Abducting Aliens or a Good Ole Kentucky Abberation?

Greetings. Kentucky, January of 1976. 

Mona Stafford's 36th birthday was January 6th, and in celebration, she and her friends Louise Smith and Elaine Thomas decided to drive thirty-five miles from their home in Liberty, Kentucky, to have dinner at the Redwoods Restaurant, between Stanford and Lancaster, Kentucky. Louise Smith was driving her 1967 Chevy Nova. The three women had an enjoyable dinner together, and none of the ladies drank any alcoholic beverages with their dinner. At about 11:15pm, the trio headed back home, expecting to be home by around midnight. At Stanford, Kentucky, nine miles from Lancaster, they turned off Highway 27 and onto Highway 78 towards Hustonville. Just beyond Stanford, unexplained events began to transpire. The ladies spotted a bright object in the night sky, which Mona Stafford initially thought was an airplane in distress, possibly on fire, due to its reddish glow. As the object descended from the right side of the road to a point ahead of them, they could see that it was not an airplane, but a huge object wider than the road itself. The object stopped approximately a hundred yards ahead of them, stretching across the road on both sides. The ladies stated that the object meandered back and forth for a few seconds, and then slowly moved off to the left of the road.

The trio kept driving, and assumed that the unidentified object had continued on its way. A quarter of a mile down the road however, a blue light appeared through the rear window of the Ms. Smith's automobile. At first they thought it was a highway patrol car with its lights flashing, but soon they realized that the unidentified object had circled around and had come up from behind them. Quite abruptly, something wrested control of the car away from Ms. Smith. The auto accelerated even though Ms. Smith had taken her foot off the accelerator, and the speedometer was soon up to 85 mph. Mona Stafford, in the front passenger seat, tried to help Louise regain control of the car, but her efforts were for naught. Soon the three women began to feel a burning sensation in their eyes. The ignition lights began to light up on the instrument panel, which would normally indicate that the car's engine had stalled, but they were still speeding along down the road. The ladies soon saw a wide, brightly lit road ahead of them, and seconds later, the scene became Highway 78 and they recognized they were on the outskirts of Hustonville, a full eight miles from where they had just been. Checking the time, the trio found that eighty minutes had passed

They arrived at Louise Smith's trailer in Liberty at 1:25 am, almost a full ninety minutes late. The ladies went inside to collect themselves and found that they each had a red blemish on the backs of their necks, and they all had burning, irritated eyes. Louise Smith went into the bathroom and removed her wristwatch to wash her face, whereupon she noticed that the hands of her wristwatch were spinning at a faster rate than normal. When she splashed water on her face, her hands and face immediately became painful and highly sensitive. The ladies went next door, to the home of Mr. Lowell Lee, and told him what had happened. Mr. Lee had them separately sketch the object they had allegedly seen. The ladies' sketches were extremely similar, if not identical. They ultimately called the local authorities and the local Navy office, but neither showed any interest in their story. 

In the following days, Mona Stafford had more problems with her eyes than did the other two women, and she sought medical help for severe conjunctivitis. Louise Smith's pet parakeet was now inexplicably terrified of her and the bird ended up expiring weeks later. Smith's automobile also began to develop unexplained electrical issues.

The Navy office reportedly gave information about the story to local news media outlets, and the story was soon in the newspapers. Hearing of the case, the Mutual UFO Network's Jerry Black set up an interview with the three women. Dr. J. Allen Hynek of the Center for UFO Studies and Jim and Coral Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization also investigated the ladies' claims. Dr. Hynek and the Lorenzens determined that other individuals had independently reported sightings of an unidentified flying object over the same geographical area that same evening. Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle of the University of Wyoming eventually became aware of the case and flew into town, eventually performing a preliminary hypnotic regression of all three women on March 7th of 1976.

In July of 1976, detective James Young of the Lexington Police Department separately gave the three ladies lie detector tests regarding their alleged experiences. All three ladies passed with no significant problems. Later that evening and continuing into the following day, extensive hypnotic regression of the women was performed by Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle. The sessions uncovered a story remarkably similar to the claims of Betty and Barney Hill in that they revealed that during the period of missing time the three women were taken on board the object they had seen. While inside the unknown all three women were medically examined by shadowy beings that they later identified as appearing similar to common depictions of extraterrestrials.

That is the Kentucky alien abduction story in a long, long nutshell. Now do I believe that aliens abducted the three ladies in January of 1976? I don't know, but that is beside the point. What I believe means absolutely nothing, what I can prove does. Unfortunately, as with the vast majority of abduction accounts, there is no physical proof or evidence to corroborate the witnesses' testimonials. So all we are left with are three testimonials, nothing tangible to test or examine, and a good deal of opinion and conjecture. Par for the course in the UFO world. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.