UAP hearing shines new spotlight on Wisconsin's self-proclaimed UFO capitals

 

BELLEVILLE, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Planning for the annual UFO celebration began Thursday in this small South Central Wisconsin town of about 2,500. One day earlier, a Wisconsin congressman led a House subcommittee hearing in which whistleblowers claimed the U.S. military has been withholding evidence of encounters with spacecraft almost certainly from another planet, and perhaps, proof some of those unidentified anomalous phenomena, known as UAPs or UFOs, were piloted by nonhumans. 

It was purely a coincidence, as every year, Belleville takes months to lay out the details for its yearly UFO parade.

"Probably the thing we are known for most is the UFO Day parade," Nathan Perry, administrator of the Belleville School District, said. "The UFO Day celebration dating all the way back to the sighting in 1987."

Perry is part of the UFO Day planning committee, as is the village's unofficial historian, Rick Francois.

Francois, along with a trove of newspaper clippings at the village library, passes down the story of those sightings in July of 1987.

A police officer on an overnight patrol was atop a hill between Belleville, which straddles the Dane and Green County lines, and New Glarus.

In the distance, the officer noticed a large, mysterious object in the air. He radioed a description to dispatch, which passed the officer's report along to O'Hare International Airport, which at the time was the closest airport with a radar that is still being monitored at 2 a.m.

"O'Hare confirmed there was something," Francois said. "It was not in the flight plan, and so, it was officially described as an Unidentified Flyng Object."

News of the report quickly spread around town, and locals began their own late-night searches.

The Belleville Public Library has a large collection of newspaper clippings documenting reported UFO sightings in July of 1987.

"And, like seven days later, the same thing in the same place happened again," Francois said.

News articles from 1987 detail a debate that followed. At public meetings some UFO believers presented their case for why those sightings may well have been extraterrestrial while at least a couple University of Wisconsin astronomers were more skeptical; one was convinced it was really a star. 

It wasn't enough to dissuade the town from starting an annual UFO celebration the following fall, and UFO Day is now a Belleville staple on the last weekend of October.

However, Belleville isn't the only Wisconsin town claiming to be 'UFO Capital of the World.' About 225 miles to the northwest, Elmwood, outside of Eau Claire, boasts of its own UFO parade and celebration. 

That parade also began with a series of reported sightings; these ones happened in the 1970s.

Elmwood's 'UFO Days' are happening this weekend. Amy Bechel, the Elmwood Community Club president and planner of the annual event, says Elmwood's most famous encounter was in 1975, and it also involved a police officer.

In that reported incident, the officer was investigated what he first thought was a big fire in the sky, then noted it was actually a large, bright object.

"He radioed dispatch and stuff, and when they came to find him, he had been struck by something," Bechel said. "Because he was kind of passed out in the driver's seat."

The town of Dundee in Fond du Lac County has its own UFO history, thanks largely to Bill Benson. Benson first began researching UFOs after seeing a crop circle near his home, according to an account shared by the haunted site tracker, Wisconsin Freights. 

'UFO Daze' at Benson's Hideaway tavern was an annual gathering for UFO believers until Benson's death in 2021. Benson's daughter declined to be interviewed for this story.

Hearing shines spotlight...but Wisconsin officials are skeptical

Grothman chaired Wednesday's subcommittee hearing in which three former military personnel claimed the Department of Defense should release more of the classified documents it has on UAPs.

In one exchange that raised eyebrows, former intelligence officer, David Grusch, said the military had recovered nonhuman biologics from one UAP.

"He was, maybe, I'll say it bluntly- the least credible of the three witnesses," Grothman said.

Grothman said he was skeptical all-around of the idea the military was successfully suppressing proof of alien lifeform visiting earth.

"I think it would be hard to keep that thing secret, right?" Grothman said. "If somebody really did come across a crashed spacecraft and they found people in it, I would think, almost immediately, dozens if not hundreds of people in the military would know about it."

At a public appearance Friday in Madison, Gov. Tony Evers only said, "no" when asked if he believed aliens have visited earth.

Grothman said he found the other witnesses' descriptions of personal encounters with UAPs to be more credible given their careers as military pilots, but added he wasn't yet ready to issue any subpoenas to compel officials to testify on the subject.

"I'd rather not subpoena people right way," Grothman said. "We'll see what we find out in the closed-door meetings."

Grothman added he would like the Pentagon to declassify its older UAP-related documents.

"It's hard to imagine that 20, 25 years ago, what happened then, they can't release," he said. "And it'd be interesting to see."

While some of Wisconsin's elected officials might have their doubts, Francois and Bechel said they're believers. 

"I do believe that there's something, somebody else out there and wanting to make a connection," she said. "We just have to maybe not be afraid and be open to the idea."