The Real 'Resident Aliens' - Part III
By Raymond A. Keller, PhD, a.k.a. “Cosmic Ray,” the author of the international awards-winning Venus Rising Series, published by Headline Books and available on Amazon.com, while supplies last.
Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet
Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus
Cosmic Ray's Excellent Venus Adventure
Lady Columba Venus Revelations
Aliens at Cape Canaveral?
On Friday, 3 June 1966, astronauts Gene Cernan and Thomas P. Stafford, manning the Gemini 9, were launched into orbit from the rocket base at Cape Canaveral, Florida. But in the city of Cape Canaveral, there were rumors of two mysterious visitors, astronauts from another planet, who showed up on the beach, apparently to get a good look at the historic launch.
Tom Longhurst, a reporter from the Orlando, Florida, Sentinel newspaper, was down in Cape Canaveral to cover the launch from the perspective of locals who live in and along the Cape. His report of these strange events appeared in the Sunday, 5 June 1966 edition of the Sentinel.
In Longhurst’s article, “Did Two Men Drop from Sky?” the Sentinel correspondent noted that there were three boys playing in the back of the Winslow Apartments in Cape Canaveral who allegedly sighted a “space ship” or a “flying sub” that landed just beyond the breakers. There were also two strangely attired men on the beach who stepped onto some kind of powered disk that shuttled them off to the space ship, which they boarded.
James Harkins of Unit 52 in the Winslow Apartments told reporter Longhurst that his two sons, Michael, age 6, and James, age 7, were playing with their 8-year-old friend Steve behind the apartment complex, which faces the beach, around 7:30 p.m., when they first viewed this unusual event, beginning with a “rocket or jet” that flashed overhead and apparently dove into the sea.
“The three of them came in to the apartment and asked my wife if they could go over to the beach to see where it (the UFO) went;” said Harkins, then adding, “So, we let them go.”
The boys returned in less than five minutes. They were ashen faced and frightened with what they witnessed on the beach. The told the Harkins boys’ father that once they reached the beach, they saw two men standing with their backs to them about 30 yards away. These two men were talking; but what was really strange about them was that they were wearing “glass-encased helmets, grey suits and what look like scuba tanks on their back.” One of the lads let out a sharp whistle, which startled the men. Then these “visitors,” for the lack of a better word, dashed into the water and jumped onto some kind of flat “round white thing” that sped them off to a mysterious vessel about 100 yards off the beach. The boys noticed that this craft had windows in it through which they could “see people inside.” There was also a gray star painted on its side together with the capital letters “HU HR PS RED.”
James Harkins’ two sons told him that they started fleeing from the scene at almost the same time the two men did. When they looked back, they expected to see the craft take off; but instead, it submerged and vanished.
The father said that young Steve ran home to tell his parents about the sighting. Therefore, he separated his sons to get their accounts independently; and later also questioned their friend Steve. He got substantially the same story from all three of the boys. “They all came up with the same letters each time I questioned them separately; and all mentioned the same details,” said Harkins, who dismissed the suggestion that the boys made up the story: “They are just not that type of boys.” Harkins did concede, however, that perhaps his sons and their friend may have seen some “Navy frogmen exercises or scuba divers working from a submarine.”
Harkins did call both the Cocoa Beach and Canaveral police departments insofar as he thought he had a duty to at least report the incident. “But I didn’t want to make a big deal about it. It sounds so crazy.” He did, however, ask the police if they could contact Patrick Air Force Base personnel to see if they did have some type of advanced aircraft like a flying submarine. Police dispatchers did make such an inquiry on behalf of James Harkins, but there was no comment forthcoming to affirm or deny the existence of such an aircraft or the carrying out of any frogmen operations in the area.
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(Editor’s Note: Keep reading this series for Part IV of the Cosmic Ray’s Real “Resident Aliens,” where a real UFO creature showed up on a Lake Erie beach on 31 July 1966. - Lon)
