37.15335°N, 98.03117°W: UFO Craft Sighting in 1975, Anthony KS
Dead trees- a common sight on locations where UFO/UAPs are reported- in a field next to HWY 160.
Field Notes: Anthony, KS.
Anthony, a small town in rural Kansas, stands out for several reasons. Located near Harper, another small town I had already visited, I expected Anthony to be similarly small, economically struggling, and unwelcoming. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Anthony was thriving, and its residents were open and inviting to a "wildlife photographer" visiting their town.
What truly makes Anthony unique is the high number of UFO/UAP sightings reported in the area. With a population of just 2,108 residents in 2024, the town has five separate reports logged in the National UFO Reporting Center’s (NUFORC) database, covering the 1970s, 1990s, 2000s, and the most recent from 2013.
Even more unusual, these reports are not just typical sightings of lights or orbs in the sky. They include explosions, sightings of actual craft, and other phenomena. Five reports spanning decades from a very small town in rural Kansas is highly unusual. In fact, Anthony is the only town in Kansas with such a high level of activity over such a long period, including two separate sightings of actual craft. This intrigued me enough to make several trips to Anthony over the course of a week to locate the sites of these sightings, explore, and photograph them.
I plan to post more about Anthony, but this post focuses on the earliest report from 1975, which is particularly unusual as it describes an actual craft.
To provide some historical context, the 1975 event occurred decades after the major UFO flaps of the late 1940s and 1950s and after the US Government officially ended its investigation into UFOs in 1969 based on the findings of the Condon Report (see footnote for more details on the Condon Report).
In popular culture, movies like “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” weren't released until 1977. The book “Communion: A True Story” by Whitley Strieber, which describes the abduction phenomenon, wasn't published until February 1987. The last Apollo mission took place in 1972, marking the end of NASA's manned lunar exploration. The first Space Shuttle mission (STS-1) didn't occur until April 12, 1981. Considering all this, a report from 1975 emerged during a time when UFOs were not part of the pop culture landscape, government investigation of UFOs was “officially” over, and public interest in manned space flight was at a low point.
I was a child in the 1970s and remember it well. Before movies like “Star Wars” were released and the Space Shuttle missions began in the 1980s, interest in space was not a significant part of American life. The “Space Race” was over. America had been to the moon and back, beating the USSR. But those missions were finished, and the next major program, the Space Shuttle program, wouldn't lift off until the next decade.
In 1975, most people learned about the world from their hometown newspaper and the three broadcast networks. There was no internet, smartphones, or social media apps to share UFO-related material. At the time, the world was focused on the Cold War, wars in the Middle East and Africa, the rise of political terrorism, and the energy crisis of 1973. UFO sightings were not headline news. People were not thinking about UFOs in 1975.
Yet, in a small town in rural Kansas, one was sighted by five witnesses in 1975 and later reported to the NUFORC.
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NUFORC UFO Sighting 15961
Occurred: 1975-08-12 20:00 Local - Approximate
Duration: 15 seconds
No of observers: 5
Location: Anthony, KS, USA
Shape: Teardrop
Characteristics: Lights on object
Summary: It was sitting in a field, a few feet from the road. When we got beside it, the lights came on with a giant sound and lifted up.
I was driving along US highway 160 north and west of Anthony, Ks. The first thing was the loud whooshing noise coming from the right side of the road. It was dark and as I looked to the direction of the noise all the lights came on. It was triangular or bell shaped with the large side on the ground . After just a few seconds it lifted off the ground and went straight up. We watched it until it was out of sight. The windows were of translucent type. It was in a plowed field and about 25 feet back from the edge of the road. There was a fence around the field. The lights were not of any particular color, dull white. Other passengers in the car noticed the weeds in the grass whipping around from the wind caused by the craft. One person was a high school senior male, age 17, next was a female age 16, next was a male age 14 and another male age 13. The lights were coming from inside the craft. It had long oval windows near the top and appeared to be possibly 3 feet long. I could see no other features of the craft except when it was light up, I could see the outline of it.
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I shot the two photos in this post at different locations along Highway 160, north and west of Anthony, Kansas. The ten-mile stretch of Highway 160 between Attica and Anthony is uninterrupted farmland, similar to the field described in the report. There are no structures or objects along this stretch of highway that could be mistaken for a lighted craft.
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This map shows six Titan II ICBM launch sites within a thirty-minute drive from Anthony, Kansas. When the UFO was sighted in 1975, all of these sites were active, manned, and equipped with nuclear warheads.
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Footnote: The Condon Report of 1968
The Condon Report, officially titled “Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,” was the result of a comprehensive investigation conducted by the University of Colorado under the direction of physicist Edward Condon. Funded by the U.S. Air Force, the study took place from 1966 to 1968.
Objective: The primary goal was to determine whether UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) posed any threat to national security and if they warranted further scientific investigation.
Methodology: The committee examined hundreds of UFO cases from Project Blue Book and other sources, including civilian UFO organizations like NICAP and APRO.
Findings: The report concluded that UFOs did not pose a threat to national security and that further extensive study of UFOs was unlikely to yield significant scientific discoveries.
Impact: The conclusions of the Condon Report led to the termination of Project Blue Book and significantly influenced the scientific community’s approach to UFO research. It has been cited as a major reason for the generally low level of academic interest in UFOs since its publication.