Date:   Sat Sep 17 1994  00:00:22
From:   Sheppard Gordon
Subj:   Real I _ UFO
UFO                            -------------------------------

Teen explains UFO  // 1991 magazine article recalled
08/01/94
THE HARRISBURG PATRIOT

   The unidentified flying object so many people saw over the skies
of Dauphin County last week may have been identified, thanks to a
smart 16-year-old with a good memory.
   It could be a classified aircraft military analysts call "the big
wing."
   Several people saw a low-flying, slow-moving, triangular vehicle
with colored lights hovering last week. UFO specialists, military
officials, area airport officials and witnesses couldn't offer an
explanation.
   But Joe Burda, a 16-year-old from New Cumberland, had an
explanation. He read about the UFO sightings in Thursday's editions
of The Patriot-News and recalled an article he had read called
"America's New Secret Aircraft" in the December 1991 issue of Popular
Mechanics.
   "I remembered reading about it, and when I read the paper I said,
`Wait a minute,' " Burda said.
   Burda then looked through his back issues and found the article
describing some of the experimental planes experts have sighted and
linked to classified military projects that cost the government
billions. The article described numerous sightings of "flying-wing
triangles."
   The article reported numerous observers had seen "a black, silent,
boomerang-shaped vehicle that stretches between 600 and 800 feet
across and performs circus-pony maneuvers at air speeds as low as 20
knots."
   Dauphin County eyewitnesses offered a similar description, saying
they saw a UFO that could have been a "strange looking plane" moving
at speeds of about 15 mph late Tuesday night.
   Popular Mechanics said in 1991 that over the previous two years,
the vehicle it called "big wing" had "passed silently over city
streets, empty desert and rural freeways. The craft moved so slowly
one observer said he could jog along with it."
   Popular Mechanics also said "a pattern of seemingly random white
lights on the vehicle's black underside provided `constellation
camouflage' against the starry sky." The magazine said such a craft
could elude radar by "slowing to a crawl" and said such a plane could
be used for either troop delivery or covert surveillance.
   The Air Force has publicly said it has no aircraft matching the
descriptions offered. But the magazine said the military has denied
the existence of other aircraft while they were being developed, such
as today's Stealth fighters, and said these sightings may "offer a
preview of 21st-century air power."
   Burda's mother, Cindy Anderson, said their home is filled with
"Star Trek" fans. She initially teased him that the vehicle was
"filled with Cardasians," a group of alien bad guys in the current
"Star Trek" shows.
   "He's into anything like that," Anderson said. "He reads his
Popular Mechanics from cover to cover. He retains this stuff."