PORTAGE COUNTY
17 April 1966, from 03:00. Deputy Dale Spaur, Portage County, badge 15. Oblong brightness about 500 feet over the car, eighty miles toward Conway, Pennsylvania. Blue Book opens a card. No recovery.
081°15'00 W
1. Public Record
17 April 1966, between 03:00 and 06:00. Deputy Dale F. Spaur, Portage County Sheriff's Office, badge 15. Ravenna, Ohio, Routes 224 and 44. An oblong brightness that seems to be leaving the ground, an antenna suggestion, silvery radiance, no coloured lights, about 500 feet over the car, slow then very fast, glare that blinds the driver. He and others follow due east about eighty miles toward Conway, Pennsylvania. Three men from the sheriff's office, two patrol cars. People along the route see the same glow. Blue Book opens a card.
Officer Wilbur Neff is in the car with Spaur for part of the run. H. Wayne Huston of East Palestine joins. Radio traffic goes up the chain. A police chief in Pennsylvania is said to see it as they come in. By dawn the object is gone and the deputies are left with a night they cannot put back. Official talk later offers Venus and fatigue. The eighty miles of pavement do not move.
Spaur does not come home a hero. The chase becomes a burden. He leaves the department in the years after. The case is one of the last big Blue Book ground-chase files before the project winds down. The card still says what the first report said: followed to Conway, about eighty miles, glow that blinded the driver.
A badge number. A dawn they never reached cleanly. A man who paid after the paper had finished with him.
The glow from object was so bright it blinded driver of vehicle.
2. Date of Incident
17 April 1966, 03:00-06:00. Blue Book card the same season.
3. Location
Ravenna, Ohio, along 224 and 44, to Conway, Pennsylvania. Approximate 41°09 N 081°15 W at start.
4. Official Narrative
Blue Book files it as a chase. Venus and misperception sit in later commentary. Official narrative is not a recovery and not a reprimand that names a star as the whole night.
5. Witness Layer
Spaur. Neff. Huston. Roadside witnesses. Pennsylvania officers at the far end. Blue Book clerk.
Followed object to Conway, Pa., for about 80 miles.
6. Recovery Logistics
Patrol logs. Radio. No object at Conway. No photograph from the dash.
7. Assessment
A chase file. Keep badge 15 and the eighty miles. Keep Neff and Huston so Spaur is not alone in the car. Keep the cost to him after. Do not write Venus as a deputy's whole night. Do not write a landing because it looked as if it had just left ground. The glare that blinds is the physical claim the card would not drop.
8. Materials & Remains
Blue Book file. Press of April 1966. The route.
9. Key Personnel
Dale F. Spaur : Badge 15.
Wilbur Neff : In the car.
H. Wayne Huston : The joining unit.
10. Aftermath
The Ravenna chase becomes a police-UFO slide. Spaur's later life is the part the slide usually drops. Blue Book closes. The pavement is still there.
11. Current Archive Status
Status: 17 Apr 1966. Eighty-mile chase. Blue Book. No recovery.
Confidence: High that deputies chased a bright object east for a long stretch before dawn and that other people on the route saw a glow. Low that the object is typed. Low that Venus covers the ground-level first look.
Filing note
A deputy at three in the morning, a glow that blinded the windscreen, two cars, eighty miles of Route 224 into Pennsylvania, a second officer in the seat, a man who paid for the night after the paper had finished with him.
Badge 15. The file starts as a number on a shirt. It should end as a person.