The 1977 Flora, Mississippi UFO Encounter

An incident from February 1977 over the small town of Flora, Mississippi is still remembered by the town’s residents today over 40 years later. Two police officers, while on a standard evening patrol, would witness a huge disc approach their vehicle and hover over it for around a minute. What’s more, on the same evening, several other reports would also surface.

The main witness would receive quite a temporary shock of attention, most of it state-wide, but some coming from much further afield. That he was very obviously uncomfortable with such a constant barrage of questions, and what he undoubtedly saw as an annoying intrusion into his professional and private life, is perhaps an indication of the credibility of the incident.

Indeed, even today in the Mississippi community, the incident is recalled and remembered. And not necessarily in a tongue-in-cheek way as many such encounters. Perhaps the fact that several similar encounters took place around the same time in the Magnolia State lends it that little bit more authenticity.

A “Round Object” Out Of The Sky During Routine Patrol

On the evening of 10^th February 1977, Deputy Kenneth Creel and Constable James Luke, both of Madison County Sheriff’s Department, were on routine patrol duty around the small town of Flora in Mississippi.

Creel would spot the object first while driving approximately four miles outside of Flora. He at first thought it was a particularly bright star. However, the more he watched it he realized it was growing rapidly brighter. And bigger.

The closer it got to them the more the actual shape of the object began to become clear. By the time he realized it was distinctly disc-shaped, he would radio the Mississippi Highway Patrol. As the object approached their location, passing over one of the fields that ran alongside the road, the shape of this strange craft became even clearer.

When it was “about 200 yards” from their car, Creel stopped the vehicle. Each of the officers sat silently attempting to hear any sounds that might be coming from this strange craft. A noise “like a blender…like it was straining, when you first put ice in it!”

Within seconds the object was hovering directly over the patrol car, giving the impression it was “being piloted” as it did.

“I Know I’m Not Crazy!”

The object remained in place, hovering over their patrol car, approximately 20 to 30 feet above them. Creel would recall looking directly up at the object from his patrol car. Although he couldn’t see any occupants or pilots, he did report “little windows” on the craft with “light coming out” of them. This light, he would elaborate, would change color several times, including blue, red, and green.

The officers would watch the object for around a minute before Creel started the engine and began slowly reversing so he could turn the vehicle around. However, the object “just picked up and took off”, vanishing within seconds.

He would later recall to the press:

I know I’m not crazy. I’ve always said I didn’t believe in this stuff! I don’t know what I saw but I know I saw something! ^[1]

Just before the object took off at high speed, Highway Patrolman Louis Younger had pulled up to the scene. He too saw the round object hovering over the patrol car before disappearing at high speed.

Although they didn’t know it at the time, as well as other witnesses to the events on the night in question, there were others from accounts in the days that followed.

Creel, Luke, or Younger were not the only witnesses to strange events that evening. Several others would report similar strange aerial happenings that evening over Flora. These included Deputy Charles Bowering and Highway Patrolman Joe Chandler, who would claim to view the object from a distance.

Another police officer, Hubert Roberts would claim to have “blinked his police car headlights” ^[2] at the object to which it responded.

Several nights later, however, in nearby Jayess, news of another incident with multiple witnesses would surface.

The Jayess Multiple Witness Sighting

While there appears to be some discrepancy as to the actual date of the sighting, it would seem that most put an incident at Jayess on the evening of 12^th February 1977 – several days after the sighting of Creel, Luke, and the other officers and residents of Flora.

On the night in question, Mr. and Mrs. Darwin Alexander, Mrs. Denver Alexander (Denver being Darwin’s brother) and her son, Eddie, who lived on the same street, and another neighbor, Mr. and Mrs. Cothern, would report seeing a bizarre “upside down dish-shaped” craft hovering over the quiet suburban street.

Mrs. Darwin Alexander would receive a call from her sister-in-law telling her to look out of her window. She, along with her husband duly did. There, hovering overhead was brightly lit craft. She would further recall how the object made a “swooshing noise” but otherwise just “hovered silently”.

Meanwhile, in the Denver Alexander household, where Mrs. Denver Alexander, Eddie, and the Cotherns all stood in the back yard of the property viewing the grey, hovering object. At evenly spaced intervals were glowing red lights, while at the top was a dome.

The six witnesses, each from their respective positions, would watch the craft for several minutes. Then, and again like the sighting in Flora, the object would take off into the night sky and disappear without warning.

On the same evening, at nearby Brookhaven Municipal Airport, several more reports were received from concerned members of the public regarding the strange sighting.

The Yazoo City Incident

Only the previous month several other sightings occurred throughout Mississippi.

For example, on the evening of 6^th January 1977 at a convenience store in Yazoo City, the witness, who wished to remain anonymous, ^[3] claimed a friend of hers suddenly burst in claiming they had just been pulled over by the police. However, when asked the reason, the friend claimed the patrolman had seen a UFO and wanted the motorist as a corroborative witness to the events.

Intrigued by the claims, the witness and her boyfriend would drive out to the location. However, when they arrived nothing out of the ordinary was taking place. They would instead drive to the lake and park by the waterside.

Not long after, however, the inside of the vehicle would suddenly light up. When the pair looked out of the back window, they could see two strange objects “each the size of 3 Cadillacs”. The witness would further describe them as “oval and dark” but with “amber lights around the base”. She would estimate they were approximately 30 feet above the ground.

The two objects remained in their positions for around 10 minutes before suddenly, but calmly, moving over their vehicle and into the distance. One of them “zipped off” out of sight in a matter of seconds. The other, however, appeared to land in a nearby field. When the pair went to investigate, though, there was nothing there.

A similar incident to the apparently discreet wave of sightings throughout Mississippi occurred several years earlier. However, its location and the details of the incident are indeed of interest to us here.

The Daytime Louisiana “Low Lights” Encounters

Only days before the sightings over Flora, an incident in broad daylight in the neighboring state of Louisiana would unfold. According to an account in the March 1977 edition of the APRO Bulletin, Mrs. Gayle Rodriguez and her son, Brian, were driving along the motorway when a “silvery colored” object cut across the sky in front of them.

The craft that the mother and son witnessed that afternoon on the Louisiana highway appeared to move in bizarre stops and starts. Rodriguez would later describe the object as like “an upside-down saucer with a flat bottom and a dome on top in the middle”. Furthermore, and matching later descriptions of crafts in Flora, there was a row of lights around the side that was clearly rotating and changing colors including blue, green and white.

The craft eventually disappeared into the distance. The Rodriguez sighting, though, was just the (then) latest in a line of recent strange aerial reports from the residents of Louisiana. A string of sightings that, in fact, almost mirrored those unfolding in Mississippi.

Strange Sightings Across The Bayou

For example, one of the first reported sightings of the 1977 Louisiana mini-wave was that of Mr. and Mrs. Digangi, who while driving along Judge Perez Highway on the evening of the 15^th January witnessed “three lights chained together”. Mr. Digangi would estimate they were at an altitude of around 5oo feet. Three days later, the couples’ teenage daughter witnessed the same object outside their home.

Three days following the Digangis’ daughter’s sighting, along the waters of the bayou, Irwin Menesses and Robert Melerine were guiding their boat close to the riverbank when a sudden and bright light descended toward them out of nowhere. It would stop just short of 50 feet above them.

At the same time, the boat appeared strangely stalled in the water. The engine was working as it should, but the boat refused to cut through the water and instead simply churned water. Even stranger, both men felt a strange paralysis come over them. In a bizarre detail that mirrors other similar paralysis accounts, they retained the ability to breathe and speak but had seemingly lost all control over all other muscles. As soon as the object moved away, both they and the boat came back to life.

Perhaps even more interesting about this particular sighting is the fact that the object would then move around the oil refineries and water towers of the area. Almost as if surveying them.

More Louisiana Reports With Similarities To The Mississippi Wave

The evening following the bizarre encounter on the bayou, two brothers, Mark, and Damian Boudreaux were standing on the porch outside Mark’s house when they suddenly noticed a “reddish-orange light” moving in the skies toward the west. It would then stop, hover momentarily before changing direction and moving off again.

On the same evening, three children and three adults driving along the highway witnessed a “dome-shaped craft with red and yellow lights” moving through the sky. After several minutes of calm, “bounding” movement, the object suddenly changed direction sharply and vanished.

Perhaps also of interest and worth mentioning here are the sightings involving the USS Tacoma and the USS Welch. These would unfold in the early hours of 17th February off the coast of New Orleans during Mardi Gras season. On this particular morning, at around 4 am, a “strange light” suddenly approached the two ships’ positions out of the west.

The lights, white at first, would change to an amber glow as it moved along the sky. Then, it simply disappeared as though it had gone out. Not only is the changing of the colored glow of these strange aerial objects, seemingly in sympathy with its motion something that is seen in many other UFO reports, the perception that rather than vanishing into the distance the object simply “went out” is one that also comes up more than we might think.

The American South Has A Long History Of Strange Goings-On

Whatever was hovering and “zipping” through the skies over Mississippi, and its southern neighbor, Louisiana, throughout the opening weeks of 1977, multiple people were witness to the events. That something strange was overhead during this time, then, is as good as established fact. What that “something” might have been, however, like many other cases, is a mystery within a mystery.

As are, of course, most of the sightings across the United States and around the world. Very distinct UFO waves and patterns have already been well-established and investigated over the years. One can’t help but feel the more sightings face examination, though, however trivial and pedestrian some of them may be, will exhibit eventual overriding patterns of behavior and ultimately, clues to the UFO and alien question will emerge.

We might take note, for example, that both Mississippi and Louisiana revolve around significant bodies of water. A location detail that surfaces more than most might suspect. Furthermore, both states have a rich history of strange happenings. And even longer histories of legends from the indigenous peoples of the area dating back thousands of years.

In fact, the American South, in general, including other states such as Arkansas and Alabama – which will no doubt be the subjects of future examinations, is full of stories of mysterious goings-on. No doubt, as we move closer to fully understanding these strange aerial crafts and the apparent intelligence behind them, these mysteries will clear somewhat also.

Check out the video below. A short news section that looks back at the 1977 Flora, Mississippi incident.