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Ramona: Unidentified flying something creates a stir

By JESSICA GILBERT

Ramona correspondent

(785) 965-2621

One hot summer evening more than 10 years ago when Pat and I were here for summer vacation and working on our little Ramona House, our neighbor, Verleen Bailey stopped by for an evening chat. She often did that after a day of teaching at Tabor College in Hillsboro.

"I thought you girls should know — there are aliens down on Main Street," she announced. I immediately thought of little green people wandering around town, and my imagination already was envisioning what aliens would be deducing and reporting back to their "mother ship" as they peered in the windows of Hanschu's Market or tasted a pizza and beer at Betty's Café.

Then Verleen quickly brought me back to reality when she added, "Illegal aliens — they often get off the train when it's stopped and blocking the tracks. Just thought you should know."

I hadn't thought much about aliens since then, until the other day when I was sitting at the Ramona Café, enjoying a piece of cherry pie and ice cream, and Reign Anduss asked, "Did you hear about the UFOs just south of Ramona?"

"Are you yanking my chain?" I asked. That's a suspicious question I've come to ask as a country reporter, especially when gleaning information from Ramona's more mischievous characters like Rick or Junior Hanschu.

"I'm not kidding," Reign replied. "And we're not alone in seeing them. Last week at the senior luncheon I mentioned what Marlene and I recently saw and Darlene Sondergard said they'd seen them too!"

Well, now I saw the makings of a story so I got out my pen and paper and asked Reign to "give it to me from the top."

The story begins when Reign and Marlene were returning home from Hesston at about 9:30 p.m. Feb. 14. They had just turned onto Quail Creek Road and gone about one-half mile when two amazingly bright lights appeared in the sky.

"It was pitch black out," said Reign, "so when these two huge lights — sorta yellow and looking like gigantic headlights — appeared, we were startled. They appeared to be about one-half mile from us. All we could see were the lights — we couldn't see any other structure or object attached to them."

So the Andusses stopped in the road. They observed the lights for a little bit and when they drove on, the lights went out.

"Then we got up near Fred and Marguerite Utech's place and there they were again — like they'd followed us!" said Reign with animation. "We stopped the car again and this time I rolled down the window to see if we could hear anything. There was no sound — just these huge bright lights. I was so excited, and a bit nervous — these lights, you can't believe it, they were amazing — so I grabbed the camera that was in the car, and took a picture."

Reign rolled up his window and started driving on down the road toward Ramona, when Marlene decided to take one more picture. Reign wasn't expecting that. "When that flash went off I nearly jumped out of my skin," said Reign. "I thought they done got us! Our hearts were pounding. I admit it — it was spooky."

When the Andusses caught their breaths they started driving on down the road. "It was strange — first the left light went out and then the right one."

After hearing this account, I called Darlene Sondergard. "Oh, yes, we've seen those lights," said Darlene. "It was last November and Al and I, along with Irene Beames, were coming home after taking the election results to Marion. We had just turned north off the Lincolnville-Durham road, on Quail Creek, and about one-half mile north these two vivid bright orange lights appeared and then they went out. We drove further north around Fred Utech's place and there they were again."

When Darlene heard Reign Anduss relate his "light experience," she was validated — she wasn't imagining things. "I saw Irene Beames the other night and told her that somebody besides us had seen the bright lights. We'd agreed that night in November not to talk about it — we figured who'd believe it?"

When I asked Darlene what it was like to see those lights she said, "It's kinda awesome," and then she quickly added, as though finding it hard to believe herself, "Oh, there's got to be some rationalization to this. At the time when we saw the lights we thought it was just the lights over the bombing range near Salina — but it was just too close for that." And then her voice trails off in laughter. "It's got to the point where you just don't want to tell this story."

I was intrigued by the fact that these flying lights seem to like Fred Utech's farm, so I called Fred last night and asked him if he's ever seen the lights hovering over his land.

"Oh, yes," Fred chuckles. "They're always about in the same spot — our east corner — the lights are extremely bright and they seem to stand still and then move awfully fast. The ones I've seen were blinking. My first sightings were about 25 years ago."

Fred encountered the lights again while out sowing wheat about three years ago. "It was near dark and these bright lights appeared in the northeast corner of the field and they were blinking. Suddenly another set of lights appeared in the southeast corner, and wussshhh — they crossed each other, and then were gone!"

And there were more stories: "One time, when my granddaughters were just tiny girls, my daughter Jeanetta was here with them, and they were heading home and got down here to the east corner and this big bright light appeared above them and the pickup died. Jeanetta couldn't get it started again, so she put the baby on her hip and grabbed the other girl by the hand and ran back to our place. I went back with her in my pickup and when I tried starting her truck, it started right off."

Fred also had a story about his son, Marlon. "Here's another weird one," said Fred. "My son Marlon and his wife were here and when they left for home it was getting dark and they got to the same east corner and a light appeared above them. Marlon's wife has very long hair and Marlon said her hair was just sucked straight up toward the roof of the car until the light disappeared."

What does one talk about, I wondered, after such an experience? I tried to imagine Marlon and his wife driving on home after that event. If I hadn't had a deadline for getting this article in the newspaper, and if it wasn't around midnight as I type, I would be calling Marlon and asking.

Fred Utech said that he'd heard others talk about seeing bright lights. "Mark Heiser says he sees them all the time because he's out working the fields a lot at night." So I called Mark.

"I see them in the western horizon and they do appear to be very close, but they're more red than yellow, and the lights I've seen are probably more towards K-15. One night I drove and drove toward the lights and the further I drove the further away they were — they appeared much closer than they were. I've seen as many as three — glowing red."

But Mark is certain he's figured out the point of origin for the red lights he sees. "I believe they're coming from the Lindsborg area where there's a firing and testing range," said Mark. Mark came to this conclusion when he attended a sale over near Lindsborg and met someone who used to work at the firing range. He told Mark they use flares for night testing.

"I must admit, the first couple of times I saw the red lights, it was spooky — it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I don't know if the lights I've seen are the same as the ones the others have described." Then he laughed and said, "When I'm out working late at night I try to keep my imagination under control." But Mark said he has heard of people commuting from here to Salina where their car started misfiring and suddenly there's a bright light above them. "The story came from people who didn't make up stories," said Mark. "That was about 25 years ago." Seems people in Salina saw the bright lights that Reign and Marlene reported. In the Salina Journal's Opinion Line column someone wrote: "Did anybody else see the UFOs over Salina at about 8:30 on Valentine's night?" Reign and Marlene's sighting was an hour later. The next week there was a response in the Salina Journal column again: "Yes, we saw the Valentine's Day UFO, too. Several people in the Ramona area saw it. A couple of them saw it two times. Ramona residents have seen UFOs for years." I couldn't locate the person who authored this comment — it wasn't the Andusses or the Sondergards or the Utechs. So somewhere in Ramona there's another witness, another sighting, and another story. When Reign first told me about his UFO experience I chuckled and said, "Oh, Reign, your fried chicken and Marlene's pies have become so famous even the extraterrestrials are coming to Ramona for a taste test!" So that's the news from Ramona, where we have determined we're not alone, but so far it hasn't affected the traffic in town — it's still two parked cars and a dog in the road.

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