Tales of UFOs ejecting hot metal go back to the days when flying saucers were just becoming an American national obsession. In fact, the first flying saucer witness, Kenneth Arnold, encountered such a tale when he looked into the Maury Island Incident for Fate magazine and became the first privately funded flying saucer investigator. In this week’s blog, we’ll take a look at an incident that was reported 30 years later in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

According to an article by Jason Offutt for the Eastern Jackson County, Missouri, Daily Examiner published online on February 9, 2011, Mike Moore was driving through Big Lake Park with his wife at 7:45 p.m. on Saturday Dec. 17, 1977, when they saw “this big ball of red stuff in the sky.” Moore said it hovered, dropped something on fire into the park, and then flew away.

According to an article by Richard Warner published on the website of the Historical and Preservation Society of Pottawattamie County (Council Bluffs, Iowa), at 7:45 p.m. that same night, three teenagers driving to a store observed what seems to be the same falling red ball. It went behind some trees in Big Lake Park. Then, there was a bluish-white flash and two “arms of fire” were seen that shot out more than ten feet into the air. Read more →