Grass Roots UFOs - Case Reports From The Timmerman Files

By Michael D. Swords

Fund For UFO Research, Lima, Ohio, 2005,

250 pages, softcover, price $22

   From 1980 to 1992 Lima, Ohio Ufologist, John Timmerman, had a traveling UFO display that appeared at malls across the U.S. and Canada. John always carried a cassette recorder and would interview UFO eyewitnesses and record their testimony. In all he recorded 1179 cases. His book, edited by retired professor Michael Swords is a condensation of those interviews.  It includes drawings of what the eyewitnesses saw. There are 46 sections in the book, each representing a different category of UFO sighting. For example, section five is entitled "Balls of Light, Up Close". One of the cases in that section is a 1957 Findlay, Ohio sighting of an enormous ball of light seen from behind a barn. It was half the size of the barn and "a shower of white particles rained off it" (page 24). The size of the object would seem to eliminate natural phenomena like ball lighting or swamp gas.
   Chapter 15 deals with close up sightings of disc shaped objects. It includes a 1972 Wapakoneta, Ohio disc sighting of a 30 foot metallic disc seen hovering over power lines during a tornado warning. (We have had many cases dealing with power lines. Are the objects drawing power from them?)
   Section 16 deals with landing trace cases. There are three Ohio cases included. The 1969 Bath, Ohio sighting of a UFO on a football field is most interesting. There was a trace of three spots on the field (page 73).
   Not all UFOs are disc shaped. There are sections on cigar-shaped objects and a section on odd shaped UFOs. For example, in 1985 an X-shaped object was seen above Chillicothe, Ohio.
   Another bizarre case in Lancaster, Ohio in 1966 when a landed UFO was seen about forty feet in diameter sitting next to an Army helicopter which seemed to be keeping an eye on it.
   I am impressed by the wide variety of objects seen and recorded in this book. This illustrates how complex a phenomena this is. Although in this review I have focused on Ohio cases the book includes sightings from all over North America. There is even a 1936 sighting in the nation of Poland included.
   I recommend this book. The title says it all. This is a collection of UFO anecdotes by the everyday common citizen, the "grassroots public" who had the courage to tell a stranger, John Timmerman, of their strange incursion into the weird world of UFOs.

John Timmerman at 2005 RUFOS meeting.