SDMB note 1: I created this post as an offshoot of:
[[SDMB note 2: as I write below, I have carried this story around in my head for decades; what better place to first publish it than here, where I’ve spent so many thousands of hours over the years, reading and learning and laughing.]]
[I have always presented this incident orally, as it is the only way to preserve the flavor given by the Southern gentlemen involved, and the excitement of the participant who relayed the story to me. Thus have I kept the details in my head for the past four-plus decades, but it is time to finally commit it to writing. Over the past few years I have been haphazardly working on my memoirs, so this is a good time to fit this in. Mind you, my memoirs are mundane and largely pointless, but I know so little about my own grandparents’ early lives and thoughts and dreams that I thought I should leave a little for my own descendants.]
This is a true story. While I personally was not present at the alien site, I did read about it in the newspaper the next day. More importantly, just a few years later I interviewed one of the deputies who was at the scene, when I had joined the force of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Department. I have tried to recollect and report as much of the detail and nuance told to me one late night by Deputy John “John-boy” Golembiewski.
Mims Florida is a tiny unincorporated area just north of Titusville, which sits across the Indian River from Kennedy Space Center. The very rural area consists of scrubland, ranches, and orange groves. US Highway 1 is the primary road, with a variety of mostly unpaved roads serving the needs of farmers and ranchers.
Brevard County is 72 miles long north-to-south. The Sheriff’s Department North District covers roughly the northern third (my estimate: 450 square miles), from Highway 528/Cocoa all the way north to the county line, an area of many, many square miles. At night, typically one deputy would cover the part south of Titusville and another would cover the more sparsely-populated area north of Titusville, with a sergeant providing supervision, relief, and backup over the whole area.
It was a cold Winter night, by Central Florida standards; the temperature was down to hard-freeze territory, dropping to about 27 degrees. The orange crops were still on the trees, and usually this was a good thing, as mildly-cold weather makes for a sweeter fruit, but too cold could severely damage or destroy it. And, of course, the chilly weather wasn’t appreciated by those who had to be out in it, such as Deputy John Golembiewski, referred to colloquially on the force as “John-boy” (no doubt owing to the popularity of The Waltons at the time). Over 6 feet tall, lanky, and good-natured, John was a great co-worker and deputy.
It was 2am on this chilly morning, a time that often meant that there was a scuffle at some bar that needed law enforcement attention, but as this was Sunday night (Monday morning), that kind of simple situation was not in the cards; something much scarier was just getting started.
Phone calls started coming in to the Sheriff’s Department dispatch center in Titusville: a tremendous, ongoing noise was emanating from the area of the orange groves near Mims. First a handful of calls, then a deluge of somewhat angry but mostly fearful citizens wondering what the heck was going on at this God-awful time of night. An airplane crash? A helicopter having trouble? Something worse?
John and fellow deputy J. Paul Miller, a six-foot-four ex-Army Intelligence officer, were the first deputies to arrive in the area. Driving slowly on the dark dirt roads with their windows open to the chilly air, they tried to triangulate the source of the terrible sound. Eventually they parked their cars on the road at a spot closest to the sound that had a tractor path leading in the desired direction.
The groves at night lack illumination, and flashlights of the time were anything but powerful, but they could easily see the eery glow in the night sky, emanating from deep within the grove of hundreds of mature orange trees. They eventually left the path worn by tractors over decades as they worked their way towards the sound, wending their way through the grid of trees, first quickly and urgently, then cautiously and warily. They came to a small ditch, and each gingerly found the best way to cross with the least chance of dampening their shoes.
The noise reached deafening proportions as they reached the edge of a clearing. There, in a small field devoid of orange trees, stood a monstrous machine the likes of which neither had seen before. It made a terrifying sound, like a jet fighter taking off, and the top of the fantastic 40-foot-high device was slowly rotating towards them, as if it sensed their presence.
As the rotating contraption turned to face them, they felt the temperature soar from below freezing to 60 degrees nearly instantly. “Run, John-boy, they’re shooting us with a heat ray!” shouted J. Paul as he turned and ran. “J. Paul has been in military intelligence, and if he says it’s a heat ray, he’s probably right” thought John, as both ran as fast as they could in the direction of their cars.
During the duo’s grove expedition their supervisor Sergeant Stouch had arrived, having found their cars, and with that now all three of the deputies of the entire North Brevard district were in this orange grove. Stouch, a wiry and very capable 5 foot 9, came to the same ditch, and he too worked a bit to find the ideal crossing point. Having just crossed the ditch he witnessed the two giraffe-height deputies running past him, both easily jumping the ditch in the process. “What about Stouch?” John asked of J. Paul; “Screw Stouch; we need backup!” J. Paul yelled over his shoulder.
“Brevard, send everyone…EVERYONE! We need backup…bring everything you got!” J. Paul yelled into the car radio. “It’s some kind of heat ray…never saw anything like it, and it tried to get us”. By this time, Stouch had been to the clearing, spent a few seconds observing in terror, and retreated. As he arrived he exclaimed that he had seen what appeared to be “little green men” near the base of the giant machine.
At this time of night there would be a total of 12-14 deputies on duty in the entire 1,500 square mile county; three were already in the orange grove, and another dozen were excitedly making their way north. One had a side business of running a gun shop; he stopped by there and loaded up the trunk with every automatic weapon he had in stock, along with ammo.
In the department’s dispatch center, there was panic and fear and not a small amount of praying. On a Sunday night there would usually be two phone operators and one radio operator, and all were distraught. After conferring with a supervisor, one operator telephoned the Security Police at Patrick Air Force Base, the military installation in the county. From there, we can assume they in turn notified their Major Command (Air Force Systems Command), but we civilians have no information on how much further, if at all, it went from there. Rumors that fighter aircraft at some distant base were put on alert, but that had not been independently verified.
Since the trio of deputies at the scene weren’t followed during their retreat, they decided to sneak back and observe further, even though the noise and light and heat continued. As they neared the clearing, they crept cautiously, keeping each other within sight, until they reached the field’s edge.
The machine’s head continued rotating, but seemed to pay no special attention to them. Emboldened, they crept nearer, hoping for a closer inspection. These seasoned men, with decades of military and law enforcement experience and many years living, working, and patrolling this area, had never seen such a horrible sight, such a monstrous machine with flames and what seemed to be jet engines at its arms.
No, they had never seen a grove heater like this. And darn it, in the dark and excitement, bags of fertilizer do indeed look like little green men.
[an article in the Sentinel Star appeared a day later]
) in Titusville or Melbourne. Successfully avoided interacting with Brevard Sheriffs but it was close once or twice. And I worked in IT for the emergency management and LE + Fire/Rescue industries for a decade +. So sorta kinda LEO-adjacent, but not a wannabe or groupie.