A Classic UFO Case from the Files of Stan Gordon www.stangordon.info
Did A Giant UFO Cause Power Outage?
September 3, 1987
Greensburg, Pennsylvania
From Stan’s book, “Really Mysterious Pennsylvania.”
It was the evening of September 3, 1987, when a strange aerial object appeared low in the sky over a busy shopping area on Route 30, east of Greensburg. It was about 8:30 p.m. when a group of people, including law enforcement officers, standing near the movie theater complex behind the Greengate Mall, saw something unusual in the sky. Looking toward the west about a quarter of a mile away, they saw an object approaching as it crossed over Route 30, moving over high-tension power lines and toward the West Penn Power substation. The station was located behind the Greengate Apartments and across the highway from the mall.
Their first impression was that it was a blimp, but their perception soon changed. The object was immense in size. The cigar-shaped object was estimated to be about three hundred feet in length. One witness stated that, to him, the object looked to be the length of two Goodyear blimps, and about as thick as one blimp. The elongated construct appeared to be a solid craft with a silver or dull gray surface. Moving at about fifty to sixty miles an hour, no sound was discernible. The object was quite low and moving about three hundred feet above the ground. The entire object had many brilliant blinking lights that were white in color, flanked by bright flashing red lights on each end.
The observers continued to watch the object as it moved in a smooth horizontal path. Then the object suddenly made a maneuver that stunned them. The football-field sized object suddenly turned vertically in the sky. For a moment, the power in the area suddenly went off in the Greengate Mall and the surrounding area. The view of the object was blocked for a short time by the trees, but when it was seen again, it had returned to its original horizontal stance.
It was later that same evening when a major power failure occurred in the annex of the Greengate Mall at the theater complex. It was my understanding that the theater area received its power from the power substation near which the object had passed. A crew from West Penn Power arrived on the scene and discovered that all three of the main fuses located in the feed line had been blown. It was also my understanding in speaking with some electrical engineers at the time that this sort of event, when several fuses blow simultaneously, was quite unusual. What this object was, and where it went to, remains unknown.