LaGrange, Georgia, ISUR NEWS Special-A recent daylight photo has emerged to suggest further that LaGrange, Georgia is a hotbed of UFO activity. Taken in an older, upscale LaGrange subdivision, the color 35mm photo shows a UFO that looks much like a Pillsbury tube of refrigerated cookie dough. According to two of the three adults who saw the tube-shaped UFO that is shown in the photo, another identical UFO was also seen.

This latter UFO according to the main witness, a retired official of high prominence, sped off "like a bullet" to the west before returning at the same high rate of speed to hover with the other UFO. The UFOs remained stationary in an inverted V orientation for five seconds before the western-most UFO shot off again, except to the south.

Following this UFO's final departure the other UFO, which, like the first, was described by the retired official as "a car fuse with its middle all shiny," began drifting northeastward at about "55-60 miles-per-hour." As it continued to move northeastward he called for his wife, who was inside, to grab a camera. Stepping outside she said she saw a shiny unknown object in the East, at approximately 80 degrees elevation. Before the UFO vanished behind a tangle of nearby treetops she mananged to snap one photo of it.

According to the husband and his 34 year-old daughter, who also saw both UFOs, the UFOs were not balloons or planes. The speed of the UFO that shot off to the west and returned, they said, ruled this possibility completely out. They also said that while the photo shows a vertical stripe running down the middle of the UFO, they did not see a stripe on either UFO.

The photo was submitted to the Mutual UFO Network's staff photoanalyst, Jeff Sainio, for an analysis. Sainio, a noted photo and video analyist of wide experience and high repute, has said in his now completed photo-analysis that the unknown object shown in the photo has "...no conventional explanation." He also says the UFO image in the photo is not a "...double-exposure or reflection-on-glass." This, for all practical purposes, eliminates fakery. Analysizing further he states in relation to the tall trees seen in the foreground "...that the UFO focus is consistent with a distant object." Sainio estimates that if the UFO was a mile away, it would be forty feet across.

The witnesses have said that the UFO in the photo could have been a mile away. With a perfectly clear sky and no other object in the sky to compare to, the exact distance to the UFO from the witnesses remains unknown. The family members gave size estimates of 1-3 car lengths or 15-50 feet long for each UFO. They also said the UFOs made no noise while hovering or moving.

A careful examination of the sighting location by veteran UFO investigator John C. Thompson indicated that it would be virtually impossible for a small model UFO to have been strung up in trees that were in excess of 75 feet tall. That, along with Sainio's favorable analysis and the witnesses' excellent reputation, precludes any hoax in his opinion. Understanding that even the best of observors can occassionally make mistakes, airliners "flashing" as they bank and roll and balloons moving with the wind were also entertained as possibilities for the unknown objects seen.

A check with the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama and Peachtree City, Georgia revealed that the shape, color and size of the standard 600 gram weather balloons used for weather monitoring does not fit with the witnesses' UFO descriptions or what is depicted in their photo. A meteorologist at the Peachtree City station said all 600 gram weather balloons are typically lauched "at 7AM and 7PM" and usually burst and return to earth "within two hours after launching." While the inflated six-by-four feet hydrogen balloons "can expand as large as houses" before bursting at high altitudes, they would not be able to move at the incredible speeds or change directions quickly as the father and his daughter have said. A call placed to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida brought forth that they use the same 600 gram balloons as the National Weather Service so it was not one of their balloons seen over LaGrange. Airplanes and helicopters were ruled out as suspect for many of the same reasons that balloons were.

The exact day the UFOs were seen has not been ascertained. To the best of the family's recollection the photo was taken sometime between the middle of February and early March. The LaGrange area experienced half-a-dozen UFO sightings during this same three week interval. On March 4th, 3 college-age men saw 2 UFOs just 15 miles north of where the UFO photo was taken. Similar weather conditions and time of sightings suggest that these young men could have seen the same 2pm UFOs as the LaGrange family did. One of the UFOs seen north of LaGrange was described by the three young men as "a shiny blob." While the descriptions given by the two groups of witnesses are not identical, it is a possibility that they all saw the same UFOs. The leafless trees in the photograph and the negative of it certainly shows that the photo was taken before April as LaGrange experienced an earlier than normal spring due to an excessively warm winter. The retired offical said that an examination of the negative of the photo by an off-duty, federal photo expert had also dismissed the possibility of the UFO being any known object.