Witness reports seeing alien 'Grey' near home in Haleyville, Alabama

Artist's depiction of 'Grey' alien.

It’s the first Thursday of the month, so this week I’m giving you an update on UFO reports in Alabama from the previous month, courtesy of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). A search for UFO reports in Alabama between June 1 and June 30 on MUFON’s website, www.mufon.com, resulted in only one report from within our state during that time.

According to that report, the incident took place on Sun., June 18, at 8:11 a.m. in Haleyville, a town that lies on the border between Winston and Marion counties in North Central Alabama. The witness in this case said that he was walking his dog when it ran into the woods and out of sight. The witness said he entered the woods to recover the dog and noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

As the witness raised up with his small dog, he turned to look and saw a “grey thing” that was about four feet tall. Whatever it was made two loud screams unlike anything the witness had ever heard before, he said. After getting a quick glimpse of the thing, the witness took off running toward his house, he said.

The witness noted that the incident happened relatively early in the morning, shortly after 8 a.m., and that the hair on back of his neck and body stood straight up out of fear. The witness also reported hearing low, beeping noises for a couple of days after the incident. Also, an electrical transformer exploded about a mile away from where the incident occurred at a time when no lightning storms were in the area, the witness said.

After reading this man’s report, I realized that it was perhaps one of the most unusual Alabama UFO reports I’ve read in several years. Most reports involve strange objects or lights in the sky that witnesses can’t identify, not alien-like creatures on the ground. One aspect of the report that jumped out at me was the witness’ use of the term “grey thing.”

According to sources within the field of Ufology (the study of reports and evidence of unidentified flying objects), grey aliens are described in nearly half (43 percent) of all reported alien encounters in the United States. Also known as “Greys,” “Grays,” “Roswell Greys” and “Alien Greys,” these creatures are named for their unusual skin color. Most are described as being short-statured with large heads and black eyes.

Even though “Greys” have been described as far back as the 1800s, descriptions of these creatures reached a much-wider popular audience in the 1960s through newspaper accounts of the Barney and Betty Hill abduction incident. This alleged alien abduction incident occurred in September 1961 in rural New Hampshire and supposedly involved Greys who took the Hills into a flying saucer. Greys also featured prominently into the 1977 movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and the 1987 book “Communion: A True Story” by Whitley Strieber.

Before closing out this week, I just want to put it out there again that I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has witnessed a UFO, especially in Conecuh County. I think a lot of other people would be interested in hearing your story too, and I’m willing to accept your report anonymously. You can contact me by e-mail at courantsports@earthlink.net or by phone at 578-1492.