One of the strangest cases ever of physical evidence from a UFO sighting goes back to 1961.
On April 18, 1961, Joe Simonton, 60, of Eagle River, Wisconsin, was enjoying lunch around 11 am. However, one item was not on the menu, delivered directly from a UFO that landed outside his home.
The part-time plumber and chicken farmer heard a noise that sounded like “wet pavement off-road tires.” Then, he observed a metallic “flying saucer” land outside his window. To his recollection, it looked like two inverted bowls with “exhaust pipes” at the ends.
He said it came straight down from the air, “just like an elevator.” At first, thinking his roof had blown off, he rushed outside to see a hatch opening from the craft, “just like the trunk of your car.”
Little Men and Penetrating Eyes
Inside, Simonton saw a “little man” about five feet tall, “dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark skin.” In dress, they wore black or navy blue turtleneck shirts and helmets. However, the “chef” had red-striped pants.
According to reports, the three beings looked to be 20-30-year-olds and “Italian” in appearance.
Gesturing the Simonton, the man held up a metallic jug with two handles as if asking for water to drink. To him, the jug seemed to be “a little more than aluminum” in weight. Bravely, Simonton took the jug but had to look away due to the man’s intensely penetrating eyes.
Obliging with the request, the plumber retrieved water from the basement and returned. On the way, the chicken farmer avoided eye contact until he got closer. Then, he couldn’t avoid the “penetrating look” in the little man’s eyes.
Strange Bubbly Textured Wafers
Then, Simonton looked inside the saucer and saw another little man cooking “pancakes” on a smooth square smoking surface. Hoping to “get a conversation out of him,” the farmer gestured that he would like to try the food. In return, the pilot handed Simonton four of the pancakes, which were “hot and greasy.”
Being polite, Simonton tried the pancake.
“If that was their food, God help ’em,” said Simonton. “Because I took a bite of one of ’em and it tasted like a piece of cardboard. And, if that’s what they lived on no wonder they’re small.”
Then, the pilot closed the hatch, leaving no trace of it and took off into the sky.
“Everything was timed perfectly. It went up about 20 feet. It tiled at a 45-degree, straight south, and shot off. Within two to three seconds it was out of sight.”
Official View of Simonton’s Story
After the incident, the farmer stood with his mouth hanging open as he contemplated what had happened. However, after he reported it, and thousands of people came to talk to him and see the pancakes. One of the interested parties was Project Blue Book and Astronomer J. Allen Hynek, sent by the Air Force.
At the time of the incident, Simonton’s neighbors had spotted the craft headed in the direction of his farm and called authorities, reports the La Crosse Tribune. In his community, Simonton was considered reputable, trustworthy, and reliable.
According to Hynek, the man’s story was genuine.
“There is no doubt that Mr. Simonton felt that his contact was a real experience,” said Hynek.
Later, a statement from the Air Force suggested they had the sample tested (see video below), and they were ordinary “buckwheat pancakes.”
On the surface, it seemed they were only flour, sugar, and grease. Officially, the Air Force labeled the case as “unkown.”
See the video from Historia Discordia:
Pancakes and Irish Folklore
In a book from the 70s by Dr. Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia, he found it interesting Simonton’s pancakes contained no salt, comparing it to Celtic folklore of fairies and “the Gentry,” said to never eat salt. Notably, buckwheat is associated with “legends of Brittany, one of the most conservative Celtic areas,” Vallée writes.
According to Irish folklore, the “Gentry never taste anything salt, but eat fresh meat and drink pure water.”
Vallée points to Irish folklore collected by American Walter Evans-Wentz, who wrote The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries and The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
“The Gentry are a fine large race who live out on the sea and in the mountains, and they are all very good neighbors. The bad ones are not the Gentry at all, are the fallen angels and they live in the woods and the sea,” wrote W.Y. Evans-Wentz.
In another description, the Gentry are said to be “a distinct race between our race and that of spirits.” Moreover, they are said to have a “penetrating” sight.
“Their sight is so penetrating that I think they could see through the earth. They have a silvery voice, quick and sweet.”
In size, they can change at will, according to accounts from Wentz’s Irish informer.
“They are able to appear in different forms. One once appeared to me and seemed only four feet high and stoutly built. He said, “I am bigger than I appear to you now. We can make the old young, the big small, the small big,” the person related.
A Tale of Buckwheat Cakes and Fions
In another paragraph, Vallée points to a “pretty legend” about “fions,” cave-dwelling creatures.
“It seems that once upon a time, a black cow belonging to little cave-dwelling fions ruined the buckwheat field of a poor woman, who bitterly complained about the damage. The fions made a deal with her: they would see to it that she should never run out of buckwheat cakes, provided she kept her mouth shut,” he writes.
One day, the woman gave some of the cakes to an outsider not deemed worthy of the secret. Then, the supply of cakes vanished, and the woman had to go back to making them as before.
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Dr. Jacques Vallée, UFOs, and Worldwide Folklore
Recently, Jacques Vallée has released a new book, “Trinity, The Best-Kept Secret” about a UFO crash predating Roswell by two years. The site is called Trinity, where the government detonated the first atomic bomb in New Mexico.
In an interview with George Knapp, Vallée once more discusses a possible connection between UFO stories and folklore.
Recently Knapp and co-authors laid out a convincing argument in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. In the book, they state that studying UFOs must “look at experiences and reports in their totality.” For example, the “Six Layer Model for Anomalous Phenomena” was developed in part by Vallée and incorporated a layer of cultural data.
As Vallée elaborates, stories about mysterious beings and creatures continue today. Furthermore, they go on worldwide, including in the United States. Even so, the stories are generally just a footnote.
“…You know, there is no book, other than Passport to Magonia about the global thing about these creatures, but they are in every anthropology book, as a footnote,” a colleague once told him.
You’d Be Surprised
In name, creatures of folklore go by names like jinns, serfs, fairies, and many others. In religions believed the world over, there are similar stories, including involving food offered by such beings. Nevertheless, these stories are generally not considered related to the UFO experience. In truth, it may all be related as part of the bigger, and often fantasy-like strange picture.
“You know, they say, by the way, you know, on the way to exploring this pyramid, the camel driver said that [there] was the story in his family of 100 years ago, they saw a little elf, they saw a little creature, and those creatures always described in the same way. ” Moreover, they say, “They are pretty mischievous. They breathe our air like the one in San Antonio. They are about four feet tall, and they can do all these magical things. Sometimes they are invisible. And you’d be surprised,” said Vallée.
You can hear more of the interview from Mystery Wire:
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Featured image: Simonton via Twitter with UFO by SoundTrackUniverse via Pixabay, with mushrooms by ELG21 via Pixabay, Pixabay License