Sighting record / 1967
Friday 13 January 1967. A police dispatcher in Pittsburg, Kansas, phoned the Joplin Police Department. Something "vivid blue-green with flashing lights" seemed to be leaving Kansas. It was heading for Missouri. Lt. Charles Hickman drove out to Stone's Corner and waited. Nearly an hour passed. Then he saw it. A huge silvery object, "as big as two houses," about 1,000 feet up, its glow pulsing every five seconds. It "made turns and maneuvered as if it were being controlled." Over the next days, 11 area police officers and six area residents reported strange objects across the region. The Condon Committee came to investigate. It explained most of the sightings. Not Hickman's.
January 1967. The corner where Kansas meets Missouri. Over a few winter days, police radios and newspaper phones in Joplin, Pittsburg, Neosho, Monett and Parsons kept ringing. By one count, 11 area police officers and six area residents reported objects in the predawn sky. Joplin Globe columnist Brad Belk later called it "a case of UFO Ping-Pong."