Lake Michigan UFO Sightings Still Unsolved 25 Years Later
by Dejanay Booth March 7, 2019 (freep.com)
• On March 8, 1994, about 9:30 pm, Daryl and Holly Graves and their son, Joey witnessed lights in the sky over Holland, Michigan that filled the sky along nearly 200 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline to the Indiana border. “I saw six lights out the window above the barn across the street,” Joey Graves said in 1994. “They were red and white and moving.”
• Cindy Pravda, 63, of Grand Haven, Michigan remembers four lights in the sky that looked like “full moons” over the line of trees behind her horse pasture. Pravda still believes the lights were UFOs. “I watched them for half an hour. The one on the far left moved off to the highway and then came back in the same position,” Pravda said. “The one to the right was gone in blink of an eye and then, eventually, everything disappeared.”
• Holland Police officer Jeff Velthouse who described witnesses seeing five to six objects, some cylindrical with blue, red, white and green lights as he spoke to Leo Grenier, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service office in Muskegon County, who was following the lights’ movements on radar. “The movement of the objects was rather erratic. The echoes were there about 15 minutes, drifting slowly south-southwest, kind of headed toward the Chicago side of the south end of Lake Michigan,” said Grenier. “There were three and sometimes four blips, and they weren’t planes. Planes show as pinpoints on the scope, these were the size of half a thumbnail. They were from 5 to 12,000 feet at times, moving all over the place. Three were moving toward Chicago. I never saw anything like it before, not even when I’m doing severe weather.”
• Hundreds of calls flooded 911 and MUFON to report the strange sightings in the night sky. (listen to actual 911 calls in video below) The reported UFO sightings was the largest since March 1966, said Bill Konkolesky, Michigan state director of MUFON. MUFON interviewed dozens of witnesses H, Konkolesky said, many of whom remain in contact with the organization. “There was a lot of enthusiasm into the UFO field (then) because of the amount of press coverage. It was outstanding,” he said. “They were paying attention to the phenomenon.”
• The mystery of one of the largest UFO sightings in Michigan history remains unsolved, but it continues to fascinate extraterrestrial researchers, psychologists and history buffs alike.
The eerie lights filled the sky along nearly 200 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, from Ludington south to the Indiana border.
On March 8, 1994, calls flooded 911 to report strange sightings in the night sky. The reports came in from all walks of life — from police and a meteorologist to residents of Michigan’s many beach resorts. Hundreds of people witnessed what many insisted were UFOs — unidentified flying objects.
Cindy Pravda, 63, of Grand Haven, remembers that night in vivid detail — four lights in the sky that looked like “full moons” over the line of trees behind her horse pasture.
“I got UFOs in the back yard,” she told a friend on the phone.
Today, the mystery of one of the largest UFO sightings in Michigan history remains unsolved, but it continues to fascinate extraterrestrial researchers, psychologists and history buffs alike.
Pravda still believes the lights were UFOs.
“I watched them for half an hour. Where I’m facing them, the one on the far left moved off. It moved to the highway and then came back in the same position,” Pravda told the Free Press Thursday. “The one to the right was gone in blink of an eye and then, eventually, everything disappeared quickly.”
She still lives in the same house and continues to talk about that night.
“I’m known as the UFO lady of Grand Haven,” Pravda laugh.
Where it started
Daryl and Holly Graves and their son, Joey, told reporters in 1994 they witnessed lights in the sky over Holland at about 9:30 p.m. on March 8.
“I saw six lights out the window above the barn across the street,” Joey Graves told the Free Press in 1994. “I got up and went to the sofa and looked up at the sky. They were red and white and moving.”
Others gave similar accounts, including Holland Police officer Jeff Velthouse and a meteorologist from the National Weather Service office in Muskegon County. What’s more, the meteorologist recorded unknown echoes on his radar the same time Velthouse reported the lights.
“My guy looked at the radar and observed three echoes as the officer was describing the movement,” Leo Grenier of the NWS office in Muskegon said in 1994. “The movement of the objects was rather erratic. The echoes were there about 15 minutes, drifting slowly south-southwest, kind of headed toward the Chicago side of the south end of Lake Michigan.”
actual 911 calls from witnesses to the 1994 Holland Michigan UFO Incident
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