Mystery in the Woods: The “UFO” Incident of 1966

In the spring of 1966, as UFO sightings gripped Ohio with intrigue and fear, a strange light near a Tuscarawas County farm sparked an investigation.

For several weeks in early 1966 there had been numerous reports in the local newspapers of unidentified flying objects (UFO), including one case in April 1966 where two sheriff deputies from Portage County, Ohio chased a UFO for 86 miles and into Pennsylvania. The report of the two deputies was significant enough to warrant being investigated by the head of the Ohio-based United States Air Force’s Blue Book Project on UFO reports, Major Hector Quintanella (1923-1998). The investigation asserted that the UFO seen by the deputies was likely just a weather balloon.

Needless to say, these reports made it so that every unusual light in the night sky or on the ground was scrutinized by some Tuscarawas County viewers through the lens of whether they could be viewing something otherworldly. Shortly after the reporting in the New Philadelphia newspaper of the Portage County deputies’ efforts at chasing down a UFO, reports to authorities of strange lights and UFOs in the woods and hills along the Dover-Zoar Road NE, County Road 82 north of Dover, Ohio started.

On the evening of Monday, May 23, 1966 at around 10:00 pm a call came into the Tuscarawas County sheriff’s office from Harry Max Pritchard (1928-2017) about a strange light and metallic sounds emanating from the forest about a third-of-a-mile from his farm. Max was the son of James Garfield Pritchard (1887-1964) and Emma Ross (1892-1990), attended Dover High School, worked in the family farm as a child, was an athlete, and lived on his farm with his wife on Ohio State Route 212 between Zoarville and Zoar.

The officer who was tasked with investigating what Max had seen and heard near his farm was Deputy John A. “Jack” Dehl (1927-2006). Jack grew up in New Philadelphia and Dover, Ohio, was drafted into the United States Army in 1945, reenlisted in 1948, and became a Deputy Sheriff for Tuscarawas County in 1964. Deputy Jack Dehl, at the time of the 1966 incident, was living with his family on Tuscarawas Avenue in Dover, Ohio.

When Deputy Dehl arrived at the Pritchard Farm around 10:30 pm, he and Max Pritchard decided to investigate the strange lights up close and made their way the third-of-a-mile or so to where the light seemed to be located. As they approached the tree line Deputy Dehl was able to make out a six-volt automobile battery lying on the ground attached to two cables. The pair followed the cables into the woods and closer to the light where they finally discovered the source of the eerie light that was projected from the forest floor.

What they found was not from another planet, but much of it had apparently come from trash that Max Pritchard had recently disposed of on the side of the road. There was an automobile headlight sitting on a hubcap and directed through Max’s old milk strainer propped up by an old broom handle to shine on a nearby hill and into the sky. Attached to the contraption were tin cans so as to reflect the light in different directions and to make noise whenever the wind blew through the woods. There was no UFO in Dover Township that night in 1966, but instead what was reported as an IGO (identified ground object) left by pranksters.

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© Noel B. Poirier, 2024.