Ten-year-old Stan Gordon of Greensburg, PA, tuned the dial on the transistor radio he’d just received for his birthday during the late Halloween season of 1959 in search of paranormal talk shows. The broadcast that mesmerized the young man that night and his passion that followed soon pushed him into a lifelong series of dramatic paranormal investigations mainly of UFOs and the Bigfoot creature.

Gordon never stopped investigating the paranormal from that day forward and today looks back on a remarkable 50-plus years that overlaps the 1965 UFO crash at Kecksburg, PA, and a 1973 intensive outbreak of both UFOs and Bigfoot that culminated in his book, Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook.

He collected paranormal stories in school those early days, but at age 16, local radio opened up a UFO investigation door that never closed as the KDKA-AM station began reporting that evening of December 9, 1965, about a possible UFO crash at nearby Kecksburg.

While the next day’s local headlines read, “UFO falls near Kecksburg – Army ropes off area,” the official military statement was that the object hundreds had seen moving over Canada and eventually Pennsylvania skies was merely a meteor and that nothing had actually crashed.

But with Gordon living just a few miles from Kecksburg, he began his own investigation quietly by making phone calls to people who lived in the crash area vicinity in search of clues.  Dedication turned to relentless pursuit – and many eye witnesses, including some who had boldly moved into the wooded area that night and got up-close with the object – gave accounts only to Gordon about what they had seen.

There were multiple pitfalls in those early days as a paranormal investigator. The government was obviously hiding something as their version of what happened at Kecksburg did not match what the locals were saying. He later learned that a seamless, acorn-shaped object was seen wedged into the ground by some observers. One witness described the tail end of the object as having hieroglyphic-type writing on it. And others watched as a military flatbed tractor trailer truck left the area that night with an object covered under a tarp.

Overcoming Ridicule

The ridicule factor was also very strong. Just mentioning the UFO subject meant you might be poked fun of by friends, family and colleagues. And dare mention the Bigfoot creature and the razzing got stronger.

Just four years after the Kecksburg crash, Gordon was answering a UFO hotline for a Pittsburgh-based group. In 1969, he established his own UFO hotline that seemed to set the standard for what was to come later. As it turned out, callers did not limit their sightings to UFOs, but rather used the service to phone in multiple types of paranormal phenomena, including haunted locations, strange animals and other unusual activity. Gordon had no idea that the training he received fielding those calls would come in handy later.

As the call-ins increased, Gordon formed the Westmoreland County UFO Study Group in 1970, and expanded that in 1975 to the Pennsylvania Center for UFO Research. Then in 1981, he established the Pennsylvania Association for the Study of the Unexplained.

Gordon’s problem with overcoming the ridicule was fueled beginning in early 1973 when something highly unusual began to take place mainly in southwestern Pennsylvania.  Reports of UFOs and Bigfoot began to be reported at what became “epidemic levels” where local and state police were at a loss to explain what was going on.

UFOs Meet Bigfoot

There was a clear distinction between paranormal investigators during that period. The UFO investigators were independent of the Bigfoot investigators – and the Bigfoot investigators were conducting their research independent of the UFO hunters. Gordon felt the need to report what was happening to both sides- not drawing conclusions – but merely acting as a reporting conduit in the hopes that his research might mean something in other cases. While Gordon did not have the answers, he felt it was important to keep communication lines open and encourage the exchange of information.

While Gordon had reviewed some Bigfoot sighting reports years earlier, there were no clear ties to UFOs.  A few cases existed that mixed UFOs and Bigfoot, but very little information was available. The two phenomena seemed miles apart – until the unexpected happened. Witnesses were reporting sightings of these hairy creatures in the same time period and same locations where other witnesses were calling in a UFO sighting.

From Gordon’s book:  “The continuous encounters with these hairy creatures had been occurring for weeks. While many of the creature sightings suggested that we were dealing with an unknown zoological specimen, some of the cases had us scratching our heads. It was difficult enough to consider the possibility that there may indeed be a scientifically unclassified member of the animal kingdom roaming the forests and woods of Pennsylvania. But how did we deal with the creature cases that had other strange aspects to them? These accounts were originating from individuals who were just reporting what they experienced and wanted some answers as to what was going on.”

UFO Lands - Bigfoot Spotted

While many of the UFO and Bigfoot cases were investigated independent of each other, some of them included witness testimony where the UFO and the Bigfoot were seen together – including the case near Uniontown, PA, on October 25, 1973, where a UFO landed on a Fayette County farm.

State Police at Uniontown contacted Gordon at 10:30 p.m. to report they were investigating this unusual incident and were continuing to interview Steve – the 22-year-old main witness. A large, round object, red in color and as big as a barn, had landed on the family farm, while about 15 people watched. Steve – armed with a rifle and six rounds of ammo – got into a pick-up truck with two young, local boys and drove toward the object.

There were unusual sounds in the air including barking dogs, a whirring sound like a lawnmower might make and what sounded like a baby crying. They drove as close as they could to the site, parked the truck with the engine running, and climbed the rest of the way up a hill to where they could look down on the object. As they moved away from the truck, they could see that its lights were dimming as though its power was being drained.

At the top of the hill, they got their first look at the object.

From the book: “About 250 feet away was a huge, luminous object which appeared on the ground or just above it. The object was no longer round, nor red, but now appeared to be a bright, white domed structure with a somewhat flat base. They now realized that the loud whirring sound was coming from that object. The object was estimated to be about 100 feet in diameter, and the light emanating from the device lit up the surrounding area. There was also an odd smell in the air, something like burning rubber.”

If the scene unfolding before them was not frightening enough, walking near a fence about 75 feet away “were two very tall, dark figures that were slowly moving toward the observers. As they watched, their first thought was that they were bears.”

But these creatures were standing upright and covered with hair – one about eight feet tall and the other about seven feet tall. They had bright, glowing green eyes.

One of the young boys ran away. The other encouraged Steve to fire at them. Steve fired two tracer bullets over their heads. The larger of the two creatures reacted.

“The creature made a brief whine, then raised its right arm and reached toward the luminous tracer as if to grab it. But what occurred next in the field was most amazing. At exactly the same time that the creature grabbed for the tracer, the huge brilliant domed object suddenly vanished from sight.”

The two then noticed a huge glowing area on the ground where the object had been. Steve then fired three shots directly at the two creatures, but they continued walking unharmed. The two fled the scene, got back in the pickup truck and drove back to the farmhouse where they took the family to a neighbor’s home and telephoned state police.

The investigating officer arrived at the farmhouse at 9:45 p.m.

Steve road with the officer to the scene – where they discovered the luminous ring on the ground was still visible and about 150 feet across. Then they heard the sound of nearby footsteps that seemed to be moving in their direction.

“When they would move, they would hear the sound of something large moving with them. When they stopped, it would take a few more steps, then stop. Steve loaded his last bullet in the gun. The men heard something ahead of them. According to Steve, this is what occurred next. As the trooper shined his flashlight, the beam struck what appeared to be the larger of the two hairy creatures about 10 feet away. Steve said that he fired directly at the creature, which seemed momentarily to rock back and forth as though losing its balance. It then charged toward them, hitting the fence that was between the men and the creature. The men hurried back to the patrol car and drove out of the area.”

Stan Gordon Investigates

The trooper then contacted Gordon and suggested he move an investigation team to the area – which was done later that same night.

Gordon was regularly asked by local and state police to help with investigations of both UFOs and Bigfoot. Interviews were conducted and trace evidence – if available – was gathered for study. Hundreds of UFO and Bigfoot reports poured into Gordon’s hotline during 1973 without anyone understanding exactly what was going on or exactly what the phenomena was. The reports continued into 1974, but at a reduced rate. Gordon has continued over the past 27 years since to investigate many other strange cases of UFOs and the Bigfoot creature in Pennsylvania.

Worldwide Coverage

In addition to the many books, magazines and radio shows that have featured Gordon’s investigations worldwide over the years, many television network shows have devoted episodes that explore his work – including History’s “UFO Hunters” where they explored the Kecksburg crash site.

In 1998, Gordon produced and released the 92-minute video documentary, Kecksburg: The Untold Story; winner of the 1998 EBE film award for Best Historical UFO Documentary by the 8th Annual International UFO Congress. In 1987, he was honored with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) Meritorious Achievement in a UFO Investigation Award; the first award of its kind.

Gordon's Work Continues

Today the UFO and Bigfoot reports continue to trickle into Gordon’s UFO hotline. And while Gordon’s investigation work is never done – many applaud his ice-breaking past works that brought witness testimony of anomalous events to the public’s eye internationally and allowed investigators to get together from different disciplines in a common ground area where they can freely trade case data.

The UFO and Bigfoot enigmas are still unresolved today; and Stan Gordon remains on the job.

A video of Gordon discussing some of these cases is available on this page. Part Two is available here. You can read more about Stan Gordon at his web site – stangordon.info.