He lived not far from that area and decided to drive there to see what was occurring. He arrived outside of Kecksburg in the area near where the object had reportedly fallen. He was able to describe to me some local landmarks. I knew from his descriptions that he was indeed at the correct location.

One of the first things he saw was a uniformed state trooper and an Air Force officer walking up out of the woods and moving toward the road where a military vehicle was parked. He told me that both men were white as ghosts. They both seemed significantly upset by their facial expressions. He was close enough that he was able to hear some of what they were saying. He was quite certain that he heard the state trooper say, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” The Air Force officer did not comment.

The witness who was quite familiar with military vehicles also told me that he saw a considerable number of military vehicles coming from the road into that area. Some of that equipment was also down around the field near the woods, where the object was reportedly on the ground. He told me he saw military cars, jeeps, trucks, and two military flatbed tractor trailer trucks with large searchlights. That witness told me he was impressed at how fast that amount of military equipment and personnel had arrived in that rural area to respond to that incident. He was also impressed with the high-ranking officers he saw around the area that night that included a major and a colonel. Like so many others, that witness passed away long ago.

Some other details of interest.

*On the evening of the occurrence, more than one reporter on the scene who was taking pictures reportedly had the film confiscated from their cameras by authorities.

*I was told many years ago by a witness that he and another family member were transported from a location near the impact site to their home in a military jeep on the evening of the occurrence. While riding in the vehicle, they overheard radio transmissions that there was someone down in the woods with a camera. He said the voices sounded extremely excited and concerned until the photographer was located.

*News crews from Pittsburgh area TV stations were on the scene that evening. There were news stories about the occurrence that aired on Thursday evening and Friday. I recall watching the TV broadcast of the incident the next day that was in black and white on one of the stations. Over the years I requested local TV stations to attempt to locate the archival news reels for that day from 1965. None of that footage has ever been found after various attempts were conducted to locate what had been broadcast and should have been in the various TV stations’ news library archives.

*Over the years, various Kecksburg fire department officials confirmed to me that the records for December 9, 1965, such as the incident report logs for fire vehicles were all missing. All other records for that month were accounted for.

Mockup of the Kecksburg UFO created for the 1990 Unsolved Mysteries TV show episode.

For more information on the Kecksburg investigation see the detailed report by investigative journalist Leslie Kean that was published in the IUR International UFO reporter, Volume 30, Number I. “Forty Years of Secrecy: NASA, The Military, And The 1965 Kecksburg Crash.” It will answer many more questions.

There is no doubt that an object did fall from the sky on December 9, 1965, near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. What that object was remains a mystery. It’s time for the public to know the truth.  

If you have information on the Kecksburg incident, you can contact me.

If you have any information on the case, please give me a call or email me. It has been 60 Years. (724-838-7768) Other contact information is on my website at: www.stangordon.info.