CFZ-USA

On This Day in Weird...

Jan. 5, 1834: Kiowa Indians recall this as the night stars fell.

Jan. 5, 1914: Future "Superman" star George Reeves born in Iowa.

Jan. 5, 1919: German anti-Semites organize the German Farmers Party, forerunner of the

Nazi Party.

Jan. 5, 1943: Black UFOs the size of dinner plates reported over Kiel, Germany.

Jan. 5, 1949: Far East Air Force radar operators pick up an unknown object over the Sea of Japan, tracking it for four minutes. The same day brings UFO reports from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Nantucket Point, Long Island, New York. The National Academy of Sciences' Space Science Board released Publication No. 1079, requesting that a search for extraterrestrial life "be proclaimed the top-priority scientific goal of our space program."

Jan. 5, 1965: Another busy night for Virginia sky-watchers, with UFOs seen over Lynchburg and Wallops Island.

Jan. 5, 1967: Yet another double-header, with UFOs seen at Winsted, Minnesota, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the former case, a witness reports the craft's landing, with an average-sized humanoid occupant emerging, wearing blue coveralls and "a glass fishbowl on his head."

Jan. 5, 1975: A truly hectic day and night for UFO sightings, with reports from Bloomington and Brownstown, Illinois; from two Mount Vernons, in Illinois and Ohio (synchronicity, or garbled reportage?); and from Laulne, in the Manche Department, France

Jan. 5, 1976: Another French close encounter report, from Domene, Isere. Witness Jean Claude Silvente, age 10, describes a humanoid figure two meters tall, with a green circle on the back of each hand.

Jan. 5, 1978: A V-formation of 10 UFOs passes over Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Jan. 5, 1979: A UFO with a blue aura hovers briefly near the ground at Bannalec, Finistere, France, then departs at top speed.

Jan. 5, 1979: Glowing UFOs visit Auburn and Sturbridge, Massachusetts.

Jan. 5, 1982: An Arkansas judge bans compulsory teaching of creationism in public schools.

Jan. 5, 1992: A luminous, globular UFO startles witnesses at Longchaumois, in France's Jura Department.

Jan. 5, 2000: Police officers track a huge UFO near Scott Air Force Base, outside Belleville, Illinois.

Jan. 5, 2003: A witness in Plain Dealing, Louisiana, watches silent multi-colored lights maneuvering erratically under clouds for 54 minutes, sometimes stopping to hover.

Jan. 5, 2006: Teenage American actor Joseph David Wolfgang Pichler, with nine films to his credit in the past decade, leaves a card game with his friends in Bremerton, Washington, and vanishes forever (at least, so far). Police find his car abandoned on January 9, with no evidence of foul play. Relatives report him missing on January 16, and so he remains today eight years later.