Eyewitness

 Subject: Carbondale

 Here's a rough account of what happened re. Carbondale "UFO."


 At the time I was staying over at a girl friend's home approximnately three 
blocks from the pond in question. We had been out the night before and slept
in that morning. A fellow reporter called me and said there was something 
going on at Russell Park. (The pond borders the Russell Park Recreational 
Complex on the SSE.)

 I immediaely dressed, grabbed a camera and a notebook, and walked to the 
site. There were four police officers there, and a small crowd, numbering
 about 25 people, mostly residents opf the surrounding area. I was the 
first member of the media on the scene.

 At the time, Carbondale Police Chief Paul Kelly was vacationing in 
Florida, where his brother lives. Lt. Det. Francis "Mitch" Dottle was
 serving as acting chief. The other officers on the scene were Ptl. 
John Barbaro, Ptl. Walter Connor and part-time Ptl. Bob Leonard.
 (Kelly, Dottle, Barbaro and Leonard are now retired. Connor died
 a couple of years ago.)

 Reviewing my notes of the time, I approached Dottle and said, 
"Mitch, what's going on?"(Dottle and I had been friends for 
years. We fished together, and after work each day almost always
 stopped for a few drinks. We were and are good friends.)

  He replied, "I'm not sure. Three kids said they saw a light come
 something come out of the sky and fall into the pond." 

 Interviewing the police officvers who had been on the scene most
of the night, I was told when the incident was first reported the responding
officers saw "a light" in the pond and that after a while the light faded
and went out.

 The pond in question was a silt pond near an old breaker. One east side was
a high silt bank. On the west side were remnants of an old railroad track 
that went back into the breaker. On north side was the fence at Russell Park.
 And on the south side was a smaller silt bank. The pond was considered 
treacherous because anyone slipping in from the silt banks would have trouble
 getting out, because it was polluted, because it had a silty and muddy
 bottom and because the bottom debris-covered (all kinds of junk, from 
old tires to other parts of cars, shopping carts, etc.)

 Incidentally, this pond hadn't been used in years and the breaker operation 
was long since closed.

  Initially, Dottle mulled what steps to take. While skeptical because the 
three kids in question were "known" to police as more or less troublemakers,
Dottle was not ready to just dismiss their story as a hoax.

 But as time went on, another problem developed. News of the incident was
spreading and a large crowd was developing. Traffic congestion in the 
area became a major problem. And, because of the conditions of the silt 
pond and immediate surroundings, Dottle was concerned about someone being 
hurt. For example, police had to regularly chase people. including small 
children off the high silt bank on the east side of the pond for fear that
someone might fall, slide down the bank and into the pond.

 The Carbondale Police Department was a small department, usually with 
just a desk officer and two patrolmen on a shift. Logistics became became 
very bad problem. Sgt. Albert Mazza, the day shift desk officer, reported 
that police phones were tied up with curious callers. Dottle was forced 
to keep the night shift over. (Which was a problem in itself because 
Carbondale was a financially-distressed city.)

 As time went by, whatever was in the pond became secondary to public safety. 
Hundreds of people were now mobbing the site. Nearby communities sent police
 to assist. News media began arriving from all over. The wire services 
picked up on the story. "UFO experts" began arriving, and some of them 
telling fantastic tales. (Such as how this incident resembled one 
in Russia!)

 With crowd control such a major problem (it was so bad people were gathering
 and doing damage in nearby St. Rose of Lima Cemetery, which bordered the 
road leading into the pond.) Police had their hands full. So congested were 
streets leading to the area that should an emergency arise where an ambulance 
or fire truck was needed, they would never get through.)

 Finally, Dottle enlisted the aid of the Civil Air Patrol for crowd control.
They arrive with a truck with Civil Air Patrol markings on the side. (This 
would later lead to rumors that "The Air Force was there.")

 After about five hours, I returned to my girlfriend's house to get a 
sandwich. When I returned to the scene about 10 minutes later, I was 
stopped by a teenager in a Civil Air Patrol uniform. The kid had a 45 
calibre strapped to his belt. I told the kid to kiss my ass, and walked 
by him. I found Dottle and told him there was kid with a 45 out there 
guarding the road. Dottle immedialy went to the CAP guy in charge and 
instructed him to disarm the kid and that he (Dottle) didn't want to 
see anyone wearing or carrying a firearm except police.

 A decision was made to try and drain the pond. Several fire trucks were
brought in and hoses put down. One truck, from nearby Mayfield Borough,
drove along the west side of the pond and an old wooden covering gave 
way,damaging the truck.

 After a while, it became obvious that trying to drain the pond was a bad
idea. For one thing, the water and silt were such that it began clogging 
the pumps.

 Time passed, the crowd grew larger and larger and the news continued to
spread. At police headquarters, Sgt. Mazza was get calls from CBS News, 
Los Angeles and evenm England. If someone elsewhere in town had an 
emergency and needed police, it would have been impossible to get 
through to police headquarters.

  All during this time there was nothing visible in the pond, no light,
 not anything that would indicate anything unusual.

 At about 5 PM I went to my office and filed a story. Then, I bought coffees
and donuts for Dottle and I and returned to the scene.

 I might note that except for two brief trips to my girlfriends house, three
runs to my office to file stories and two brief trips to the coffee shop, I
was on the scene from almost beginning to the very end. By "on the scene" I
mean at the very edge of the pond.

 Near the end, a guy approached Dottle and said he was from Binghamton, N.Y. 
(about an hour's drive from Carbonsdale via the interstate), that he was a 
scuba diver and that he had heard about the incident on the news. He had his 
scuba gear in the trunk of his car and offered to enter the pond to take a 
look. Dottle didn't immediatlly agree. He was concerned about liability 
should the guy be injured - or drown.

 Keep in mind that the entire scene was slightly controlled chaos. Even with 
help from neighboring police departments (which had little departments - two 
or three officers at the most, and in some cases a single officer), the size 
of the crowd presented major problems.

 Finally, Dottle decided the only way to put an end to this one way or the
other was to recover or identify whatever the three kids supposedly say go
into the pond. The scuba diver was given permission to go in. He suited up
and entered the pond. He had a lantern because without some sort of light
you couldn't see a foot in front of you inmm the murky, silty water.

 After searching for a bit in the area where the first arriving police
officers had seenm something glowing in the water, the scuba diver 
emerged holding an old railroad lantern.

 I might note that he had in his other hand the lantern he had entered the 
water with. (Which squelches rumors that the lantern he retreived was the 
same one he had taken into the water.)

 The railroad lantern he recovered was of the type not unusual in the area. 
This being a former mining and railroad area, there are hundreds if not 
thousands of them around. Chances are you could find one stashed away in 
most cellars in Carbondale. Some bars even had them on the wall for 
decorations.

 It wasn't long after the recovery of the lantern that the crowds 
disappeared. So did police and other emergency personnell. I went to my 
office to file the story and then met Dottle at one of our hangouts where a 
very tired and exhasted reporter and cop indulged in a couple of hours of 
beer drinking and telling stories.

 It was later that one of the three kids involved confessed that he and his
companions had taken the old lantern from one of their homes a perpetrated 
the hoax.

 One a side note, there was another "light" in the sky roughly around the 
time the kids reported the light in the pond. This other "light" was 
visible from Interstate 81, approximately 16 miles south of Carbondale. 
It was seen by motorist travelling I-81 just east of Dunmore. But the 
"light" was scene in the sky on the east of I-81. Carbondale is east of 
I-81. The "light" was travellingv in a west to north direction. I am familiar 
with the stretch of I-80 from where this second light was obrserved. It travels 
through woodlands just before you reach Dunmore-Scranton, thus no surface 
lights blur out the sky. Coming back from fishing trips, I have seen numerous  
meteors while travelling this stretch of I-81 at night. I didn't witness 
this particular one, but experience tells me it wasa just another meteor. 
(falling star).

 Meanwhile, I revisited the Russel Park silt pond the next morning and all 
was peaceful.

 Now, none of this is very exciting. But that is exactly what happened. And,
quite bluntly, the shit I've been reading about this "UFO" on the internet 
by people who weren't even there is amusing. But all fantasy.

 Let me add one more thing. When it comes to UFO's, I'm a skeptic but far 
from being a disbeliever. I ackowledge the possibility of their existence. 
And if a UFO had gone into that silt pond, I, as a reporter, would have had 
the story of the mellinium. I sure as hell would have written about it like 
there was no tommorrow. I would have had visions of Pulitzer Prizes and 
millions of dollars dancing in my head. The reporter who wrote about the 
first verified UFO! Fame, glory and riches! But alas, it wasn't. It was just 
an old railroad lantern tossed in the pond by a trio of delinquents having 
fun at everyone else's expense.

 Then again, who knows? Maybe the government paid me a million bucks to 
keep quiet. But if that's the case, how come bill collectors keep 
sending me second notices?

 Hope this helps.

 Jerry Palko
A First Hand Account

Jerry Palko
