... Saturday, November 9th! It was a cold night, but nothing could be colder than the wind blowing out of the east, the direction from which IT came over Salem Mountain.
Nobody believed the first witnesses. Calls to the police department initially fell on deaf ears: "It wouldn't be what they think. IT must be a shooting star or something."
Nobody would admit the terrible truth, that what they had always ...aded had again come to pass - a lantern had been spotted in the skies of Carbondale.
The truth would not, and could not, be accepted. Everybody remembered what had happened when the first lantern landed back in 1918. Oldtime Carbondale residents recall with terror the fate of Ike Balforio that ...ely night at the No. 4 dam. The tragic memories of that incident ...e too tough to bear. People made ... uses: IT must be a flash light in a ...le, or something, but not a lantern!" "God help us if IT is!"
But the calls became too ...erous to ignore. It soon became too obvious that a Lantern had ...e again made its precarious appearance over the Pionner City. The only thing that could be hoped now was that a landing had not been accomplished.
That hope was dashed against the ...n-strewn shores of a silt pond behind Russel Park, as anxious ...s reported the sighting of a ...ing glow from beneath the ...es of the tiny body of water. The ... was said to dim, and then to ...hten, in regular and repeating intervals.
Curious citizens rushed to the site ... as terrified observers fled the ... after seeing the mysterious ... in the pond. Several witnesses ...ar that a police officier fired his ... at the bizarre source of illumination in a futile effort to estinguish IT, although acting chief police Francis Dottle contends to that day that no shots were ever fired.
An expert on UFOs who rushed to the scene from his office in ...udsburg expressed relief that ... of the bullets struck whatever is was in that was emanating the light. ... IT is a lantern, and we don't ... that for certain yet, you never ... what the reaction might be to a caliber slug," said the unidentified expert. The elderly but still energetic expert expresed doubt, ...ever, that the object was a lantern "It's not normal for Lantern to pulsate at the frequent intervals ...h this one is exhibiting, but we can't be certain until we recover it.
The glow lasted for a reported nine ...s, leading to speculation that if ...really was a Lantern then surely those instruments must have been improved since 1918, when Ike Balforio watched a glow at No. 4 dam for three hours before reaching his untimely end.
Spectators from near and far began to arrive, including several UFO experts. These included Matthew J. Graeber of the UFO Research Information Center in Philadelphia, Robert D. Barry of the 20th Century UFO Bureau, and Doug Dains from Binghamton, who represented Dr. J. Allen Hynek of the Center for UFO Studies at Northwestern University in Chicago.
These experts expressed excitement that at last they had gotten a chance to obtain what they had always been searching for - a concrete example of previously unexplained aerial phenomena. Little did they realize on Sunday that during the next day their wildest dreams would become reality with the extrication of the unknown object from the pond.
An attempt was made to retrieve the object with a net, but the thing was last in the grimy depths after momentarily being grasped. Geiger counters were used to try and establish the existence of any abnormal radioactivity. (A high reading might indicate the presence of a nuclear-powered lantern.) Nothing definitive could be determined from the tests, however, since none of the experts knew what level of radioactivity was normal for Carbondale. At any rate, the geiger counters showed nothing dramatic, confirming the fact that, if the object in question was in fact a Lantern, the IT must surely be conventionally powered.
Some anxious moments occurred on Sunday afternoon at the site when Carbondale Police and members of the Civil Air Patrol cleared the immediate area. Spectators did not want to leave the site, hoping against hope that they would witness the recovery of something shocking - perhaps even a Lantern. What was termed by some onlookers as a "near riot" broke out between some reluctant civilians and the C.A.P.
Meanwhile, down at City Hall, Sgt. Albert Mazza was manning the phones when a veritable deluge of calls came in from all over the country from interested persons who had heard on the national news of the possible existence in Carbondale of a Lantern.
At the site, local fire companies from up and down the valley began to arrive in preparation for the pumping of the pond, while a backhoe from a local construction company was utilized to clear a channel out of the basin.
T.V. film crews arrived from as far away as Philadelphia, and excitement mounted as two scuba divers from the Syracuse area stood by waiting for the order to dive.
Acting Chief Dottle gave the order at approximatively 3:00 p.m. on Monday after the water in the pond had dropped to an acceptable level.
Tension filled the air as the diver attached himself to a safety rope. Learning a lesson from the fate of Ike Balforio, he wishes to take no chances just in case a Lantern was actually was found. He boarded the rowboat and was taken to the site where the glow was last seen. As he disappeared into the acidic waters the whole crowd gasped in expectation. The experts awaited the find. The police and Civil Air Patrol stood by in case of any emergency.
The diver emerged in about five minutes holding an object. As hundreds looked on, it soon was apparent that the worst fears of the populace had come to pass. In the diver's hand was a Lantern.
Surprisingly little panic was exhibited by the throng. Some ran. Some broke down and cried. Most stayed calm but kept their distance behind the 7-foot chain link fence in the outfield of Russel Park.
The authorities declared the case closed, wrapping up the affair with a new conference that evening at City Hall. The UFO was declared officially an ISO (Identified Sunken Object), and a collective prayer was uttered that nothing had come of the incident.